This year, whatever you do, please spare your guests from having to drink eggnog, that ubiquitous, sickeningly sweet holiday glop. Instead, serve them something deliciously unique. We speak, of course, of glogg, the traditional (strong!) spiced beverage of Scandinavian origins. Not only does a good glass of glogg get the…
If you’ve got out-of-town guests staying at your house, there will come a time in their visit when you will need to suggest, gently, “Why don’t you get the hell out of here and go do something?” Here are holiday events to keep them out of your hair. The IMAX…
The heroine of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s bold and bracing new comedy, Amlie, is Amélie Poulain, a doe-eyed crusader with the face of a porcelain doll and a sleek helmet of jet-black hair. From her high perch in Montmartre, where she works as a cafe waitress, Amélie secretly resolves to emancipate all…
It is difficult to imagine a more timely film than Focus; certainly, its message about intolerance resonates in a post-September 11 world in ways the filmmakers never anticipated. Adapted from Arthur Miller’s little-known 1945 novel of the same title, Focus looks at what happens to a society when basically decent…
It doesn’t take much probing beneath the thin surface to see Shallow Hal as an apologia of sorts from Bobby and Peter Farrelly. The brothers are known for making movies full of jokes about midgets, retarded people, albinos, the handicapped and so on, but always with the caveat that the…
After venting his spleen in theater and film for a quarter century, it seems like David Mamet would be ready to divulge something human about humanity. Sure, his fervid fans may point to his Pulitzer and leap about singing hosannas to frothing hucksters and sexual miscreants, but after all the…
If there’s one man on the planet who knows how to market rustic charms to the masses, it’s Paddy Maloney. As the mercurial leader of Ireland’s phenomenal traditional ensemble, the Chieftains, he’s outdistanced countless Celtic contemporaries, trotting his group’s unmistakable sound around the globe. Who better, then, to provide the…
Natalie Merchant finished recording her third solo album, Motherland, on September 9, so by no means should anyone listen to the disc’s first song, “This House Is On Fire,” and think it has anything to do with hijacked airplanes, collapsed skyscrapers and the thousands buried beneath the rubble. The song…
Nick Cristano has a problem, and I’m having trouble figuring out why. As the central character in Theatre Three’s box office hit, Over the River and Through the Woods, Nick is put to a choice. Should he take the promotion his advertising company is offering him and move to Seattle?…
Star Trek, as a franchise, soldiers forward on impulse engines: The latest series, UPN’s Enterprise, is less a prequel to the original series than it is one more tepid remake in the image of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, great birds of the galaxy with clipped wings. Despite its ratings…
Indiana Jones–whether he was searching for the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail or a swell dame–always had exceptional luck, which movies, books and TV programs have made us believe is an essential part of being an archaeologist. The odd thing is they’re not wrong. Dr. Zahi Hawass, the…
As the year winds down, breathlessly and apprehensively, the most anxiously awaited releases left on the schedule offer nothing less than whimsy and reveries. We’ve had enough of the real world for now, so we look forward to leaving it behind and joining the merry company of Harry Potter, Frodo…
Joel and Ethan Coen’s periodic genuflections to classic Hollywood are inevitably accompanied by a knowing wink from one brother and a wry smile from the other. These devoted movie buffs’ versions of vintage gangster pictures (Miller’s Crossing) or the populist comedies of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges (The Hudsucker Proxy)…
In Domestic Disturbance, John Travolta provides a rare recent performance worthy of his fame, and it arrives bereft of laughable facial hair, flaccid special effects and overwrought speechifying that too often renders him paunchy parody. As Frank Morrison, a builder of expensive wooden ships at a time when they’ve been…
At 73, Jacques Rivette is one of the oldest of the original French New Wave directors–older by a few years than the 70-year-old Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut (who would have been 69), younger only than 79-year-old Alain Resnais and 81-year-old Eric Rohmer. And, like his remaining compatriots, he has…
There cannot be man, woman, child or beast alive who does not know that on November 6, Fox will debut its new series 24. Long before the fall season was to begin, it had already been appointed the most anticipated and beloved show of the year–by critics who had seen…
It’s hard to cop to this, but here goes: As the lights rise over the masterfully crafted set of The Front Page at the Dallas Theater Center, I am already prejudiced against the production. That’s right, prejudiced against this classic of the American theater. Artistic director Richard Hamburger has chosen…
To be a multitalent in multimedia is admirable, although that will never be a formula for superstardom, as most such performers sacrifice the adulation from the average E! Entertainment Television fan in return for peer respect. To earn a buck, the Julia Robertses of the world simply have to appear,…
Unlike most 2-year-olds, The Texas International Fine Art Fair is steady on its feet. And, instead of “terrible twos,” the exhibition of fine art, antique and luxury item dealers suffers from the terribly expensive twos. While the catalog of exhibiting galleries doesn’t list prices, with names such as Picasso, Rousseau,…
On November 4, some 1,800 television personalities–actors, writers, producers, show-runners, network executives–will, finally, parade into a Los Angeles theater to award their peers and themselves for a job well done. They will, at long last, hand out the golden statues known as Emmy, just as it has been done every…
Against a completely black background comes the low, ominous rumbling of thunder. A sense of unease washes over the viewer. When the first images appear on screen, they only heighten our level of apprehension, because in the middle of a curvy mountain road lies a figure. There is no way…
If you’re a college freshman, don’t read this. Just grab your newfound peers and go see Richard Linklater’s new movie, Waking Life, then head off to one of those ethereal late-night dining establishments for which you’ll desperately pine once the real world gets ahold of you. Discuss. For others, this…
