Come see A Dating Game 7:30 p.m. this Friday at Repertory Company Theatre’s new Promenade Theatre, 650 N. Coit Road in Richardson. It’s an original musical show that claims it’s “perfect for a date.” I say it’s only perfect to drag a date to an “original musical” if you’re going…
Though I’m sure it’s purely coincidental, the decision to release the Diane Keaton-Mandy Moore romantic comedy Because I Said So with the scent of this year’s Sundance Film Festival still fresh in the air provides us with an excellent opportunity to review the wayward career of the movie’ s director,…
PARK CITY, UTAH—We all know about the cathartic power of blues music, but until the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, who knew that it could serve as a cure-all for everything from nymphomania to childhood sexual abuse? In Hustle & Flow director Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan, whose out-of-competition premiere screening…
PARK CITY, Utah — Ten days of terse texting among professional narcissists working on little or no sleep in one of the last cold spots left on Al Gore’s inconvenient Earth: Welcome to Sundance ’07, where wounding homefront melodrama Grace Is Gone sells and it hardly pays to be nice…
PARK CITY, Utah–Even by the lacerating standards of recent Sundance docs Why We Fight and Iraq in Fragments, the nonfiction at this year’s fest felt, well, real — alarmingly so. Indeed, after doing battle with films about U.S. policies on Iraq, Darfur, and global warming, this critic was nearly moved…
One morning, Gary Walkow was suddenly transformed into a successful Hollywood filmmaker. Gone were the hat-in-hand searches for financing, the deferred salaries, the long shooting days with undermanned crews, and the months upon years spent touring the festival circuit while seeking a distribution deal. For a moment, he was taking…
PARK CITY, Utah –On the first Saturday of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, I rolled out of bed and hustled up Main Street for the 8:30 screening of Tamara Jenkins’ The Savages, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as adult siblings caring for an irascible elderly parent. Only I…
Great casting makes great theater. For The Miracle Worker to work as well as it does in Dallas Children’s Theater’s current production, it’s not enough just to find a young actress who can fling herself into the furniture portraying blind and deaf Helen Keller as a child. The role of…
Catch a Fire (Focus) In his commentary for the underrated, undervalued Catch a Fire, director Phillip Noyce discusses the inspiration: witnessing the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. He wanted to comprehend “the terrorist’s mind,” so he found a story that accomplishes such a difficult thing: the…
Anyone who played games back in the olden days (i.e., the late ’80s) knows they used to be a lot tougher. Cartridges back then subscribed to the “Oh, you want some of this?” school of game design. They made you gnash your teeth, throw your controller, and bellow four-letter words…
Academy Awards Collection (MGM) The Comedians of Comedy (Anchor Bay) Dallas: The Complete Sixth Season (Warner Bros.) The Doctor, the Tornado & the Kentucky Kid: Ultimate Collector’s Edition (New Video Group) Dora the Explorer: Cowgirl Dora (Paramount) The Fabulous Baker Boys (MGM) Facing the Giants (Sony) The Festival: The Complete…
Now a staple of weekend entertainment in Dallas, most people go to midnight movies at the Inwood to relive the magic of seeing the movies for the first time. Personally, though, I go for the educational value—not from the movie itself, but from the trivia contest that precedes it. At…
Remember when you were sipping your latté at the Uptown Starbucks and you laughed at the handicapped kid trying to cross the West Village parking lot? Make yourself feel a little better–jerk–by going to see Josh Blue at the Addison Improv. The comedian has cerebral palsy and encourages you to…
Sudden death is neither easily understood nor reconciled. Oftentimes, survivors cling to the tangible, material memories those that pass leave behind. When possible, the most amazing mourning for and celebration of a life can take place thanks to the dead’s creations. We can feel the artist’s energy. We can fawn…
If you’ve ever had a dollar bill in your pocket, then you’ve seen the inspiration for artist Ike E. Morgan’s painting career. One of his first subjects was the little green portrait of George Washington that we’ve all carried in our wallets at one time or another. But, despite most…
Children’s author Christopher Paul Curtis will be the featured guest reader at the 2007 African-American Read-In hosted by the Dallas County Community College District. He will read from his new book, Mr. Chickee’s Messy Mission. The theme for this year’s read-in is “Light Up Your Life with Reading, Books and…
We could pretend that we know a lot about basketball and the Harlem Globetrotters’ many contributions to the sport. We could talk about the team’s championship win at the 1940 World Professional Basketball Tournament. We could detail the team’s historic triumphs over the (ahem, all-white) Minneapolis Lakers in the late…
Lots of artists take the occasional hiatus after pouring themselves into and releasing solid projects. There’s Jeff Magnum, Lindsay Buckingham, Warren Beatty and freakin’ Joe Pesci. It’s a motley crew of sorts but it proves the point that when the work is important to creator, time lapse doesn’t make it…
If you haven’t been to the rodeo, you haven’t lived. There’s just something about the combined smells of horse crap, hay and chili dogs that’ll change a person’s life altogether. Plus, the barrel racing is rad, the bull riding is zero to eight seconds of awesome, and the cotton candy…
I miss ¡Three Amigos! Steve Martin. I miss Little Shop Creepy Dentist Steve Martin. Who wants Cheaper by the Dozen Steve Martin? Or Shop Girl “Now that I’m a senior, I decided to be a love interest and kiss Claire Danes on the face” Steve Martin? Not me. But, Writer…
I was raised in a blue state where the most popular sports are skiing and soccer, and we mocked people who meant “choppers” when they said “bikes” and lived for Monster Trucks and Nascar. But a couple years ago, I was at the IMAX theater in downtown San Francisco and…
I suppose there are children who find the combination of puppetry and classical music delightful. They’re probably the same plaid- and Mary Janes-wearing waifs who squeal when they get one of those meticulously handcrafted wooden “traditional” toys for Christmas. As for the house-apes I know, if a gift doesn’t have…
