Speaking as the owner of a new puppy, I can say definitively that a dog is both more and less annoying than the average person. Year of the Dog makes much the same point with its pack of uncontrollable pooches, including a cute beagle that rips into the wrong bag…
There’s a happy, bouncy lilt to the writing of Preston Jones and Charles Busch. Their plays are nothing alike, but, man, their use of language surely is music to the ears. In new productions of Jones’ lovely 1974 comedy Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander, now playing at Contemporary Theatre of…
Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show (Sony) The greatest boxed set ever–not so much for the made-up irritainment as for the real thing, which this collection serves up by the ton. There are 23 brilliant episodes of the HBO show here, but they pale in comparison to…
We’ve all seen Super Mario eat copious amounts of mushrooms, but have you ever considered the care that goes into preparing such delicacies? In Cooking Mama: Cook Off for the Wii, Wolfgang Puck wannabes are thrust into the kitchen — alongside “Mama,” the game’s titular chef — where they’ll chop,…
Brute Force: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) Cutie Honey: The Movie (Bandai) Double Happiness (Image) Forgiving Dr. Mengele (First Run) Freedom Writers (Paramount) George Lopez: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons (Warner Bros.) Happy Days: The Second Season (Paramount) The History Boys (Fox) The Image (Warner Bros.) La Haine: The Criterion…
To fully appreciate the merits of Vacancy, you need to have the proper technology. Digitally projected lurid images and THX-amplified creaks and moans are all well and good, but what director Nimród Antal’s creepy cockroach of a thriller really cries out for are the shabby delights that can only be…
Dr. John Witherspoon was born in Gifford, Scotland, in 1723. A scholarly Presbyterian minister who was elected to the Continental Congress, he is perhaps best known for his hilarious portrayal of Ice Cube’s dad in the Friday movies. Defying all known medical science, Witherspoon lived for more than 250 years,…
What it is about women and hats? The days are long gone when they were required daily wear, but we still leap at any opportunity to wear beautiful chapeaux. Each year, the Women’s Council of the Dallas Arboretum hosts a Mad Hatters Tea Party to benefit the Women’s Garden, with…
I’ll be the first to admit that I really don’t know all that much about Andy Warhol. I mean, I know he did the Campbell’s soup painting and the banana album cover, but beyond that, my knowledge is limited to various random bits of trivia about how weird he was…
Those of you who still may be wondering why radio jock Don Imus’ racist comment about the Rutgers women’s basketball team caused such a fuss…well, you’re chowderheads. Maybe what you need is a little lesson in history, Jim Crow, racism and the dignity conveyed by sports. Lucky for you, the…
If I hear one more person who’s not Aretha Franklin singing an Aretha Franklin song, I’m going to throw my cat against a wall. Why does every drunken white girl think she can do justice to “Natural Woman”? Cracker Chick, next time your appletini tells you, “It’s time to bust…
In a geographic area infamous for its preponderance of big ol’ SUVs, 40-mile-plus commutes and, well, new stuff, the folks at the city of McKinney and the Heard Natural Museum will try to invoke a little Al Gore sensibility during the Green Living Family Festival. This Earth Day celebration encourages…
We’re horrible dancers, but we love the art of the dance. We love all different types, from ballroom to pop-and-lock to postmodern interpretive combinations of pop, lock and ballroom. We also love attending dance performances. The only problem with your average, everyday dance spectacular—or “dance-tacular”—is that they usually focus on…
It’s about time somebody revived a Preston Jones play the right way. Director René Moreno has assembled a cast that really gets the sound of Jones’ “music.” This comedy about modest folk in a dust-dry West Texas town speaks its own particular lingo, full of colorful phrases and uniquely Jonesian…
A lot of us are still recovering from the inaugural year of the AFI Dallas International Film Festival. We got the chance to run around like chickens with our heads cut off to screenings all over town, stand in lines for hours and rub elbows with the semi-rich and sort…
Something about Diana Ross singing Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” reeks of desperation. With a new album of similarly remade ballads, Ross is reduced to a legend grasping onto the spotlight with a death grip, instead of merely resting on her iconic status and diva reputation. Tellingly, when that infamous…
Second Thought Theatre is back with a vengeance with this taut little one-act comedy by Canadian writer Morris Panych. The title characters, the only two in the play, are new friends. Lawrence (Ian Leson) is on the career track, or so it seems, at the department store where they both…
Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, meet in sorcery school and hate each other instantly. Then suddenly, they’re best friends, with Glinda giving Elphie a makeover to tone down her scary apple-green skin. This musical prequel to The Wizard of Oz explains how the…
Writers Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth receive sole credit for the movie Disturbia, which is surprising, as the film clearly is based on both a previously published work (a 1942 short story by Cornell Woolrich titled “It Had to Be Murder”) and the John Michael Hayes-penned, Alfred Hitchcock-directed, Academy Award-nominated…
With friends like these—oh, boy. Two new stage productions—each disquieting, amusing and refreshingly brief—explore the absurd lengths to which some lonely souls go to find a boon companion. The surprise in both works is what happens when the relationship goes wonky. Take Lucy, a plucky 4-year-old played by adult actress…
Sleeping Dogs Lie (First Look) Writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait takes a subversive concept (honesty is overrated) and marries it to an outrageous scenario (a woman’s family learns that she once, uh, performed for a dog) to create . . . a romantic comedy? Well, sort of. Like Goldthwait’s underrated Shakes the…
The residents of Mount Olympus haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since Kratos moved in. Not only is the new god of war a grumpy, self-professed god-hater, he got the throne by killing Ares, something that naturally makes the other gods a little . . . jumpy. It’s not long…
