Girl Trouble

By now, for masses of believers in mad Korean pulp as it has been epitomized by Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, the blood-on-alabaster-skin montage behind the credits of Park’s new Lady Vengeance portends a familiar dynamic. Exercises in Asian horror like we haven’t seen before, Park’s films…

Puck Rock

What fools these mortals be. And what fun the revival of Randy Tallman and Steven Mackenroth’s rock comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Musical, now alternating through the summer with a more conventional Tempest at Shakespeare Dallas’ outdoor East Dallas venue. It’s been some 30 years since this version of…

Patriot Acts

If there ever were a time for art that is political, now is the moment. The art of Patriot Acts, a group show at Barry Whistler Gallery, gives body to an alternative–I say much-needed–type of jingoism. The work of Darryl Lauster, Greg Metz, Michael Miller, Robert Terry and Leslie Wilkes…

The Citizen Kane of Crap

The Devil’s Sword (Mondo Macabro) Few trash movies live up to their reputation, but here’s a balls-out wonder that surpasses it. Grab a 12-pack of Bintang and cue up this jaw-unhinging slab of Indonesian sword-and-sorcery circa 1983–a start-to-finish feast of martial arts, mullets, flying heads, vestal virgins, dry-ice fog and…

The Last Bland

For comic geeks, an X-Men game that promises to fill in the backstory between movies sounds hotter than a date with Jean Grey. Finally, we get to discover what Wolverine has been up to between films — besides winning Tony Awards as alter ego Hugh Jackman, of course. That’s the…

Our top DVD picks for the week of June 27

Commander in Chief: 2-Disc Inaugural Edition Part 1 (Disney) The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection (MPI) Cow Belles (Disney) Danger After Dark (TLA) Evil (Magnolia) Is It Really So Strange? (Frameline) Failure to Launch (Paramount) Family Affair: Season One (MPI) Fear Factor: The First Season (Universal) Imagine Me & You (Fox)…

IKEA vs. the Alamo

San Antonio may be bigger than Dallas, but do they have Frisco? Hell, no. Alamo, Schmalamo, we’ve got IKEA. Had William B. Travis, Davy Crockett and Co. holed up in our Swedish home furnishings superstore instead, I seriously doubt any battle would have ever been fought. General Santa Ana and…

Bases Loaded

Following the traumatic Mavericks meltdown, it may seem cruel to transfer any passion to the Texas Rangers, who are to late season swoons what Pat Conroy is to selling out your family. But at the risk of sounding like a Lifetime TV wife—”really, this time he’s really going to change”—I…

My, My!

The idea of an ABBA musical at first sounded like a campy joke, but the Dallas Summer Musicals return engagement of Mamma Mia! is no laughing matter as audiences clamor “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” and shovel out the money, money, money to see it again. The story, about a young bride…

Artists’ Intuition

Anyone with a Dallas County Community College education probably knows that Picasso, Van Gogh and Michelangelo were some of the greatest artists of all time. You might even know that crazy bastard Van Gogh cut off his own ear. But what do you know about Ramos Prida, Manuel Reyna and…

Kool Holiday

Once a year, we’re allowed to celebrate our country’s history by eating hot dogs and exploding things. On July Fourth, get the lakeside view, watching the fireworks display at Lake Grapevine, (grapevinetexasusa.com). Or choose the Lakewood view; the Lakewood Theater (1825 Abrams Parkway) claims to have the best seat in…

Kool Holiday

Once a year, we’re allowed to celebrate our country’s history by eating hot dogs and exploding things. On July Fourth, get the lakeside view, watching the fireworks display at Lake Grapevine, (grapevinetexasusa.com). Or choose the Lakewood view; the Lakewood Theater (1825 Abrams Parkway) claims to have the best seat in…

Starr Struck

Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band isn’t hip. But it’s a show that’s totally worth seeing. I saw them in Atlantic City in 2001, when Howard Jones was part of the lineup and an impatient Ringo had to bully the casino audience into giving Jones the requisite sing-along “whoa”s. It…

Holiday Help

Planning on celebrating your Fourth of July weekend with some, uh, garage sale hunting? Well, it makes sense on some level—holiday weekends are a buyer’s market when it comes to rummaging through stacks of clothes, records and furniture on people’s front lawns, so if you’re stuck in the city, you…

Before the Fourth

You’re off on Tuesday, which means you’re probably not going to be partyin’ into the wee hours when you have to get up for work Wednesday. No, a logical person would take a vacation day Monday (having done the responsible family picnic-type stuff over the weekend), use said vacation day…

Before the Fourth

You’re off on Tuesday, which means you’re probably not going to be partyin’ into the wee hours when you have to get up for work Wednesday. No, a logical person would take a vacation day Monday (having done the responsible family picnic-type stuff over the weekend), use said vacation day…

Before the Fourth

You’re off on Tuesday, which means you’re probably not going to be partyin’ into the wee hours when you have to get up for work Wednesday. No, a logical person would take a vacation day Monday (having done the responsible family picnic-type stuff over the weekend), use said vacation day…

Texas Flood

Stevie Ray Vaughan is assured a place on lists of important guitarists because he executes each note with a muscular confidence that convinces a listener that Vaughan believes what he is playing. The uniqueness of this quality in popular music is a shame, but the impact is all the more…

Hot Dogs and Hooves

You can pretend all you want that you’re still a kid—wear that messenger bag and pair of Chucks, keep the Mats cassette in the Honda Accord and say things like, “I’m only 27, man”—but adulthood officially begins when you rearrange your schedule to enjoy midweek holidays. Sure, you might get…

Tattoo You

Nine Eyes Studio is a dangerous place. One minute you’re drinking with friends and enjoying an exhibit in the gallery, the next minute you’re sitting in a chair in the adjoining tattoo studio with a Chinese dragon on your arm. Sure, it may have seemed like a good idea when…

PraiseFest

What better way to celebrate freedom than by gathering in a field with thousands of the very people that are helping to ruin it for the rest of us?! This Saturday, KLTY presents Celebrate Freedom 2006, billed as “the largest free outdoor concert in America” and featuring a slew of…

Caged Manimals

Mavs fans shouldn’t worry: The Diesel Fighting Championship doesn’t have anything to do with Shaquille O’Neal. Fans of the Ultimate Fighter series on Spike TV can go ahead and worry, though; it remains to be seen whether the local cage-fighting event has anything to do with the high-level martial arts…