Alain Resnais’ last completed film, Life of Riley (2014), presents a group of aging friends who plan, hope, wish, dream and scheme after they learn that one of their own is dying. The doomed man, George Riley, never shown onscreen, is enlisted to join an amateur theater production in the…
(Spoiler alert: The following piece discusses up to the February 16 episode of Looking.)HBO’s Looking has had a tough time winning over its intended fans. Upon its premiere, Gawker’s Rich Juzwiak yawningly summed up the political achievement of creator Michael Lannan’s wonderful half-hour dramedy about three homosexual men in San…
First, the pleasant surprises. In puffing up the slight, absurd Mr. Peabody and Sherman shorts from Jay Ward’s The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show into an 82-minute 3D save-the-timestream child-distractor, director Rob Minkoff and his many writers have preserved a few of the hallmarks distinguishing the Dada, deadpan, almost primitive original,…
If you were to survey people who pay attention to movies — to go door-to-door with a clipboard, a sharpened No. 2 pencil and a sheaf of forms with the word SURVEY printed in clean block letters across the top, later to be tabulated on a vintage Underwood adding machine…
Ray Charles sang about ’em, which led Kanye West to rap about ’em. Gold diggers plague our society, but it’s like my grandmother always says, “It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man.” In her new exhibition at Caldwell Arte Exposicion, local…
It’s a childhood fantasy come true: attractive women acting out your bedtime stories in their skivvies. The annual Bedtime Stories show from Viva Dallas Burlesque, one of the best troupes in town, brings fairy tales and nursery rhymes to life. Violet O’Hara emcees this event, while some of the city’s…
ArthouseFW, a year of carefully curated films, presented by the Lone Star Film Society, the Modern Art Museum and Kimbell Art museum of Fort Worth, shows Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 masterpiece Harakiri as part of the Samurai Series presented in conjunction with the museum’s Samurai exhibition. The film, which won the…
Comedians like Jim Jefferies always seem to be living a life that’s slowly spiraling toward some dark abyss, much like how he recently described the cast of characters on his FXX show Legit. And yet, they have fame, fortune and a massive audience that hang on their every dark, brooding…
Want to have a few drinks and yell out random words to some strangers on a stage? Want to do it without a police escort to the lockup? Then Dallas Comedy House is the place for you. This Saturday, check out Age Appropriate, a two-person improv show that manages to…
Most things in life are better with an infusion of Tex-Mex — including (and especially) alcoholic beverages and avocados — so it stands to reason that a 140-year-old opera might benefit from the spice and vitality that this blend of cultures lends to just about everything it touches. George Bizet’s…
What it means to be truly alive is a fundamental question of art. After all, when we stand in front of a painting it is an acknowledgment that we are present. We are alive. This affirmation of life is the crux of the newest exhibition at W.A.A.S. Gallery, an acronym…
Tito Muñoz is a hot young conductor from New York who is known for his work with Ensemble LPR, a group that takes classical music out of the concert hall and into the club. On Friday, Muñoz will join the Dallas Symphony Orchestra as guest conductor for ReMix, the symphony’s…
No, this isn’t the Kate Chopin novel you struggled through in high school English. The Awakening at The Majestic Theatre is a story of feminism and overcoming pretense. A theatrical experience from The Fashion Opera, this story of legendary diva Vanity Black follows her as she reconciles the ideals of…
Shakespeare starts getting pounded into your head somewhere early in your high school experience, so much so that you begin to take it for granted. Sure, there’s that initial thrill when you read Romeo and Juliet for the very first time — seeing the lyrical twists and turns that inspired…
The great thing about comedy writers is … they’re really good at writing comedy. B.J. Novak is one of the dudes. You know him from The Office, but he is oh so much more. His latest project is a book of short stories called One More Thing: Stories and Other…
Monty Python and the Holy Grail has to be one of the most quotable movies ever made. There are some scenes where it’s impossible not to quote along. For me, it’s the sea of insults thrown upon the Knights by the French guards. After I saw it for the first…
Caucasians have gotten off easy when it comes to racial epithets. At worst the light-skinned demographic might get called “cracker,” and anyone who’s said “honky” in the last 30 years has come off sounding more like George Jefferson than H. Rap Brown. Playwright Greg Kalleres has posited that the only…
Admit it: When all manner of Law & Order stops airing at 3 a.m., you turn to an even older standby. One with red hair you can see through black and white, and a whine that might make you dial down the volume. We all love Lucy, don’t we? Well,…
In the climax of WWII, a politicized teenager on the verge of socialism returns to London, only to find his widowed mother mistress to a man he equates with the enemy. The affair with the boy’s mother distracts a senior minister from the storming of Normandy. Fresh from Canada where…
No question, Dallas Theater Center artistic director Kevin Moriarty is obsessed with flying. Superhero style. Like faster than a speeding bullet all the way to Neverland. Since he’s already done musicals about Superman and Peter Pan, he’s looking for fresh material. So he’s put wings on The Fortress of Solitude,…
If you go to a classical concert in Dallas this month expecting to see 50 shades of gray hair in the audience and/or onstage, you’ll likely be surprised. Several local organizations are gearing their programming towards younger crowds this March, wooing the under-40 set with more relaxed concerts in alternative…
It’s official, AMC announced the premiere date for its new series Halt and Catch Fire,the drama set during the PC boom in Dallas. The show will debut Sunday, June 1 at 9 p.m. CST. The show takes place in the early 1980’s and tells the story of the race to…
