In taking five of author Willa Cather’s early short stories and distilling them into a brand-new musical he calls Cather County, composer-librettist Ed Dixon would seem to have located one of the great themes of a great American writer: how the land transforms us even as we transform the land…
Bruno Barreto is the heir apparent of Brazilian cinema; he’s known on these shores for the lush romanticism of the Sonia Braga travel brochures Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1977) and Gabriela (’83), and in his own country for teen fluff like ’81’s The Boy from Rio. With the…
Palmetto is a film noir set in a torpid seaside Florida town. It’s based on the James Hadley Chase novel Just Another Sucker, and when we first see Harry Barber (Woody Harrelson), he fits that moniker exactly. He looks dazed and confused–a sucker incarnate. Suckers are, of course, integral to…
The Only Thrill, directed by Houston native Peter Masterson, is a conventional, sentimental movie that nonetheless hits where it aims. The film, which otherwise would be competent but unremarkable, is distinguished by two memorable actors–Sam Shepard and Diane Keaton–and by the chemistry that grows between these two principals as the…
thursday february 19 Elmo’s Coloring Book: Some people think Elmo’s wide-eyed enthusiasm is really a cover for a seriously pushy personality, but compared with passive-aggressive Big Bird, he’s far more honest about his feelings. He just wants to color the world with his particular shade of joie de vivre. Case…
Since Barry Switzer’s, uh, resignation, the world has hardly stopped. We discovered that President Clinton probably screwed a 21-year-old intern. Sonny Bono died in a skiing accident, and former SMU football great Doak Walker was paralyzed in a similar mishap. More than 4,000 people died in an earthquake in Afghanistan…
If you’re looking for a tax write-off that also fortifies the First Amendment, not to mention the cause of artistic richness and innovation in our city, a wealthy Dallas businessperson could do worse than to drop a big wad of money into the lap of the Undermain Theatre. It prides…
In these paradox-ridden times, producers on the hunt for cutting-edge fantasies look back: They visit their boyhood or girlhood rooms and ransack their old books and videos, or peruse their studio’s property list for works that scored well in other media. In the mid-’90s, the English company Working Title made…
A colleague confided that he feared The Winter Guest because he didn’t want to watch Emma Thompson talking to her mom for two hours. This perfectly summarizes the kind of trap Alan Rickman’s directorial debut could’ve laid for art-house patrons: Hire one respected English actor to oversee a film starring…
Ludovic, the fiercely determined young hero(ine?) of writer-director Alain Berliner’s half-hilarious, half-tragic feature debut Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink), proves how age, culture, and time all conspire to decide the difference between being feminine and being effeminate. Sure, he likes to wear frilly dresses and wants to…
thursday february 12 Conversation Pieces: Short Stories From Long-Term Memory: Texas artist Kathy Lovas found herself in the horrible state that thousands of other adults do every year: working with an aging parent who has Alzheimer’s. That degenerative condition creates a unique situation: Short-term memory zaps out, but long-term recollection…
thursday february 5 Charlie King: He may not have the household notoriety of Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, but singer-songwriter Charlie King has something even more impressive–their devoted fandom. Both have covered the songs of troubadour King, who for 35 years has crafted ballads and up-tempo tunes about contemporary issues…
Tom Hicks did not buy the Texas Rangers for $250 million because he loves baseball. He bought the Texas Rangers and the 270 acres of land around the Ballpark in Arlington because he loves making money. “I didn’t buy a baseball team for $250 million,” he says, sitting behind a…
How, you may ask, did 17th-century master satirist Moliere (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was the handle on his birth certificate) write with such incendiary insight on the vanity and frailty of human beings? You don’t have to read too far in his bio to figure it out: The guy was trained as…
Dennis Rodman’s life is an open book–it’s just not clear at this point how many people are left who care to read it. Rodman’s arrogance is unparalleled and far too well documented: He’s the, um, author of two autobiographies; he briefly had his own show on MTV, if you call…
Normally when he’s on tour publicizing his movies, writer-director Alan Rudolph likes to plan his day around tying one on. Relieved from the responsibility of writing, handling actors, and working with the cinematographer–but with the added stress of a hectic international travel schedule–he likes nothing better than to knock back…
John Woo has generated plenty of American disciples in the decade since his Hong Kong action films began playing film festivals in the West. Even before he began his Hollywood career with 1993’s Hard Target, bits of his action shtick started showing up in the work of savvy young filmmakers,…
Set in 19th-century Australia, this tale of two gamblers–Oscar, a failed minister, and Lucinda, a glassworks owner–is too wispy to be an art thing and too heavy to be a toy. Its key symbol is a tiny glass teardrop. The “Prince Rupert drop” cannot be smashed with a sledgehammer, but…
Ken Hitchcock never intended to coach hockey–not at the midget level, not at the junior level, certainly not at the professional level. There’s a part of him that would have preferred to stay behind the counter of United Bicycle in his hometown of Edmonton, Canada, where he sold hockey equipment…
Tempting though it is, the stage critic will not leap into the fray of current presidential scandal to declare that Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, now being staged by Dallas Theater Center, is prophetic because it concerns a politician haunted by a misdeed he believed was long buried. The genius…
As The Apostle’s title character, E.F. “Sonny” Dewey, writer-director Robert Duvall never stops moving and never speaks in a voice lower than a roar. He runs in place, dances when standing still, hollers even when he whispers; he literally vibrates. Sonny’s a true tent-revival preacher, spitting brimstone threats and heavenly…
In the new Great Expectations, directed by Alfonso Cuaron and scripted by Mitch Glazer, the teeming world of Charles Dickens’ 1861 novel is very loosely updated and transposed to Florida’s Gulf Coast and Manhattan. It wouldn’t be accurate to call this film an adaptation–at its best, it’s more like a…
