Last year’s Katamari Damacy was so quirky, it should have been subtitled “Marketed to Stoners. Its star, a little green prince, was forced to roll a giant gravity ball to atone for the sins of his father, the King of the Cosmos, who had gotten drunk one day and knocked…
Director Curtis Hanson, a journeyman only recently bestowed the title of Great Director, has already made his horror movie (1973’s The Arousers), his kiddie action comedy (1980’s The Little Dragons), his teen sex romp (1983’s Losin’ It ), his handful of Hitchcock riffs (1987’s The Bedroom Window, 1990’s Bad Influence…
In 2001, Jonathan Safran Foer made an astounding literary debut. “A Very Rigid Search,” published by The New Yorker, was his hilarious, heartbreaking account of an attempt by a young American man (named, cheekily, Jonathan Safran Foer) to find a Ukrainian woman who had saved his grandfather from the Nazis…
Robots (Fox) The story of a small-town ‘bot (voiced by Ewan McGregor) who bolts for the big city, Robots is the first non-Pixar film to compete with that studio’s razzle and dazzle. The thing’s stunning to look at–and, frankly, it’s better to stare at than listen to, since listening entails…
American Pie: 3 Movie Pie Pack (Universal) Beethoven: The Pooch Pack (Universal) Billy Jack: The Ultimate Collection (Ventura) Blind Melon: Live at the Metro (EMI) Bouncing Souls: Live at the Glasshouse (Fontana) Britney & Kevin: Chaotic . . . the DVD & More (Jive) Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power (Universal)…
Serenity, Joss Whedon’s big-screen spinoff of the 2002 TV show Firefly, which didn’t even last a dozen episodes, is already a cult phenom well before its opening. The show’s DVD boxed set lines the shelves of every fanboy who dreamed of gunslinging in space alongside preachers and prostitutes, and already…
To the knowledgeable comic book fan, all one need say about MirrorMask is that it was scripted by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave McKean, with a final product that, while less plot-heavy than most of Gaiman’s writing, faithfully adapts McKean’s unique drawing/collage style into three dimensions. Since those who…
Into the Blue offers precisely what one would expect from the director of Blue Crush and the writer of Torque: beautiful stupidity. Its every frame dripping from a noxious recipe of suntan oil, summertime sweat and salt water, this heist movie (or whatever it is, which isn’t much) delivers a…
It’s almost impossible to watch Roman Polanski’s rendition of Oliver Twist without drawing parallels between the deprivations endured by the book’s young protagonist and the director’s own brutal boyhood. A Jew raised in Nazi-occupied Poland, Polanski first tackled the Holocaust head-on in his 2002 film The Pianist, but Oliver Twist,…
About once a year–twice, if we’re lucky–a first-time director shows up with something original, electrifying and humane, a film that shows us a new way to see, that presents complex and memorable people in whom we recognize ourselves. Last year, it was Joshua Marston and Maria Full of Grace. This…
Anyone vaguely familiar with the rules of golf knows that you may not improve your lie, ground your club in a sand trap, or–most grievous of all–subtract strokes from your score. This last one apparently never occurred to the makers of a new movie with the grandiose title The Greatest…
Louise Bourgeois Etchings Much more interesting than pop star-turned-Kabbalah expert Madonna and more creatively charged than the bête noir of academe, Camille Paglia, Louise Bourgeois channels change like a chameleon with a penchant for maintaining the same warm place in the sun. Though she has perfected the art of reinventing…
Charlotte’s Web E.B. White’s timeless tale of life and death and unexpected miracles on the farm gets its fourth production at Dallas Children’s Theater. Forget any preconceptions about plays for kids. This is big-budget, high-quality entertainment worth seeing even if you don’t have rugrats tagging along. Equity actors Karl Schaeffer…
Actors are animals. That’s the theme of this week’s hayride, which takes us to a happy barnyard and a dreary backstage rat’s nest. Over at Dallas Children’s Theater, they’re doing Charlotte’s Web, with a charming cast donning the fur and feathers of all who populate the farm in E.B. White’s…
Forget milk, soy, eggs and power bars. The real perfect food is the corn dog. One dog has a serving of protein (from that sweaty, shriveled chunk of meat in the middle) and a serving or two of carbohydrates (the lovely, chewy, crispy–when cooked the correct way–batter outside). For herbivores,…
Thursday, September 29 There’s no doubt that we fully support sexual health education, family planning and the organizations that promote such programs. However, we are the Dallas Observer, and boy, do we also love a good bit of irony. We couldn’t help but chortle just a bit as we sorted…
Food is the best part of the State Fair of Texas, and if we’ve got it, well, we fry it. Fried pickles, fried ice cream, fried tamales, fried corn dogs–we even fried marshmallows last year. This year’s new food standout promises to be…wait for it…wait for it…something fried. As the…
A punk icon speaks his mind 10/4 Henry Rollins is the quintessential badass. Few people can simply walk into a room and make an observer think, “Damn, he’s funny, intelligent, talented and hopefully not planning to kick my ass.” It’s impressive that one person can command a room in so…
Philip K. Dick lives again 9/30 You are about to meet Philip K. Dick, the mystifying mind behind the books that inspired the sci-fi movies Blade Runner and Minority Report. He’ll be present–despite the minor detail of his death in 1982–in the synthetic flesh in David Hanson’s The Resurrection of…
Beef is surely what’s for dinner 9/30 When it comes to popularity contests, cows sweep in India and Texas. Of course in India, they are adorned with garlands of flowers and believed to be sacred. In Texas, they are served medium rare with baked potato, salad and bread. But make…
Aid to those with AIDS 10/1 Sometimes even in the wake of a nationally publicized tragedy such as Hurricane Katrina, it’s still necessary to put things into perspective. Beyond the horrible burdens put on all of the evacuees, there’s always a way to multiply the desperation factor. Like, for instance,…
Desperate Housewives: The Complete First Season (Buena Vista) ABC’s juggernaut drama is made up mostly of elements that have trickled down from HBO: black humor, self-awareness, the radical notion that women over 30 can arouse the national libido. The bonus deleted scenes don’t add much to the story, and behind-the-scenes…
