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…
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (Buena Vista) Anthrax Anthrology: No Hit Wonders (Sanctuary) The Batman: Season 1, Volume 2 (Warner Bros.) Battlestar Galactica: Season One (Universal) Born Into Brothels (ThinkFilm) Brothers (Universal) Cowards Bend the Knee (Zeitgeist) Divan (Zeitgeist) Inside Deep Throat (Universal) It’s All Gone Pete…
By conservative estimate, Tim Burton stands to rake in half a billion dollars at the box office this year, thanks to a childlike chocolate maker in mauve rubber gloves and, now, to a lively dead girl with marriage on her mind and the timid schlub who falls under her spell…
Anything can be anything to anybody, particularly in the case of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence. If you want to believe that his new film, a loose adaptation of a little-known graphic novel, is a work of damning criticism aimed at the hypocrisy of Americans who believe violence is…
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…
Tina Modotti The new biographical drama by Victor Hugo Rascón Banda (translated by Sara Cardona) doesn’t do justice to the strange life and complicated passions of Modotti, an Italian-born early-20th century actress, photographer and Communist who served as a muse for Diego Rivera, Edward Weston and others during her years…
In its opening scene, David Lindsay-Abaire’s Wonder of the World threatens to be just another sitcom-on-a-stage. But it doesn’t take long for Second Thought Theatre’s sharply directed and snappily acted production to get up to frantic speed. By scene two it’s clear that nothing will be the least bit predictable…
“OK, so my car’s making this thunking, scraping noise that sounds kinda like grunsssssk. Then when I hit a bump, it sounds like a squeaky bedspring on the right side. Oh, and can you change the oil, because I can’t really remember the last time that happened.” To an honest…
Thursday, September 22 Patti LaBelle is like the Mother Teresa of the VH1 Divas. Some are divas both on and offstage–Jessica Simpson, Mariah Carey, we’re looking at you–but LaBelle, despite being in performance all smokin’ pipes and fancy (but age-appropriate) outfits, is known in real life for being real and…
I still remember that day in the third grade at recess when three of my best friends and I finally collected all six Constructicons and were able to assemble the super robot Devastator. It was 1985, and Transformers had officially passed Go-Bots and G.I. Joe as the coolest toy on…
Bests from the film fests 9/25 So you wanna rent Born Into Brothels, but your friends wanna see Monster-in-Law (again). What do you do? Well, you could get Brothels and then watch as your buddies stare slack-jawed at the TV screen while daydreaming about Lindsay Lohan and her newest dye…
Art blooms among the blossoms 9/24 Now that the summer heat wave is starting to subside, you can finally turn down the air conditioner and once again enjoy the outdoors. Just in time, too, as the wilting flowers at the Dallas Arboretum are–like us–springing back to life for their annual…
Seuss is loose at the Science Place 9/22 Bill Cosby, Mister Rogers and Ronald McDonald have this ability to connect with kids. Cosby makes faces. Mister Rogers speaks directly to the camera in second person and suddenly you too are in the Land of Make-Believe. Ronald McDonald has big red…
A concert to meow and bark about 9/25 Like anyone with half a soul, I was horrified by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Glued to CNN, all I heard was bad news getting worse, and there wasn’t anything my beloved Anderson Cooper could say or do to make things all…
Andrew Niccol’s first two films as writer-director, 1997’s Gattaca and 2002’s S1m0ne, were hollow, sterile sci-fi masquerading as earnest satire: The former told of a near future in which parents could genetically engineer perfect children; the latter proffered an actress who became the most famous and beloved movie star in…
If you’re a character in a movie, and the rain is coming down so heavily that you cannot see out of your car’s windshield, for the love of God, don’t drive! Mack-truck drivers interpret such conditions as carte blanche to be reckless and will assume that honking their horn provides…
forces of evil in a bozo nightmare Plush Gallery heralds its return to Commerce Street downtown with a provocative gallimaufry of witty and mostly small pieces. Reinforcing the oddity of this jumble is its new location in a small boxy office space on the fourth floor of the Manor House…
Months of therapy are all it will take to come to grips with Tracy Letts’ dark and funny Bug, onstage now in its area premiere at Kitchen Dog Theater. It’s that disturbing, that real. And as a piece of live theater, that much of a visceral shock to the system…
My heart beats like a Swedish masseur’s fists inside my ribcage, and my palms begin to itch and sweat. I crane my neck so I can make out what’s in the tree. It’s nighttime, and the image of the girl in white is suspended like a moon against the red…
Thursday, September 15 It’s too bad Bill Owens wasn’t in our family. Our photo albums would have been far more impressive. After looking at the photographer’s book Leisure, it’s clear that Owens has an unusual talent for making the mundane seem like the most interesting stuff in the world. A…
Both men are wearing long-sleeved, collared shirts and jeans, standing on the same ranch in Montana on the same day at the same time. But in many ways they couldn’t be farther apart. One is Richard Wheatcroft, a rancher, who’s been running the family business since he found his father…
