Art these days is so ambiguous. Paintings look like a 5-year-old’s scribbles and films lack narrative structure (David Lynch and Matthew Barney, go on a permanent vacation to Antarctica together…without cameras.) What a relief, then, to hear of Edward Albee’s The Play About The Baby at the Bath House Cultural…
Of course England’s Alan Ayckbourn knows a thing or two about suspense and drama. He’s directed plays by greats Anton Chekov, Noel Coward, Neil Simon…and himself. Yeah, he’s written a thing or two or 100. And he certainly knows how to take a seemingly unthreatening thing like a sunlight garden…
You Kill Me (Genius) Funny thing seeing Philip Baker Hall in You Kill Me, as he’s already played the role of a drunken hit man’s boss in The Matador, to which this feels like a slapshtick-noir sequel. It’s also the photo-negative of Sexy Beast: Once more Ben Kingsley plays a…
The estranged brothers Whitman have reunited for a journey onboard The Darjeeling Limited, a colorful old locomotive traversing the Rajasthan region of India. Along the way, they will stop to visit temples (“Probably one of the most spiritual places on earth!”) and shop for souvenirs (slippers, cobras, pepper spray), with…
“Will you leave your kingdom to a heretic?” That was the question posed to a dying Queen Mary in 1998’s Elizabeth, director Shekhar Kapur’s grim and dingy film now viewed in retrospect as the origin story of a superhero: The Armored Virgin Queen, faster than a speeding lead pellet, more…
What’s left to say about Halo 3? How about this: All the pomp and circumstance surrounding its launch sure have been distracting. Commercials that look like clips from a Hollywood movie, extravagant collectors’ sets that sell for $130, limited-edition Xbox 360s with a green-and-gold Halo-inspired color scheme, and a midnight…
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season Three (Universal)Black Sheep Unrated (Genius)Bob Mould: Circle of Friends (Granary)Bruce Springsteen: Under Review-1978-82: Tales of the Working Man (Sexy Intellectual)Concert for Diana (Universal)CSI New York: The Third Season (Paramount)Man Push Cart (Koch Lorber)The Marx Brothers Collection (Passport)Meerkat Manor: Season One (Animal Planet)Michael Palin: Pole to Pole…
So, if you want to score big with the women in Dallas these days, what’s the secret? Easy, you pretend to be impotent. Sounds a little counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Every day, roughly 87.5 percent of the Internet’s transmission capability (we made that number up, but we stand by it) is…
We’ve probably seen Steel Magnolias 30 or 40 times by now. After all, we grew up in a family with a great affinity for Dolly Parton. But we’ve never seen it on the stage, and while the version of Steel Magnolias currently playing at the Granville Arts Center is probably…
Ricki Derek is the stuff local legends might be made of. We’ve yet to really look into what makes this guy tick, but somehow he keeps popping up with something new yet never surprising. Surprising would be if he did drag at the Rose Room or fronted a metal band…
This is no time to turn your back on what you think is a stuffy dance recital. No, sir. Elledanceworks has concocted a Texas fall outdoor event that envokes the mischievious and quirky spirit of dusk and teams it up with, not only modern dance, but various live musical works…including…
Texas Singer-Songwriters: An Americana Portrait is a new exhibit of images by photographer Gary Goldberg, who was so taken with Texas country and folk music that he dedicated himself to getting shots of musicians from all across the state. The names read just like the ones on the records we…
The history of Canadian rock is a strange and wonderful thing. Most people lump Canadian bands into the same dubious category that contains singing drummers and Foghat. There have, however, been a few shining stars in the otherwise pitch black sky of Canadian rock. The most famous and Canadian band…
NorthPark can be a confusing place sometimes. It’s a mall, but it’s not called a mall––it’s a center. I know that sounds a little pretentious (though not as arrogant as, say, The Shops) but NorthPark Center (8687 N. Central Expressway) has done a damn fine job of distinguishing itself from…
When you see Pablo Francisco’s stand-up for the first time, you can’t help but be impressed: The guy can beatbox, and his celebrity impressions are incredibly spot-on. In fact, should he ever tire of comedy, his take on “Movie Voiceover Guy” is so accurate, he could probably be the next…
Dallas Theater Center is adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, the Dallas Theater Center is presenting David Mamet’s Glengarry Glenn Ross at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636…
My first time was at age eight in an old farmhouse. It had a lot of the thrills I now recognize as staples of the experience: the gruesome operating room, the bloody execution chamber and the locomotive barreling toward us. But the creepiest moment of my first haunted house came…
Years ago a local artist and friend of mine introduced me to something so awesomely bad it was great and so campy the excessive gore was more funny than nauseating. The film we watched on a tiny screen via VHS tape was one of Peter Jackson’s (yes, as in, Lord…
The Dallas Mavericks have the uncanny knack of making us dream big and then breaking our hearts. Not this season though. No way. This is the year we shake off our Heat/Warriors hangover and watch Dirk Nowitzki begin to play like the big man he really is. Hey—a man can…
Ever since Harry Potter started playing with his wand under the covers in Prisoner of Azkaban, you knew there was something kinda sexy about the boy wizard. Sure, Harry’s “The Boy Who Lived,” but he’s also “The Boy Who Looks Hot In That Awkward Bathtub Scene In Goblet of Fire.”…
Ann Patchett’s fourth and most critically acclaimed book, Bel Canto, is set in South America but takes place entirely in an opulent living room during a private party overtaken by terrorists. It’s based on the Peruvian hostage crisis in 1996, but Patchett manages to create a vivid world within that…
Saint of the Suburbs, a new exhibit by artist Zoë Charlton, consists of work which “combines the black female figure and the suburban ideal to create a sublime and simple beauty.” From the work we’ve seen, this means paintings that split the difference between samey subdivisions and juicy booties. And…
