Ochre House’s Blink Delivers Eye-opening Pokes at Rich Rat-Bastards

Blink, a sour-then-sweet new play-with-music written and directed by Ochre House regular Kevin Grammer, echoes the theme of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in its lesson about not wasting life fiddling with material possessions. “Shit happens in a blink of an eye,” sings Marti Etheridge in the first of the folky…

5 Art Exhibitions to See in Dallas This Weekend

Lorem Ipsum When an art director or graphic designer wants to see what text will look like on the page or in an online post, they will often use the Latin words Lorem Ipsum as placeholder text. Sometimes the text is used because a writer has blown a deadline for…

10 Best Dallas Places to Write Your Novel This Month

November is National Novel Writing Month, when writing geeks and repressed English majors everywhere (such as this author) shut themselves in their houses and attempt to write an entire completed novel in 30 days. Don’t tell us we’re crazy. We know who we are. But fellow novelists know eventually the comforts of…

The Peanuts Movie Holds True to Its Inspiration(s)

Yes, it’s 3-D computer animation, and yes, it shows us more of the face of Charlie Brown’s Little Red-Haired Girl than you ever thought you would see. But the news, for the most part, is good: The Peanuts Movie is much closer in spirit to Charles Schulz’s half-century comic-strip masterpiece…

Noé’s Love Has Sex, Beauty, but too Little Feeling

First things first: Yes, Gaspar Noé’s arthouse sexbomb quite literally goes off in your face, with an ejaculation close-up 90 minutes in that might have you wiping off your 3-D glasses. You might think that’s an impressive provocation, until you recall that every twelve-year-old boy in America sees that same…

Kettle Art Celebrates 10 Years of Focusing on Local Art

  Frank Campagna gives a quick description of Deep Ellum ten years ago: “Dead.” This is when he opened Kettle Art Gallery in Deep Ellum, which celebrates its double digits birthday Thursday. But he’s been involved with the neighborhood since 1981 and knew that it falls and rises. He opened…

Suffragette Shows Women Suffering Instead of Making Bombs

Political drama has long been shaped by what we can call the conversion narrative. In a play like One Third of a Nation, one of the Living Newspaper extravaganzas mounted with New Deal funding by the Federal Theatre Project, an everyman Joe you just gotta root for tries to live…

Spectre Reveals the Solace of Beauty

Because women are particularly beguiling when viewed from behind, the camera loves to follow them: Anyone who’s watched James Stewart’s lovesick detective trailing Kim Novak, a platinum dream poured into a pale gray flannel hourglass, understands the voyeurism at the heart of Vertigo. With Spectre — the 24th James Bond…

Why I’m Still Watching The Muppets

The Muppets doesn’t work, exactly, but I’m still watching. As a relative outsider to the 60-year Muppets franchise, I’ve long suspected that early imprinting is the key to loving Jim Henson’s gaudy, unblinking rags. I’ve never felt a particular need to watch pieces of felt tell Borscht Belt–style jokes, and…

Whit Stillman Visits Dallas Wednesday for Metropolitan‘s 25th Anniversary

Oscar-nominated, acclaimed cult filmmaker Whit Stillman is still coming to the Texas Theatre in celebration for the 25th anniversary of his first feature, Metropolitan. Metropolitan wasn’t the immediate success that I — and perhaps you, too — might’ve assumed. It premiered at Sundance, garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, and…

Friday Night Spotlights: Go, Great Scott, Go! Go! Go!

It’s Dallas. It’s Sunday. The Cowboys play at three o’clock. Every Dallasite knows that you need to plan around that. You go to the early service at church, youth soccer games are scheduled in the morning and no sensible Opera company would plan a matinee for that day. But thats…

5 Free & Cheap Culture Events This Week

The Halloween festivities are over, and Sunday was just not enough time to recover from all that drinking that you’re doing. You’ll probably need the next couple of days to rest up, drink fluids, and repair all the damage you’ve caused to your personal property and relationships during your evening…

Five Last-Minute Halloween Costume Ideas From Dallas Drag Star Shangela

Halloween is fast approaching, which means that those of us who majored in procrastination in college are probably seriously freaking out. Even if you’re planning a low-key celebration with friends for this spooky holiday, you’re still going to need a costume. It’s easy enough to strap on some animal ears…

ArtPrize Dallas Is a Big Thing That Won’t Happen Here Next Year

And just like that, the populist citywide art event pulls out from Dallas. A letter that went out to ArtPrize Dallas stakeholders cites reasons for canceling the event including lack of resources and disappointing resistance to an event, which was perceived by cynics “as threatening to the status quo.” This…

Hey, Halloween Candy Switch Witch: Go Suck a Blow Pop.

Some parents call it the “Halloween Candy Fairy.” Some call her the “Switch Witch.” By any name, the concept this thieving mythical bag of turds represents is total Tootsie Roll bullshit. The concept is simple: Kids go Trick-or-Treating, they bring home a ton of candy, they go to sleep and Switch…

13 Awesome Things to Do in Dallas This Weekend, Oct. 29 – Nov. 1

Thursday, Oct. 29 Kyle Abraham: Abraham in Motion Kyle Abraham’s work is inclusive, any way you look at it. It’s inclusive of different art forms: dance (obviously, as he’s a choreographer), music, and visual art; it blends performers of different ethnicities; it mixes classical elements with contemporary; it weaves social…