Cannelloni. Canteen. Canada. Cantankerous. Canoodle…there’s just a whole heck of a lot you can do with a can including canstruct a world without hunger. At least that’s what Canstruction Inc. hopes to do. Canstruction Inc. is a foundation of the Society for Design Administration. Competing teams made up of architects…
When I was a kid, nothing spiced up a school assembly quicker than a little Ballet Folklorico. Some hand claps, some stomping, some pretty dresses twirling, some cool embroidered pants, some sexually suggestive dances, some sombreros—all way more interesting than your average principal’s speech. Our high school even had its…
If the press announcement describes your upcoming book signing as an opportunity for you to “defend [your] position on issues,” you probably need to hire somebody else to start writing your press announcements. I mean, it sounds like you’re going in there looking for a fight. Like, there’s not enough…
Ah, Southern repression. From it we’ve gotten scads of Lifetime films and, before the theme had become trite, classic works by the great Tennessee Williams. Take Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for example. Secret wantings, lies to the self, big unexpected announcements…back in a time when such things were…
Visiting the Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park gives visitors a glimpse into Dallas and North Texas life from 1840 to 1910. Kids especially love touring the 38 historic structures that have been moved to the park’s 13 acres. But buildings don’t reveal the struggles early residents had in…
Ballet fans love metal. The harder it rocks, the harder they pas de bourrée. Nothin’ says face-melting guitar solos like dudes in tight spandex with crotch bulges…wait. Um, actually, nothing does say face-melting guitar solos like dudes in tight spandex with crotch bulges. Rock out during the Contemporary Ballet of…
A lot of things come to mind when people think of the Manhattan Transfer. (I know because I’m psychic and I can read minds. Quit dwelling on that woman in the coffee shop this morning, Steve.) Some people think about trains, hopping from New York City borough to New York…
I’d like to believe that director/writer/Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam is a film genius. The guy was a co-writer of Life of Brian and animator for Monty Python’s Flying Circus; he clopped coconuts together in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. That’s gotta count for something, genius-wise. But then there’s…
No studio director was a greater hero to the Hong Kong new wave than Martin Scorsese. John Woo dedicated The Killer to him; Wong Kar-Wai modeled his first feature, As Tears Go By, after Mean Streets; Taxi Driver’s rain-slicked slo-mo urban stylistics worked their way into countless lesser HK films…
The animated feature has become the most tiresome dish available in the googolplex buffet line–more so than even the mopey art-house offering in which bad things happen to good people while string sections and Elliott Smith sound-alikes douse the soundtrack with dollops of calamity and sorrow. You can’t tell one…
Moving and ambitious in scale like nothing else in cinema, Michael Apted’s Up films began in 1964 as a BBC news program exploring an old Jesuit maxim: “Give me the child until he is 7, and I will show you the man.” Using interviews of 14 randomly selected schoolchildren, Seven…
In The Last King of Scotland, an adequate thriller redeemed by Forest Whitaker’s sensational turn as Idi Amin, freshly qualified Scottish physician Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) arrives in Uganda in 1970, ravenous for adventure. Under the rigorous and vaguely romantic tutelage of a lithe blonde with a flabby marriage and…
God is in the details no matter what you believe, but Jesus Camp is content to introduce its appalled exposé of Christian youth indoctrination with shots of a fast-food- and flag-lined highway and the words “Missouri, USA.” Welcome to hell, kids. Missouri–yikes!–is among the holy lands of traveling Pentecostal minister…
With Paul Rudnick’s Valhalla, the Uptown Players plunge right into the sticky-sweet center of a gooey comic confection. This company specializes in gay-themed shows, and if this one were any gayer, Elton John could wear it, Tom Cruise could sue it and Liza Minnelli could marry it. Playwright Rudnick is…
Like a souped-up, tricked-out rocker’s van, Ryan Humphrey’s work jumbles the signs of clashing cultures: It’s Pimp My Ride meets Van Halen. References to Eddie Van Halen’s red-, white- and black-striped Kramer 5150 guitar sit opposite an homage to the flame-painted van of Jeff Spicoli slackerdom. And then there are…
Lewis Black: Red, White & Screwed (HBO) Like many other Daily Show success stories, Lewis Black is a comedian made for these times; his facial contortions and verbal tics are expressions of the Bush-era phrase “outrage overload.” But unlike other big names in political stand-up right now (David Cross, Bill…
Let’s not beat around the bush: Saints Row is creatively bankrupt. The latest in a long list of Grand Theft Auto imitators, this clone replicates Rockstar’s controversial games so closely that the uneducated eye could mistake it for the real deal. But unlike past rip-offs, Saints Row is actually a…
Avenger (Warner Bros.) Calvaire: The Ordeal (Palm) Cedric the Entertainer: Taking You Higher (HBO) Changing Times (Koch Lorber) Confidence (Lionsgate) Deadfall (Lionsgate) Edmond (First Independent) The Greatest American Hero: The Complete Series (Anchor Bay) Harvey Toons: The Complete Collection (Sony Wonder) Humphrey Bogart: The Signature Collection, Volumes 1 & 2…
I’m a Yankee born in New Jersey, and perhaps the devil himself according to many of you, but even I can recognize the Dallas Stars have become an essential part of this town’s legacy of sports, entertainment and violence. It is odd pulling for a hockey team this far south,…
Why should London get all the good werewolf cred? Who’s to say there aren’t any hiding in a Park Cities mansion or in an Oak Cliff hipster enclave? Just in time for Halloween, the Belmont Hotel hosts an outdoor screening of Dog Soldiers, an action-horror flick centered on a military…
Haven’t been able to make it to New York to catch a Broadway musical? Well, you’re in luck. You can catch just about all of them in Fort Worth. At 8 p.m. Wednesday, Bass Performance Hall presents 100 Years of Broadway. Composer/lyricist/producer Neil Berg has arranged Broadway classics (as well…
With the nightmarishly blistering heat of this cruel Dallas summer seemingly behind us, the last thing on your mind is surfing, right? Well, Saturday you’d better wax down your board and shine up your spurs because the kings of the feel-good summer hit, The Beach Boys, are coming to Billy…
