It’s a dumbfounding irony that the fiction of the “entitled, selfish millennial” was invented by Baby Boomers. The generation that created Saturday Night Live and National Lampoon grew up to be weirdly deaf to irony, and probably won’t even get what a damning metaphor Last Vegas accidentally turns out to…
The title All Is Lost promises despair, especially with Robert Redford looking so stolid and weathered and still-got-it golden on the poster. Could this near-silent, you-are-there survival story be another of Redford’s yawps of boomer gloom? Another complaint, like The Company You Keep, about the realization that the world we…
It’s almost a relief that Ender’s Game has turned out to be a glum bore onscreen, a far-future cadets-in-space military drama whose pretensions to moral inquiry boil down to the guilt a kid may feel after stepping on an anthill. If the film had turned out grand, like the best…
Medieval Times (2021 N. Stemmons Freeway) doth dare you to adorn yourself in your most triumphant garb and take part in an evening of horse-based revelry. Arrive in a properly foolish outfit and receive “an upgrade to royalty,” which we assume means first dibs at the community bathtub. Tickets are…
After his success with House on Haunted Hill, film studios were inclined to let director William Castle mess around a bit with his horror films. He did that in 1959 with his gimmicky camp classic, The Tingler, which Texas Theatre (231 W. Jefferson Blvd.) resurrects Thursday, along with its spine-teasing…
There’s a thing called the Bad Prom 5K that’s so much more than just Bad Prom and a 5K. First of all, you run in your worst prom dress … at dark. (Fingers crossed it’s plastered with sequins.) Along the race path, you’ll dash through every predictable prom theme, loaded…
If you think the symphony isn’t for you — that it’s too snooty, too drowsy, too expensive — we urge you to reconsider. Not because it can’t sometimes be all of those things, but because on a good night going to a symphony can be completely thrilling, and the Dallas…
Don’t put that costume away just yet, because the Halloween spirit is being extended, and it’s for a good cause. At the 2013 Witches’ Ball, Feline Phantasm, all the lovely witches will be trading in their black cats for a special benefit honoring their big cat brethren. An outbreak of…
Herb and Dorothy Vogel are two New York civil servants, a postal clerk and a librarian, who managed to amass one of the biggest collections of contemporary and conceptual art of the last 50 years. All told they had nearly 5,000 pieces, including works by Picasso and John Chamberlain. In…
When buddies and collaborators Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Larroquette talk shop in their podcast Uhh, Yeah Dude, there’s no pop culture faction left unrepresented. They dig through the fat folds of the Internet — lifting up its smelliest skin flaps — then peer in that mess to see what’s growing…
Last April Price is Right Live! announced the game show would visit the Majestic. We called in sick to our jobs, using the time to intensively study price points of common consumer goods — blenders, dreaded dinette sets, sexytime hot tubs and jet skis — so that victory would be…
The period between Halloween and Thanksgiving can be a bleak spot in an otherwise holiday-laden season. Thankfully there’s still reason to be festive. The Dallas Observer Music Awards (don’t think about the initials) is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and is officially old enough to get drunk or rent…
Dallas skateboarder Jeff Phillips was landing tricks in skate parks before Bob Burnquist could walk. He popularized “Phillips 66,” an adaptation of the fakie 360 invert. He even beat skateboard legends Tony Hawk, Mike McGill and Steve Caballero in the same tournament (reportedly while he was tripping on acid). But…
Got a special place in your heart for a pit bull? You’re not alone. Those square-headed beasts have a bad rap, to be sure, but plenty of pitty lovers are putty in the paws of the misunderstood pets. At the third annual Rock-A-Bully, you’ll get a chance to meet up…
Don’t know an armature from an architrave? Does a balustrade sound like a piece of maddening Scandinavian furniture? It’s OK. Despite all the fancy words, architecture is way open-source these days, drawing from and contributing to popular art and communication in a way that’s never happened before. In other words,…
If you haven’t heard of it, WNYC’s Radiolab is like This American Life’s cool little brother. As with This American Life, there are moving stories, freak phenomena, surprising coincidences — but with a lot more science. And sound effects. On their show, hosts Jad Abrumrad and Robert Krulwich have explored…
The NY Film Critic Series is a pretty sweet setup. It presents advance screenings of award-winning independent films, throws in live Q&As with big-name filmmakers and stars, and gives us normal folk an opportunity to join in the action. So why are we telling you about it? After all, the…
Long before Spaniards came and mixed things up with Catholicism, Meso-Americans dedicated a festival to Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec queen of the underworld. The natives decorated their ofrendas (altars of the dead) and crafted skull figurines and art to pray and remember deceased family and friends. Now the Mexican holiday is…
Tom Sale is curating The Florence Project at the Webb Gallery and it’s going to be a real doozy. The brain that has created skull spoons, handjobs in hell and foul-mouthed elf ornaments has now created an entire show on his latest obsession — Florence Nightingale. Sale has been studying…
Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club.On this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, our critics discuss the upcoming Dallas Buyers Club, the late Lou Reed, 1983’s Get Crazy, 1979’s The Visitor, and 2008’s In Bruges. Matthew McConaughey extends his streak of taking on challenging roles in Dallas Buyers…
We’re modern home voyeurs. Floor-to-ceiling window gazers. Xeriscape fanatics. We trail in Le Corbusier’s wake, intrigued by architecture designed to serve its interior. That’s why we grow impatient each Fall, waiting for the AIA Dallas Tour of Homes to illuminate the city’s most captivating residences. This is the seventh annual…
I bet it smells so good in there. The AIA Dallas Tour of Homes is gorgeous. Organized by local architects to celebrate great design, the hunt invites you through the interiors of ten stunning residences. Once there you’ll marvel and say, “Where do they put all of their stuff?” It…
