The biggest controversy at this year’s Academy Awards was the omission of Hoop Dreams from the Best Documentary category. That film dealt with two families struggling to survive economic hardship, framed by the saga of two teenage boys pressured to make the NBA and rescue their households. But also snubbed…
There’s only one dud among the seven somber short films featured in Short Stuff. It’s a pretentious fantasy flight called “Goddess” in which a Mary Kay-shellacked female icon becomes human in order to avenge the death of a man by his twin brother. Yawn. But two films punch you in…
Film lovers can be divided into two categories. There are those who approach the cinema with a Wildean belief that art exists to improve the human condition, or at the very least idealize it. They watch movies using a kind of aesthetic white glove test, always on the lookout for…
thursday april 20 Ampersand Dance: Creating a new dance company is always a risky business, but in a city like Dallas, where culture too often means you choose an imported beer while watching TV football, it’s downright courageous. But dancer-choreographers Eric Salisbury and Shannon Slaton are forging ahead with Ampersand…
Baseball’s annual Hall of Fame game was hours over. All the other reporters had left the little press room in the back of the Hall. But this one, after computer problems, was trudging through to the exit in partial darkness, with only a bunch of guys like Ty Cobb and…
I guess it should come as no surprise that Pump Boys and Dinettes, the current feel-good musical offering at Theatre Three, was a box-office hit in New York. But I’m perplexed about why it’s gotten the critical attention it has. I am not an elitist. I like to be entertained,…
Your hooey detector will probably start beeping about 10 minutes into British filmmaker Antonia Bird’s controversial melodrama Priest when Father Greg (Linus Roach), a young man of the cloth newly transferred to a blue-collar Liverpool parish, rises to address his congregation. These days, he complains from the pulpit, we are…
The latest issue of the Dallas-based bimonthly fanzine Hong Kong Film Connection (which only recently went national) is on sale now at an independent or Asian-owned video store near you, and it includes plenty of thoughtful, well-researched articles worth mentioning here. They include a wrapup of 1994 Hong Kong box-office…
Flashbulbs and teen squeals announce Pauly Shore’s arrival at Planet Hollywood in the West End. Amid a journalistic sea of TV and still cameras and a small cluster of mostly young fans, the 27-year-old former MTV VJ and star of numerous slapstick movies–the latest of which, Jury Duty, opens April…
This week I’m wondering why those fat, cow-faced husbands on “Oprah” never defend themselves. You know the guys I’m talking about? They bring out some chunky, ticked-off Jenny Craig dropout with a lab experiment on her head resulting in Blonde Meltdown, and she says, “Oprah, I found out he was…
In a terrifying barroom sequence about 15 minutes into Once Were Warriors, a stark melodrama about the lives of Maori tribesman living in the urban slums of New Zealand, Jake Heke (Temeura Owen)–a pumped-up, alcoholic patriarch of a troubled Maori clan who looks like Robert DeNiro on steroids–watches as a…
thursday april 13 Alan Dershowitz: Being a civil libertarian in America at a time when politicians and talk-radio morons are demanding a quick emotional fix for our national malaise can be a thankless job…unless, of course, you’re a civil libertarian who also happens to be one of the highest-paid defense…
Nick Nolte’s craggily handsome face, steely eyes, and whiskey-and-cigarettes voice are the epitome of ravaged old-movie grandeur. But in his heart, he’s always been a character actor, not an icon. Although resourceful directors have managed to use him that way–notably Walter Hill in 48 HRS. and Extreme Prejudice and Karel…
Last Thursday, there were guys in tears, literally kneeling to kiss the infield dirt at the Ballpark. On Friday, those same guys hit singles and almost beat the Astros in an exhibition–their only exhibition–on this field. And by Sunday, their replacement butts were out the door quicker than a drunk…
Russian writers get a bad rap. Far from being suicide and samovar-obsessed weird-beards, they are actually rather jolly fellows. Examples? you ask. Well, take Dostoevsky and that funny scene in Crime and Punishment where Razumikhin cracks the old lady’s skull open with an axe and “the blood gushed as from…
There’s a reason why you’ll rarely read about music videos in this space: most of them are so unimaginative and dull that I can barely stand to look at them. Having said that, I’ll now violate my own pronouncement and tell you about a video promoting “Possum Kingdom,” a single…
How come cops always stomp all over the crime scene? How come, every time you watch a criminal trial, there’s some cop who drops a glob of potato salad on the bloody footprint, or leaves the fingerprint cards on the dashboard of his Chevy Nova and burns ’em up, or…
Because I usually enjoy David Letterman’s nightly talk show, I wish I could say he did a great job hosting the 67th Annual Academy Awards. I’ll admit I enjoyed some of his jokes and all of his filmed segments, particularly the “Would you like to buy a monkey” bit; between…
thursday april 6 Fred Curchack: Texas-based performance artist Fred Curchack has traveled the world collecting awards and stunning non-English-speaking audiences with his one-man “revisionings” of some of William Shakespeare’s most elaborate multicharacter fantasies. Curchack accomplishes this through a carefully synchronized combination of masks, light, shadow, sound effect, and, of course,…
Before the Rain, a three-part anthology of stories from the war-torn Balkan nation of Macedonia, is as powerful and passionate an examination of war as Schindler’s List. And although there isn’t a single dull or unoriginal shot anywhere in the picture, and the film is eloquently performed by an international…
On a rainy day at North Loop Dodge in Tarrant County, a car salesman walks in with two huge bags from Sports Town. “Wanna baseball?” he asks the two people in the repair waiting room who are watching the episode of “Family Affair” where Mr. French almost has to marry…
There’s a good reason why the new thriller Hideaway is proudly designated “A Film by Brett Leonard,” a name few casual moviegoers would recognize, let alone regard with high esteem. Leonard, who directed the cyberpunk-revamped movie version of Stephen King’s short story The Lawnmower Man, is a high-tech showman with…
