Just Watch Out for the Popcorn Trick

Rumor has it that to snag his role in Nymphomaniac, Shia LaBeouf sent Lars von Trier a sex tape he made with a girlfriend. You can thank me for that excuse next time you try to talk your significant other into filming your intimate moments. Plus, if you’re creative enough,…

It’s Time for a Little Spring Swinging

Look, we don’t want to jinx anything, but we think it’s finally safe to wear fewer clothes without fear of frostbitten … extremities. (Just mind your ACs, now.) And naturally, spring makes us immediately think of well-choreographed, if not scantily clad, frolics and gravity-defying jubblies. Wait, that’s not everyone? Well,…

Hanging by a Hook

On one end of your block, there may be a neighbor who is devoutly religious, while just down the street, there might be a marathon runner, and two doors over a painter, then three blocks behind you a professional bull rider. The many varieties of human beings make life vibrant…

Photos Without a Filter

Traveling is not the same. Memories from trips blur together, lost amongst the thousands of photos uploaded to Instagram. Nobody uses printed pictures anymore to capture life’s more precious moments. Except perhaps professional photographers. Dallas artist Sally Warren, for example, who currently works in the realms of found digital images…

But Not With Your Car, OK?

Slapstick will always be funny whether it’s the Three Stooges pounding each other’s faces into hamburger meat or some schlub on a security camera falling into a mall fountain because they don’t possess the motor skills one needs to look at a cell phone and walk safely at the same…

Shhh! Watching a Movie Here.

Ever play the cinematic trope drinking game? That’s where you take a shot every time a Hollywood flick uses blunt editing to make a point, employs caricature to drive something home or leans mightily on a visual metaphor. Pick out a random sample of Oscar-winning films, and you’ll be guaranteed…

All the World’s A Stage

As our old pal Bill Shakespeare once said: “The play’s the thing.” He would know — the play certainly was his thing, thus ensuring that it became “the thing” that every high school English student plowed through, CliffsNotes in one hand and forehead clutched with the other. For many, it…

Our Survey Says …

When you think of the most iconic building in Dallas, what comes to mind? Fountain Place or Reunion Tower (you know, the spinny ball restaurant)? More important, what comes to mind for the majority of your fellow citizens? These are the kinds of questions that will be asked at Firmily…

Blink and You’ll Miss It

Do you ever pick up a newspaper from a few days ago and read that your favorite band was in town and wonder how you missed it? Or log into Facebook to see pictures from a party you forgot to attend? Don’t let that happen to you with the USA…

Blink and You’ll Miss It

Do you ever pick up a newspaper from a few days ago and read that your favorite band was in town and wonder how you missed it? Or log into Facebook to see pictures from a party you forgot to attend? Don’t let that happen to you with the USA…

We’re All Bit Players

Are you unfamiliar with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the Tom Stoppard play being produced with a cast of 10- to 16-year-olds at Fun House Theatre and Film? Allow us to sum up the plot in one word: Cabbage, zinc and talcum powder. OK, so that’s not one word, and…

Greener Grasses

In a hilarious joke from the universe, Easter finally falls on April 20. You know, the pot-smoking holiday. While it’s unlikely that any special ingredients will make their way into your grandma’s deviled eggs, the holidays don’t need to be mutually exclusive. I mean, Jesus was a hippie, right? If…

We’re Feeling Spunky

WaterTower Theatre has a mean case of the blues in its newest show. Based on three short stories by Zore Neale Hurston and adapted by George C. Wolfe, Spunk is a play with music that explores love and triumph in the lives of early 20th century African-Americans. The songs by…

Allison Tolman Brings Heat to Fargo and Gets Glowing Reviews

The critics heaping raves on Fargo, the new 10-part series on cable’s FX channel, keep describing its lead actress Allison Tolman as “an unknown.” But Dallas theatergoers know her well. She’s that funny, bold performer who starred in plays and musicals at Second Thought Theatre (a company she co-founded with…

10 Songs from Animated Films that Are Better than “Let it Go”

It’s everywhere. The horribly catchy Oscar-winning song from the cartoon film that everyone saw except you. Until last year, Disney hadn’t made a movie anyone cared about in over a decade. When Frozen came out, no one could possibly have predicted its quick rise to ubiquity. But now you can’t…

Richard Phillips and the Tricky Nature of Artist-Viewer Transactions

It’s Saturday morning just before 11:30 a.m. and the staff at the Dallas Contemporary is adjusting microphones and setting up chairs for its Chit Chat with Richard Phillips. I dusted off my hangover from Friday night’s champagne-laced gallery hopping, because I felt I owed it to Phillips to show up…