It’s literally the elephant in the room. Only in Kirk Hayes’ “Protective Covering Smoldering,” someone is trying to cover him up. Desperately. But they’re doing a terrible job of it. Terrible. The pink blanket silhouettes what is clearly an elephant. Except, it’s not just an elephant. It’s also some sort…
Playwright Sarah Ruhl knows how to construct plays. Focus tightly on a topic — a crime, a scandal, some scurrilous bit of history. Then follow a Law & Order-style template of revelations and crises up to a semi-shocking finale. She does exactly this for In the Next Room, or the…
Last night I ate the art at the Dallas Contemporary. Everyone there did. It was an installation/performance art piece, one of the Contemporary’s LEGENDARY events, called Made in Texas and created by New York artist Jennifer Rubell, and the point was not just to see the art, but also to…
Some customers might get a bit of a surprise if they decide to ring up “Ticketmaster” for tickets to The Canadian Tenors, Chicago and Riverdance concerts with the Dallas Pops Orchestra. Wait, let’s clarify. They might be surprised if they use the number in the ad provided on Page 3…
We’ve seen old Scrooges and fat Scrooges and bearded ones and bald-headed ones. Now for Dallas Theater Center’s annual staging of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, we’ll get to see a tall, good-looking one. And three other lanky chaps in the other major male roles. As Scrooge, it’s Kurt Rhoads,…
Frank Campagna is not only a talented local artist, he’s also a sweet father. Last night marked the opening of the exhibition Campagna2, which includes both Frank’s work and his daughter Amber’s paintings as well. I stopped by his Deep Ellum gallery, Kettle Art, to chat with the elder Campagna…
“I’m a very colorful person, I wear a lot of colors and have color in my hair. I like to be edgy” Style breakdown: Vintage boots, mini dress, leather jacket, fringed suede purse…
For his latest role in Moneyball — from director Bennett Miller (Capote), written by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List), and based on author Michael Lewis’ 2003 non-fiction book by the same name — Jonah Hill is switch hitting the comedy for the drama. Hill first…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. Every season Dallas Theater Center’s artistic director Kevin Moriarty finds a way to soup up…
In parts one and two of our fall fashion series, we covered this fall’s looks and necessities for the closet. What’s the point of spending all your cash on a new wardrobe, however, if it’s paired with dull, patchy skin and press-on nails from the ’80s? To help complete your…
By now, a good number of you regular theater goers probably checked out Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, which sped into theaters last weekend. One of the elements of the film that cannot be ignored is Ryan Gosling’s white quilted sateen racing jacket, emblazoned with a giant scorpion patch on the…
If the world does end soon, we can leave as happy campers. We came, saw and conquered. Well, we conquered Dallas at least, and we have the proof that we’ve experienced the best this city has to offer in our Best of Dallas 2011 issue, which hit newsstands today and…
Labor Day might mark the unofficial start of fall, but fall really begins this Friday. We’ve suffered through record-breaking heat and, maybe worse, Pete Delkus’ tweets about it, for months, but now with football season in full swing and the State Fair just around the corner we can officially get…
At the time of this writing, the Oakland Athletics sit at a distant third in the American League West, 18 games behind the Texas Rangers managed by Ron Washington, once the first-base coach under A’s wonderboy Billy Beane. The A’s have not had a winning season since making the playoffs…
In Brighton Rock, Rowan Joffe’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s 1938 novel, Sam Riley plays Pinkie, a baby-faced junior thug who takes advantage of his mentor’s murder to catapult himself to the top of their two-bit gang. An obstacle to his criminal dominance is Rose (Andrea Riseborough), a teenage waitress who…
Adapted from Muriel Barbery’s international best-seller The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Mona Achache’s first film, The Hedgehog, follows two parallel storylines: one featuring a thoroughly insufferable little girl, the other a pleasingly grumpy middle-aged widow. Scrawny, bespectacled, precocious 11-year-old Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic), disgusted by the futility of her bourgeois…
Wholly unrelated to the 1975 Sam Peckinpah film of the same name, Killer Elite is distinguished by one no-mercy, eye-gouging, testicle-punching brawl, and one whoppingly indifferent screenplay. After a collateral-damage close call awakens his conscience — the first of many perfunctorily recycled bits to come — hitman Danny Bryce (Jason…
Once upon a time, Peter Gatien ruled clubland in New York. With spots such as Limelight and Tunnel, the impresario who wore an eye patch figured out all the post-Studio 54 strategies for getting people to queue up in order to empty their pockets. Chances are you know this already,…
Starting the fall theater season seeing Shakespeare is like being served a big dose of cod liver oil as an aperitif. The stuff is hard to swallow, but you know it’s supposed to be good for you. You just hope that what comes after is more enjoyable. Dallas Theater Center,…
The Dallas Stars saddle up for the new season with hopes of ending their three-year absence from the playoffs. Dallas hosts the Colorado Avalanche for their second match-up of the pre-season. General Manager Joe Nieuwendyk looks to reboot his team, which, in recent seasons, has established potential, but has been…
In our younger years, we were more impressed by the songs and costumes than the choreography in the Broadway version of The Lion King, but now we have a whole new appreciation for the art of modern dance. The man behind the moves in that award-winning musical is Garth Fagan,…
Unless you’re standing at the helm of a spaceship right now, you already know the life of James T. Kirk is far from normal, but it gives us warm fuzzies to know that he’s got problems just like us. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Admiral Kirk, is…
