In the opening minutes of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, the friends of the family’s grown children, Micol (Dominique Sanda) and Alberto (Helmut Berger), take a sylvan bike ride to the Finzi-Continis’ tennis court. Director Vittorio De Sica invests even this expository scene with psychological acuity. The sun-dappled color photography,…
A famous movie composer once told me a joke: Two songwriters are sitting around, and one of them says to the other, “I just saw the most amazing thing. A man fell off the roof of a building, hit a ledge, fell to the street, got winged by a bus,…
Ever since his first film, 1979’s Real Life, Albert Brooks has occupied his own little niche in American cinema. While his old buddy Rob Reiner quickly moved from the small, quirky, and wonderful This Is Spinal Tap to slick mainstream films, the 49-year-old Brooks (n. Albert Einstein) has released a…
thursday january 9 Dallas Video Festival: For in-depth critical appraisal of the tenth annual Dallas Video Festival, check out this week’s Observer coverage by Arnold Wayne Jones and Jimmy Fowler. For a tirade about the unfair bias many people hold against video, read on: It’s certainly true that the tacky…
I be readin’ about “Ebonics.” It’s the new “Black English” just officially certified by the Oakland school board as a second language. Why didn’t they have this when I was in high school? I had to take Spanish and French. I hated Spanish and French. Especially French. Hell, I would…
I must admit that I wasn’t anticipating with delight Theatre Three’s perennial holiday production of The Fantasticks. Nothing against the nice folks at T3, but I’m the kind of fellow who considers seasonal sentiment a prison sentence. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker when she was a New York stage critic for…
Now and again, as I sit here on my power perch–having just praised some pleasing cinematic trifle with a mot so bon it could singlehandedly vault the producers into new tax brackets or having characterized some hack with invective withering enough to permanently brand his pathetic career like some Puritan…
My first impulse in putting together a 10-best list for 1996 was to dispense with the new stuff altogether and go for the revival gold. The best films of 1996 were the rereleased restorations: Vertigo, Strangers on a Train, Lolita, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, and…
friday january 3 Attack of the Killer Mutant Leeches: Fans of bad cinema practically declared a day of public mourning when Comedy Central announced it would cancel “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” (whose creator, by the way, will be honored at this year’s Dallas Video Festival January 9-12). While some of…
How do you make the water stay in the bathroom sink? You may think this is a stupid question, but take it from a man who’s stayed in hundreds of motel rooms–it’s IMPORTANT. Here’s how they want you to THINK you make the water stay in the bathroom sink: By…
There were two different performances happening the Saturday night I saw Deep Ellum Opera Theatre’s production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s holiday classic Amahl and the Night Visitors. One occurred when I closed my eyes, and it was easily the most charming of the twins–the voices of the performers were alternately…
Hollywood routinely creates movies whose sole reason for existing is to provide a beloved celebrity a showcase to deliver a scenery-chewing star turn; occasionally, these films even win their lead performer an Oscar (recent example: Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman). But The Evening Star may be the first…
In Mother, Albert Brooks plays John Henderson, a science-fiction novelist recently divorced from his second wife who decides he can’t risk another relationship until he comes to terms with his mother. So he does the logical thing: He moves in with her. He hauls out of her garage all his…
The People vs. Larry Flynt is a Hollywood rags-to-riches success story with a twist. The recipient of the American Dream is a pornographer (Woody Harrelson) who admits to losing his virginity at 11 to a chicken and is known for saying things such as, “A woman’s vagina has as much…
thursday december 26 The Fantasticks: If you want to experience a holiday show that features no rat kings, no charming little handicapped kids who say things like “God Bless Us All, Everyone,” and absolutely no warnings about the perils of materialism, then Theatre Three has a theatrical tradition that might…
What are the five most horrifying words a man can hear at holiday time? You already know, right? “Take me to ‘The Nutcracker.”’ Why do we always PRETEND we wanna do this? Why do we sometimes even convince OURSELVES that we really do wanna go watch the Dance of the…
Wes Craven, creator of the Nightmare on Elm Street series and writer-director of its two best entries (the first and the last), works whispering distance from the commercial Hollywood mainstream, just far enough to allow for more rude wit and less comfortable resolution than most studio product. His films open…
Western civilization has taken its fair share of direct blows over the ages, but never before was it so threatened with destruction by such markedly unempowered foes until Beavis and Butt-head hit MTV in 1993. How unempowered? Consider that those who have every right to be offended by the doltish…
Why a movie of The Crucible now? Arthur Miller’s play about the Salem witchcraft trials was first staged on Broadway in 1953, when McCarthyism was still in flower, and it was not a resounding success. Now, of course, it’s a staple of rep theaters and high school and college drama…
thursday december 19 Peter and the Wolf: Besides offering its typical detailed stage design and original puppet and marionette creations, the nonprofit Dallas Puppet Theatre offers a musical/educational undercurrent to its holiday production of Peter and the Wolf. The mischievous hero known as Peter and his animal pals each represent…
If some doubted that the 20th-century black Sunday sermon doubled as spectacular theater, a story distributed last month on the Associated Press wire should convince otherwise. Apparently, African-American evangelical Christian churches in upstate New York have become hot tourist stops for Europeans vacationing in America. Tourist buses have made Sunday…
Wanda Bodine opened up a Smell Store last week. It’s this little shop in the mall where she sells stuff that emits AROMAS. Smelly oils, smelly herbs, smelly candles, smelly dried-flower arrangements, smelly clumps of pine bark you’re supposed to stick on your desk at the office so that you’ll…
