Lord of the Fries! Tropic of Scalloped Corn! The Chicken on the Rye! Let’s face it—reading ain’t easy, and you can work up quite an appetite trying to get through the latest book Oprah told you to read. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have your prose and eat…
You know you’re in for a cinematic tour de force when a film stars rapper, thespian and noted pimping enthusiast Ice-T, the mayor of Batshit Crazy Town Gary Busey, F. Murray Abraham and Rutger Hauer. Equally eclectic is the string of plot keywords listed on the movie’s IMDB profile, including…
Typecasting always works. Charlotte Rae didn’t just portray Mrs. Edna Ann Garrett, she was Mrs. Garrett. Jim J. Bullock was Monroe on Too Close for Comfort. Mr. T was Clubber Lang. Similarly, he was also B.A. Baracus. Kinda the same dude. What happens when you go against type? John Belushi…
Look at a Joachim Kersten painting once and you’ll enjoy it, sure, but look at it twice and it may take on an entirely new attitude, once you notice all the layers or shapes or whatever you missed the first time. (And you will. It’s sort of a rule.) Kersten…
So you haven’t seen Barbershop, Johnson Family Vacation, Big Momma’s House or Kingdom Come. Perhaps you’ve seen Ice Age, Madagascar, Serving Sara, Intolerable Cruelty, Be Cool or Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Stand-up comedian Cedric the Entertainer doesn’t subscribe to typecasting…or at least not all the time. No,…
If there’s a group of people you don’t want to piss off, it’s the Germans. No, not because they once tried to take over the world, but because they have given us a variety of important artifacts, and we don’t want to have to give them back. I’m talking beer—I’ll…
Despite being timelessly cool, Rube Goldberg machines can be a giant pain in the ass. Anyone who’s ever played Mouse Trap can attest to this, I’m sure—I never got all those damn pieces working together, and once you lost one or two of them the game was about as useless…
The University of North Texas’ celebrated One O’Clock Lab Band, the North Texas Jazz Singers and the Kenny Barron Trio will headline the Seventh Annual North Texas Jazz Festival Thursday through Sunday at the Hotel InterContinental, 15201 Dallas Parkway in Addison. But it’s not all big names on campus. Aspiring…
That buzzing sound you hear is not a giant swarm of meth-addict bees, nor is it the leftover ear-fuzz from that last Hogpig gig. Nope, that’s the sound of dozens of motorbikes grinding their way through the dirt field in Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas stop of the American…
Do you ever feel as though the rhythms of your daily life are inexplicably linked to the moon and the tides? Is there a dreamcatcher hanging from the rear-view mirror of your Volkswagen/Volvo/Prius? Have you ever bought a Putamayo world music sampler from the rack at Whole Foods? Are you…
I have DIFFA to thank for two things. Because of them, I learned the proper way of opening a champagne bottle and discovered the taste of a high quality chocolate truffle. See? Good things happen to people who volunteer. But I’m here to urge you to buy a ticket for…
Slappy’s Puppet Playhouse says its shows are “outstanding family entertainment.” Phew. I was wondering where I’d take the kiddies after their purity was spoiled at the “fun for the whole family” St. Patrick’s Day Parade, in which one float glided down Greenville Avenue bearing a troupe of thong-clad strippers gyrating…
I’ve seen street performers before. Some of them are pretty cool. Like, Really Old White Dude Who Does The Robot To No Music, and I Painted Myself Gold And I Will Not Do Even One Trick Guy, and Uncle No Pants. My favorite is Girl In A Short Skirt And…
It’s time for Revenge of the Classics. South by Southwest artists just stumbled back through town dropping a trail of rock-pop-latino-electronic-soul-indie-avant-punk riff crumbs and sound-bite wrapping paper left over from their latest Austin love fest. Time for a little classical clean-up, Southeastern style—and Southeastern Festival of Song is the Georgia…
I read Kerouac’s On the Road a few months back, and, yes, after turning the last page, I desperately wanted to do what everybody who reads the book wants to do: set out on a magical journey of self-exploration that takes you back and forth in a drunken zig-zag across…
So you wanna be the coolest parent on the block? Consider sending the brood to the Ballpark After Dark Sleepover this weekend and you’ll be off to a good start. Better than an old school lock-in, it’s like spring training for your kids. The program, for grades 1 through 5,…
Man, talk about a faux pas. When I signed up to preview Rickie Lee Jones at the Lakewood Theater, who I pictured in my mind was Joni Mitchell, I thought I’d get to talk about discovering Mitchell for the first time last year thanks to a promo cd and how…
It must be a brain-wiring thing, or maybe it’s my complete lack of rhythm combined with the personal grace of a blind, drunk duck, but dance is an eternal mystery to me. I’ll understand quantum physics before I’ll understand the pleasure other people get from watching barefoot dancers prance, jump…
Life magazine is a cultural institution, and its journalists have the power to lift their subjects to fame with a stroke of the pen or click of a lens. The play The Cover of Life follows a female reporter who travels to a small town to chronicle the lives of…
Those of us who plan our annual schedules according to film festival start dates have learned one thing this year: Zooey Deschanel—who’s had multiple movies in every fest in 2007, including two here—is the new Parker Posey. Does that sound cranky? Well, you must excuse the weariness; we’re still groggy…
Inland Empire: A movie about David Lynch’s obsessions, Inland Empire includes familiar tropes such as a movie within the movie and the notion of Hollywood as haunted house. But nothing in Lynch’s work is truly familiar. Reality is first breached when a ditsy Polish gypsy traipses into the disconcertingly empty…
As Charlie Fineman, a New York dentist who lost his wife and three young daughters in one of the September 11 plane crashes, Adam Sandler sports a mass of bedraggled locks and walks with his head hung low, the sounds of the city drowned out by The Who or Bruce…
