Yes, dead men tell no tales — but neither, really, do the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Rather than stories, the series, of which this 2017 entry is the fifth, offers an unpalatable mix of mincing slapstick, rote derring-do, ponderous CGI, whiskery sea-chanty mysticism, and dutiful action sequences whose only…
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt streams on Netflix Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s disparate obsessions form an unwieldy constellation, like a winged horse with three eyes and a blobfish for a tail. Tina Fey’s Netflix comedy mines one-liners from doomsday cults, parenthood, the gig economy, 1990s pop culture, feminine accommodation and the Upper East…
R&R Boxing Club offers none of the respite its initials suggest. On a smoldering Tuesday afternoon, a dozen journalists are melting into their clothes, mouths agape at the sight of former Olympian Errol Spence (21-0, 18 KOs) on an assault. The 27-year-old DeSoto boxer pummels through the mitt work of his…
At 32, experimental fashion designer Iris van Herpen has earned her place on the cutting edge of haute couture. Her futuristic work, which springs from the confluence of the body, industrial machinery and technology, has inspired the likes of Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Björk. Now, a major touring exhibition marking…
Tue 05/23 It’s hard to be ethereal and industrial at the same time, but Roni Horn’s exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center, 2001 Flora St., accomplishes exactly that. Her massive, heavy glass sculptures could double as some sort of construction equipment — until you get close and realize the marvelous…
Chris Gethard, the comedian and talk-show host, has the look of his own comic-strip avatar. Those black glasses, that elfin, upright forelock, the eyebrows that dance in alarm and amazement: Onstage, in his one-man show, Career Suicide, Gethard could be Charles Schulz’s sketch of Chris Gethard, a work of cartoon…
There was never any doubt about the thoughtfulness with which Aziz Ansari, in the first season of his Netflix series, Master of None, addressed the kinds of societal divides — racial, cultural, generational, sexual — that most sitcoms either lack the vision to perceive at all or take on only…
A comedy, and also a tragedy, of remarriage — without couples counseling or divorce — writer-director Azazel Jacobs’ The Lovers revitalizes its genre with a piquant premise: What happens when long-wedded spouses, each with a romantic partner outside their dormant dyad, find the spark reignited — a combustion that results…
This week, a note posted to the front door of Premiere Video on Mockingbird Lane caused speculation that the store is going out of business. “On hiatus. Gone fishing,” the note read. “Thank you for returning your film!” But while Mockingbird is losing a 33-year-old landmark, Premiere Video may not…
When news first surfaced in March that X-Men 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past director Bryan Singer was in town directing a pilot for Fox connected to Marvel Comics, the network couldn’t deny that it’s an X-Men show quick enough. So when the news broke that the pilot was…
Our Dallas girl is engaged! Sound the alarms. Tell the person in the next cubicle. Call your grandmother. The first-ever black Bachelorette and Dallas native Rachel Lindsay has found love. ABC announced in February that Lindsay is the object of attention for the thirteenth season of “The Bachelorette.” Since then, she…
“Power Lines” Barry Whistler Gallery 315 Cole St., Suite 120 Opens 6-8 p.m. Saturday Frank Stella’s mastery of line and form has been felt in the art community en masse since the early 1960s. His interest was spurred by a 1957 trip to Colorado. There he visited tiny copper mining…
The Native Listening Party Off the Record 2716 Elm St. 8 p.m. Friday Free with RSVP This week, we profiled local six-piece country band Vandoliers, which has also recently been named a country act to watch by none other than Rolling Stone. On May 26, the group will release its…
Both the poet’s body and soul are made ineradicable in Davies’ lovely film.
Pour one out for the summer movie season, which was once Memorial Day till Labor Day but now has spread like a self-replicating, geometrically evolving A.I. determined to cleanse the Earth of human vermin. Around the turn of the century, the summer movies started showing up the first weekend in…
Michael Mann’s 1995 masterpiece, Heat, comes out this week in a brand-new, fully loaded and beautiful Blu-ray edition. To explore further what makes this epochal crime drama so special, I recently talked to the director. The story of Heat was based on real-life personalities. There was real thief named Neil…
Despite the seemingly endless construction of new high-rises throughout downtown, Dallas has long been associated with wide-open space. It’s always been a metropolis inside cattle-raising territory on the Great Plains, so it’s fitting that a new arts incubator would take on the name Open Space. “It’s not a gallery. It’s…
Last week, we gave you the rundown on Cinestate, a new, Dallas-based entertainment company that is telling stories across multiple mediums: films, books and audio-narratives. The latter will include straightforward audiobooks, yes, but primarily a cutting edge new product it’s calling an “audiostate.” Yesterday, Cinestate released its first such product,…
This year, literary nonprofit Wordspace has hosted everyone from Pulitzer Prize-winner Tyehimba Jess to media pundit/author Dan Savage, and it’s planning to end its season with a bang. Turnout for last summer’s Deep Ellum Lit Hop festival was so good that this June, Wordspace is bringing it back as its…
James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece, Into the Woods, opens today at the Winspear Opera House, but it’s not the show you’re used to. This version is a bare-bones, stripped-down story that forces the audience members to use their imaginations and enter the woods themselves. But don’t worry, says music…
Three years in, SOLUNA, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s annual International Music & Arts Festival, is still trying to forge an identity. In contrast to the first year’s big splash under the direction of Anna Sophia Van-Zweden, and last year’s big ticket commissions like Jonah Bokaer, Daniel Arsham and Pharrell William’s…
If nothing else, Alien: Covenant is the most ambitious Alien film ever made. It’s almost as if Ridley Scott, foiled in his recent attempts at biblical epics, metaphysical dramas and thorny psychosexual thrillers, decided to revisit those genres under cover of a prized franchise sequel. That’s not to suggest that…
