Mad Men has always been, among many other things, about the exit of the old guard and the entrance of the new — and the acceleration of that transition by the mood and the movements of the ’60s. The pilot, set in 1960, finds the Sterling Cooper higher-ups scrambling to…
This weekend is an odd one in Dallas art land. With the Dallas Art Fair opening next weekend, quite a few galleries are squeezing in opening receptions so as not to lose patrons to the upcoming signature Fair events. And in a large number of this weekend’s openings there’s an…
Like the canned meat product for which it’s named, the musical comedy Spamalot is a funny-looking conglomerate of weird ingredients, some easily identifiable, some a bit gross. Granbury Theatre Company, the community-based troupe at the historic Granbury Opera House south of Fort Worth, has a tasty fry-up of Monty Python’s…
Furious 7 and While We’re Young are two very different movies — one’s all synchronized driving and explosions, the other’s all sorta-depressed New Yorkers who don’t drive — but both receive generally positive reviews from Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek of the Village Voice, and Amy Nicholson of LA Weekly,…
As a brilliant April Fool’s Day scheme, the geniuses at Google turns its map browsers nationwide into an interactive Pac-Man game. For the next 36 hours or so, cities everywhere will see huge amounts of productivity tossed out the window as we right click our way through the streets of…
Deep Ellum Bark Park Located under that stretch of I-345 off of Commerce Street, this dog park is a respite from the harsh sun in the summertime that’s filled with dogs of all sizes. It’s a fun place to meet new, young dog owners, although there aren’t very many dog-friendly…
Dallas Summer Musicals, so often the host of half-baked road-weary tours of recent Broadway flops, has produced its own fairly lavish and beautifully cast revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic The King and I, now winding up its short run at Fair Park. It’s a good time to get…
Listen up Dallas; I have a bone to pick with you. You don’t know a single dang thing about dating! Why would you with your Tinder meet-ups and Groupster hangs (is Groupster still a thing?) and frankly, I really can’t blame you. We live in an age where dating is…
“This isn’t your English class’ Shakespeare,” Katherine Bourne says in our new video of Shakespeare in the Bar, the wildly popular theater series at Wild Detectives. She’s right about that. We’ve told you how much fun we’ve been having at these pop-up theater performances at the bookstore/coffeeshop/bar in the Bishop…
Last May I sat staring into my laptop and a blank document stared back. One hundred can seem like such a daunting number. But some of the Observer’s sister papers in cities like Phoenix and Miami had come up with 100 creative people to feature in an ongoing series, so…
Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Shay Youngblood is an artist of several varieties. An author and playwright with numerous publications to her name, Youngblood began to write by reflecting on her tumultuous childhood and the women who raised her, or…
See the lighter side of drones on Saturday.We have finally made it to spring, which gives everyone in Dallas a sort of cabin fever that’s different from the one when you’re cooped up in crappy weather. Now, everyone wants to get outside and enjoy the sunshine at temperatures that won’t…
What is reality? How do we build the one we live in? Have you ever asked yourself this? How real are the places you visit? What about the places you haven’t been? You’ll never see all of the natural world, and you’ll only really know the places you’ve been. The…
For the last 15 years, T.J. Jagodowski and David Pasquesi of the comedy duo of T.J. & Dave have started their shows with the same, simple method. They walk out on stage, introduce each other and assure the crowd, “Trust us, this is all made up.” Some music plays, the…
It’s often been said that writers and artists work best when they have a gun to their head. A theater in Plano will provide five casts with that kind of motivation, and since this is Texas, we should probably mention that it will only be a proverbial gun. Rover Dramawerks…
By Jennifer Davis-Lamm The minute we turned onto Field Street on our way to the American Airlines Center for Disney On Ice: Frozen, I knew I was in trouble. My four-year-old, who had been told only that she was going to get to stay out past bedtime for a surprise,…
We’ve been looking for the pinball tables in Dallas for months. It seems they’ve disappeared from some of our favorite spots. But this weekend, we’ll get to use our flipper fingers on the hundreds of pinball tables that will be at the Texas Pinball Festival up in Frisco. It kicks…
This year for its annual charity fundraiser MTV:REDEFINE, taking place on April 10, the Goss-Michael Foundation, in keeping with its educational mission, has adopted a more public attitude. The exclusive fundraiser that auctions off work from artists the likes of Mario Testino, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel will stay fancy…
The Pin Show has a reputation of being much more than your average fashion show and the 2015 event on April 4 will be no exception. The brainchild of Dallas designer, Julie McCullough, The Pin Show features independent, seasoned designers whose works range from swimwear, to women’s ready to wear,…
Some years ago, I went to see Tom Jones perform. He sang all the hits, but I was unnerved by his new, walnut-brown goatee. It looked freshly trimmed and fake, like he’d ripped it off Evil Spock backstage. Superstars aren’t allowed to change. Even the fans who love them insist…
Get Hard, Etan Cohen’s comedy about a white stockbroker who hires a black man to prepare him for a 10-year stretch in San Quentin, is like a spoon that’s almost-but-not-yet sharpened into a shiv. With just a little more effort, it could kill. Judging by the poster, in which star…
Noah Baumbach has always had a dash of hypochondria, but in the last few years, his doctor’s visits have changed. “If you’re a worrier like I am, or Ben,” he says, referring to Ben Stiller, the star of his 2010 movie Greenberg, “you’re used to going, ‘Is this something that…
