In the same week that sees Adam Sandler playing a grieving 9/11 widower in Reign Over Me, another lone figure reeling from post-traumatic stress fills the central role in the new Antoine Fuqua-directed thriller, Shooter. Named Bob Lee Swagger and played with appropriately gruff machismo by Mark Wahlberg, he’s a…
Hard-core phantasie geeks will relish role-playing every enemy of The Last Mimzy, a family-style sci-fi adventure whose director Bob Shaye is better known to them as the evil wizard—the alien executive who peed all over the Fellowship. Shaye, in his other job as New Line Cinema topper, has let it…
Wendy Wasserstein wrote An American Daughter more than a decade before Hillary Rodham Clinton’s election to the Senate and her push toward the presidency, before Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House. Condoleezza Rice, as the newly appointed Stanford University provost, wasn’t yet a major political power player in 1993,…
In his desperation to reclaim his early ’90s success, Pauly Shore filmed a movie in which he faked his own death (Pauly Shore Is Dead). His 2005 reality show (Minding the Store) also focused on returning Shore to his former glory, with a different but equally pathetic twist: Viewers who…
Spoiler alert! Despite what you’re led to believe in The Usual Suspects, Keyser Söze is not any of the usual suspects. He’s not mumbling, menacing Fenster. He’s not short-fused McManus or wiseass Hockney. He’s not our hero Dean Keaton nor is he the limping, gimpy Verbal. He’s not even interrogating…
As Las Vegas grows more commercialized, the schmaltz of old Vegas is being pushed out for the big bucks of arena headliners. So what’s a lounge singer, or excuse me, “interpreter of standards,” supposed to do when his stage gets mowed down to make room for Celine Dion or Elton…
Any kid can be a soccer player or a violin prodigy. I was special. I was a nearsighted ballerina. I never wore my glasses when I performed, for fear they’d go flying and render a fellow wood nymph unconscious. So I danced blind, never knowing when another dancer would appear…
I hate to break the news to you, but there’s more to international dance and performance than watching Paulina Porizkova foxtrot or Heather Mills (not so much McCartney) try her hand, I mean leg, at Dancing With the Stars this week. Mills may samba, paso doble and tango alongside other…
Is Pacific Heights Michael Keaton’s last great movie? He had such a huge head start with Night Shift, Mr. Mom and Beetlejuice. Then he made Batman and things went south. Other than his role of “Doug Kenney #4” (the clone in Multiplicity who carries pizza in his wallet), Keaton hasn’t…
Freaking Sideways. One minute, you were totally happy to order a Bud Light, and the next minute you’re waffling over which Pinot to order at the new wine bar down the street. This time, stay ahead of the cool curve and get into sake, that tasty Japanese rice wine. This…
You know him as Lord Have Mercy from Norbit, Harry Beaver from Epic Movie and Money Mike from Friday After Next. In other words, you don’t know comedian Katt Williams from a slew of high-brow, Oscar-worthy cinema. Course, you might also be familiar with the permed and pimpin’ wonder thanks…
A person can get a lot accomplished in five years. You can earn a college degree, for instance. Or spend your life’s savings on a emu farm and run it into the ground—whatever works. The possibilities are endless, really. The Last Five Years, a musical now playing at the Flower…
Guatemala, known for its volcanoes, its coffee and its majority Mayan population, isn’t so good at soccer. In fact, the blue and white have never earned a berth in the World Cup. The United States, on the other hand, regularly qualifies, and in 2002, made it all the way to…
The Monterey Pop Festival was the first major fest of the rock era, organized in part by John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas and featuring performances by the Association, the Byrds, the Who, Simon and Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, Canned Heat, Ravi…
My colleague said this local artist was pretty good, so I had to see for myself since art is all subjective and stuff. Turns out she is. Of course, all I have to go on is one semester of art appreciation. But seriously folks, something about Jennifer Morgan’s we’re all…
With Victory Plaza taking over downtown and the (possible) reinvention of Deep Ellum, downtown Dallas is poised to be the next big thing. But what about the old thing? We often forget about the past, and the fact that Dallas has so much history is unfortunately lost on a lot…
Germany’s The Lives of Others won the Best Foreign Language category at this year’s Oscars, but in a fair world, it would have won Best Picture over Martin Scorsese’s blood-soaked game of cat and mouse in The Departed. It begins in 1984 in East Berlin when spying by the Stasi,…
Before all you seamstresses and show cowboys get too excited, the DFW Fringe Festival is not a celebration of sewing notions or swaying tassels. The second annual month-long event is brought to you by Shane-Arts and the Dallas Hub Theater and is actually a festival of theatre (try SATERs Shakespeare…
John Ash, a respected chef and wine expert, will be leading a class on how to prepare shrimp at Central Market. It should be a long class. Because apparently, with shrimp, you can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. There’s, um, shrimp kebabs, shrimp creole, shrimp…
How come nothing truly awesome gets invented anymore? When do we get the goods? What we really need are TVs that spit stuff out. Remember in Tommy, the rock opera, when the TV gives that lady free samples of all the products being advertised? I want that! But we have…
To paraphrase an old jingle, we love eggs, from our head down to our legs. Scrambled, deviled, over hard—we adore ova. We like to dye them at Easter or make cascarones. This crazy fascination with les oeufs has inevitably led us to those most marvelous eggs, the Fabergés. First commissioned…
We’re sick and tired of Dennis Miller trying to make us common folk feel all dumb by using them polysyllabic turns of phrase and pulling out obscure references such as Lord Theomopharah’s trusty crossbow during the final throes of the historic Siege at Dalamiphius. And we’re tired and sick of…
