The mothers of invention It was Richard Franck who actually wrote, “Art imitates Nature” in his Northern Memoirs, printed in 1694; whoever revised it to “art imitates life,” though, nailed a concept that crystallized 1999 on the Dallas-Fort Worth visual art scene. Take tragedy and misfortune, for example; in life,…
A watershed year. That’s the buzz around the film critics’ water cooler — or should that be popcorn stand? — as 1999, and the first century of film, comes to a close. You can hear the whispers as they turn to shrieks of ecstasy: Just like 1974! Such are the…
Film critics are by nature a sour lot, so it is with truly great pleasure I suggest that 1999 has been the best year for cinema — certainly for American cinema and even for the major studios — in my 15 years on the beat. I’m at a loss to…
1. The Blair Witch Project Both the hype and the inevitable backlash have died down, and what remains is still quite a movie — the horror film reinvented, and the faux documentary brought of age as a legitimate nonparody genre. 2. The Limey A standard revenge melodrama charged up with…
Originally, Walt Disney wanted to call his symphonic feature Fantasia “Concert Film.” As a kid, I wanted to call it “Boring Piece of Crap.” However, my mother would never tolerate such language. Nonetheless, old Walt wanted cartoons to be respected as an art form. He wanted to merge the perceived…
Oh, how this city tries. Dallas, otherwise known as America’s biggest small town, is celebrating the countdown to the new century with a street fair-meets-Times Square party. Our New Year’s Eve celebration features children’s activities and performances by kiddie fave Eddie Coker, Ballet Folklorico, and Earl Harvin’s jazz trio –…
The press release for the second production by Impulse Theatre of the Fearless promises the troupe will present a “new form of entertainment for bargoers in Deep Ellum and Denton: unique, cutting-edge theatrical events in bars.” The release continues that “people who wouldn’t normally choose to spend their Friday or…
“If God had meant us to think with our wombs, then why did he give us a brain?” You have to chew on that, one of playwright Clare Boothe Luce’s most famous quotes, for a while, and even then, you’re still not sure what you’re tasting. I interpret it as…
Your wish is granted There’s still a little life left in the National Endowment for the Arts. The organization is funded for fiscal year 2000 at about the same level as it was in the 1999 budget — just under $100 million. From an all-time high of $175 million disbursed…
Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday lasts as long as a National Football League game — which would be no crime were the film anything more than nearly three hours’ worth of outtakes spliced together by a palsied editor with a hearing problem. Entire scenes are inaudible, the hip-pop collage soundtrack…
The Talented Mr. Ripley numbs as much as it unnerves. However, that’s exactly the type of thriller you might expect from Anthony Minghella, the writer-director who gave critics something to rave about and many a reluctant date something to snooze through with the Academy Award juggernaut The English Patient. At…
At first glance, Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother seems uncharacteristically grim for a filmmaker with such a demonic sense of humor. Within 10 minutes, the heroine’s 17-year-old son is hit and killed by a car, which propels her and the events of the film into motion. In the next…
Although he couldn’t have known it at the time, growing up in Baltimore during the 1950s would prove to be filmmaker Barry Levinson’s smartest career move. First in Diner, then in Tin Men, Avalon, and now Liberty Heights, he has drawn on the specific time, place, and culture of his…
It ain’t that hard to parody Star Trek’s original series; Lord knows it did a good job of that itself. And certainly, many have tried; Jim Carrey did on In Living Color (with the “Wrath of Farrakhan” sketch), Kevin Pollak has built an entire career on his William Shatner impersonation,…
If you haven’t made seeing this band a year-end tradition by now, some curmudgeons may advise, “Don’t bother.” Not because the Old 97’s aren’t worth it, but because these holiday appearances inspire so much celebratory expectation and draw so many warm bodies that, unless you’ve been supporting them for years,…
Despite the lovable exterior of his famous character The Tramp, Charlie Chaplin was a consummate control freak. He kept his sets closed (shades of Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas) and did much of the work himself, using only a small group of regular players and whatever actress was his current…
One evening last week, a local news broadcast let loose a disturbing bit of information. This past year’s crime statistics show that while violent crime is down all over the nation, it’s up in North Texas. By 12 percent. Let’s repeat that: The rest of the United States is (miraculously)…
Ah, what a miracle that Andy Kaufman was. So sublime his wit, so pioneering his spirit. Astonishing! A hero to be loved, adored, and emulated by all artists and performers for the rest of eternity. An opener of doors, a smasher-down of barriers, a glorious, luminous, intrepid spirit without whom…
There is a wonderful collision of the best of theatrical possibilities in Christmas at Ground Zero, especially at this time of year. It offers real emotion, not mere sentiment; short bursts of inspiration, not two-act platitudes; and genuinely surprising subject matter woven into a holiday context, rather than rote tales…
Over the last few years, I’ve seen David Sedaris — that little smart-ass — read his work at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Southern Methodist University, Crossroads Market, and the Dallas Museum of Art. So I don’t consider myself just a fan of his, but an enlisted member in his unholy…
It’s dark in one of DNA Productions’ state-of-the-art workstations, located in a suite of rented offices on Cedar Springs near Love Field. John Davis — the “D” in DNA — is cuing up a scene from Olive, the Other Reindeer, the animation production company’s first hour-long Christmas special, set to…
MAC dandy First, they were using code words to explain why Theresa Jones abruptly left her job as director of the McKinney Avenue Contemporary last week, a job she held for four of the MAC’s five years of existence. (To wit, she left “to pursue other interests.”) When a key…
