On a crowded Brooklyn street, an Orthodox Jew adjusts his yarmulke, a tefillin bag under his arm. He speaks on a smartphone and practically struts. The man, as dandified as one can look in a black suit and a white shirt, is a red herring in Menashe. Several other Brooklynites,…
In one sense, Steven Spielberg’s 1977 UFO bliss-out, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is reprehensible. It is, after all, the story of a daydreamer dad (Richard Dreyfuss) who leaves his family for worlds unknown as he continually trades in one slender, luminous life companion for another: Teri Garr for…
In adapting for the screen the long, hard story of Colin Warner — a Trinidadian native who, as a Brooklyn teenager in 1980, was wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to prison for more than 20 years — Matt Ruskin’s Crown Heights moves along in a counterproductive hurry. Scenes rich…
What are we even doing with our lives? That’s the question Dallas native Mary Dauterman and her co-author, BuzzFeed Animals editor Chelsea Marshall, pose in their new satirical children’s book of the same name. In the book — released by Harper Collins on Aug. 8 — the characters live in…
Modern Sacred Beatrice M. Haggerty Art Gallery 1845 E. Northgate Drive, Irving 6-9 p.m. Friday Free The attraction of an illuminated manuscript goes beyond words on the page. Drawings and decorations, often in gold and silver, surround the text or appear in the margins and as featured, small illustrations. The…
Andrew Allen’s multiprotagonist drama, Glow, spent years in the making. And the Dallas indie filmmaker says he basically went broke filming it. But his debut feature-length film is finally here and set for a world premiere tonight, Aug. 29, at Texas Theatre. Allen says the film hinges on realism and…
Science says a lion’s roar is audible from five miles away, but at the Center for Animal Research and Education in Bridgeport, all that stands between you and two big catcalls is your bedroom window. For $1,000, you can spend the night in one of CARE’s “safari suites,” which offer…
Last weekend, thousands of fans of strategic, virtual violence descended upon the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine for QuakeCon, an annual gaming celebration that offers first glimpses of some of the most anticipated game releases of the year. The people who turn out aren’t ordinary gamers. They’re a special breed…
Twin Peaks: The Return airs Sundays on Showtime Live long enough, and people may surprise you. The biggest pricks you grew up with — the bullies or blowhards or preening kings of the high school — grow up, too. Sometimes they even turn out all right. Sometimes they’re even stung,…
He cut his teeth in Arlington. And after three decades in film, Lou Diamond Phillips will return for a heart-to-heart about life and acting at the school where he once built sets. The Lou Diamond Phillips Film Festival, which will feature four films — Filly Brown, La Bamba, Courage Under Fire, and…
Shakespeare in the Bar: The Tempest Wild Detectives 314 W. 8th St. 8 p.m. Monday $7 Theater doesn’t have to be in stuffy performance halls to be good. Sometimes all it takes is a small ensemble of actors, a modest stage in a bar and plenty of booze. And Dallas…
People who live in or traveled to the path of totality for Monday’s solar eclipse reported being awestruck by the event. Some were brought to tears. Meanwhile, others who watched from North Texas and made the effort to construct a cereal-box viewer or buy NASA-approved glasses found themselves unimpressed. Here,…
Emily Heller had her entire career to write her first comedy album, Good For Her. On that album, she’s single and, she says, immature. Now she has a boyfriend, and she wants her comedy to reflect life in a relationship and what she thinks about being in one — even…
FridayDallas Green isn’t just the lead singer, rhythm guitarist and songwriter for hardcore screamo outfit Alexisonfire; he also plays his hand at the other side of the multifaceted alternative genre with his country folk project, City and Colour. The Toronto-based musician uses his softer sound to release music he’s written…
The story beats of Patti Cake$, a socioeconomic-sermonizing comedy about a thick young white woman with huge hip-hop dreams and little prospects, are as predictable as the ticking of an egg timer, as generic and tinny as the pulses of a drum machine. I rooted not for Patricia Dombrowski (Danielle…
Carla Parker is making history at Dallas’ scrappy Ochre House Theatre, which produces all original work. Her world-premiere musical, Kaptain Kockadoo, marks the first time the theater will feature a play by a female playwright. Parker, who became a company member in 2012, says the theater has become a home for…
Say what you will about James Cameron, but the man commits. Stories of the director’s perfectionism, his control-freak mania and his sheer drive are legion, but I’m talking about something more fundamental to the work itself. Whereas most action filmmakers are content to let emotion and morality take a backseat…
A grating protagonist alone does not a bad film make, but the episodic, unsatisfying Lemon revels in purposeful nails-on-a-chalkboard unlikability. Isaac (Brett Gelman), a struggling actor and stage director, spins out of control after his girlfriend, Ramona (Judy Greer), leaves him. Another film would make the ensuing tale a mope-fest,…
CentralTrak, the University of Texas at Dallas’ graduate arts program, had its first show since going nomadic at the beginning of the summer. A Hard Place, which had been curated before the program’s dissolution, was at 500X Gallery, just down the street from CentralTrak’s old address. The show highlighted the…
Like any good set of tragic heroes, the 1988 Carter Cowboys reached fantastic heights before they fell. During the fall and winter of that year, a team loaded with players who went on to play football at big-time colleges and in the NFL cruised to Dallas ISD’s first football state championship…
If you’re a fan of Canada, sketch comedy or both, then you’ll be happy to learn who will receive the Ernie Kovacs Award at this year’s Dallas VideoFest. Comedians Kevin McDonald and Dave Foley, two of the five members of the renowned stage and TV comedy troupe The Kids in…
Thursday These days, it’s a cat’s world, and we just live in it. These tiny mousers were tasked to warn off rodents in order to earn their keep when they first entered our homes hundreds of years ago. Now, you’ll be hard pressed to get Mittens out of his bed…
