Sunlight shines through stained glass windows as a diverse group of artists trickles into the dusty sanctuary of the former Winnetka Congregational Church building on a Saturday morning. Teaching artist and actress Anastasia Munoz greets each person as he or she arrives. “I’m so delighted you’re in my home today!” she says, shortly…
Gomela/To Return: Movement of Our Mother Tongue at South Dallas Cultural Center 3400 S. Fitzhugh Ave. 7 p.m. Friday Gomela/To Return: Movement of Our Mother Tongue is a multi-disciplinary performance piece featuring award-winning poet Sunni Patterson. Vibrant and percussive movements and stories breathe life into African dance and drumming, as well…
Some people may think Dallas’ only contribution to the film industry is the Zapruder film, but they would be wrong. A surprisingly large number of movies have been filmed in the Dallas area over the years; we’ve put together a list of our favorites, some of which you may know…
In September 2014, acting troupe Shakespeare in the Bar got its start in Dallas on the back patio of The Wild Detectives bookstore in Oak Cliff. The actors’ shared mission? To make Shakespeare fun again, as it was intended to be, by drinking as they give barely rehearsed performances of…
A new experimental musical playing in Exposition Park this month takes its name from a hidden track on Nirvana’s Nevermind album. Arthur Peña, known for his work as a painter and as curator of the roving venue Vice Palace, wrote Endless/Nameless as an exploration of two types of death, the death of…
Cedar Hill Roller Rink sits in a rundown tin building, hidden on a quiet corner just north of the city’s small down town. The parking lot is mostly grass, but it’s packed tonight, and full of trucks that have driven over curbs and parked between the old oaks. A line…
The Oak Cliff Film Fest returns this week to share its treasures across Dallas’ favorite spaces. And while previous iterations have celebrated cinematic pioneers, obsessive documentarians and subversively innovative collaborators, this year’s inspiration is drawn from the New American era of 1970s filmmaking, a time when directors wrested creative control…
In his tight, trim, health insurance thriller A Monster With a Thousand Heads, Mexican-Uruguayan director Rodrigo Plá achieves a visual style that is ice cold but also deeply human — a clever way to depict an all-powerful system that feeds on our lives and thrives on our fallibility. Plá opens…
In cinema, all things move towards acceptance. In time, debates about filmmakers usually settle in favor of the filmmaker — not because detractors change their minds, but because the urgency of the conflict wanes, and stalemates go to the fans. It’s hard to believe that battle lines were once drawn…
In Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits, emotion becomes motion and psychology becomes space. It’s a coming-of-age story, but Holmer mostly eschews dialogue and standard storytelling devices; she tells her tale through movements and patterns and the way that she films them. The Fits follows Toni (Royalty Hightower), an 11-year-old tomboy…
Director Jake Paltrow (Young Ones, The Good Night) met Brian De Palma at a party. He’d had a few drinks and worked up the courage to talk to the legendary filmmaker, who turned out to be surprisingly open and kind. The next day, Paltrow got an email from the friend…
Finding Nemo may have been a cartoon about a clownfish traveling across the ocean looking for his son, but it was also one of Pixar’s first overt forays into the workings of the human mind. The film, from 2003, was haunted by loss: The protagonist, Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks),…
The Real Housewives of Dallas Episode 10, Season Finale Recap “The Full Nelson” It’s been a journey. A journey of ups and downs and a whole lotta poop. Do-do. Shit. Let’s reminisce, shall we? We watched episode 1 with a friend to the Housewives. The women lost their shit during episode 2…
In the fourth grade I voted for George H.W. Bush in a mock election because I had a huge crush on the boy playing him. I didn’t watch the candidates on TV, read the paper or listen to talk radio. Like most kids, the extent of my relationship to politics…
Oh, Dallas. We know you. Now that the temperatures are finally inching toward summer, you’re planning your escape out of town. But not so fast … there are still plenty of air-conditioned getaways at your disposal, firmly within the city limits. Conserve those vacation days for late July when the…
Jane Lynch: You know her from Glee, Annie on Broadway and as the host of that game show featuring celebrities. But what about a cabaret show? Yes! Add that to the list of things Lynch does. And soon it will be your turn to see Jane sing in See Jane Sing,…
Just after noon Tuesday, I received an “anonymous” email from a ReeAnne Rocken from the address notafanofleeanne@outlook.com. The subject line reads, “An almost open letter about Leeanne Locken of the Real Housewives of Dallas” and the email, suffice to say, was pointedly uncomplimentary of Housewife Locken’s character and behavior. We consulted…
Do This! Houston resident Justin Cronin is the author of the mega-succesful trilogy The Passage. Stephen King is a fan, and you will be too once you read the story about a post-apocalyptic world where humans are forced to battle other vampire-like superhumans. The final installment, City of Mirrors, came…
If you dedicated your free time to playing video games on a computer in the 1990s, then you remember the first time you played the groundbreaking first-person shooter Doom. It’s hard to forget a formative moment that involves using a chainsaw to cut open a horned Hell minion like a…
Savages (a slight return) at Kettle Art 2650 Main St. This love letter to artist and Kettle Art owner Frank Campagna was originally a two-day pop-up event on Dragon Street. It was also one of the most lively shows of the year, drawing huge, extroverted crowds on both days and…
Author Justin Cronin has lived in Texas for almost 14 years, and living here had a major impact on his best-selling trilogy, The Passage. The final book, The City of Mirrors, came out late last month. “I never would have written the books unless I had moved here,” Cronin says…
In 2001 a friend, a grown-up, saw The Fellowship of the Ring more than a dozen time in the theater. Sometimes she’d leave with a half hour left. “I just needed to get to Galadriel and Lothlorien,” she told me. She didn’t need all the climactic fighting. In 2012 I…
