If everything is as it should be, a child believes that anything is possible–that his towel cape can save him from a bed-to-floor fall, and that his drawing of a man with one arm four sizes bigger than the other is the start of artistic greatness. And if the child…
When two planes slammed into the World Trade Center almost 10 years ago, sending the buildings tumbling to the ground, it didn’t seem possible that there would ever be anything to replace the New York City landmark. But life goes on, and as the country began to heal artist Manuel…
By this point we shouldn’t need highway road signs, a “Crying Indian” or revamped Los Lonely Boys songs to remind us not to litter. It should be common sense. And yet last year, photographer Dylan Hollingsworth captured on film an area of White Rock Lake that had essentially been turned…
Only inertia will bring people to Michel Gondry’s 3-D spectacle, The Green Hornet. Opening amid persistent negative buzz in the mid-January dead zone, this long-germinating prospective franchise, based on a character that first saturated the nation’s radio waves in 1939, seems pretty much DOA. Rather than a $90 million Gondry…
Dissolute action-movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), first seen doing laps in his black Ferrari, has no destination in Somewhere, Sofia Coppola’s mood ring of celebrity lassitude. Coppola’s fourth feature is, at times, similarly aimless and empty. But those who groan that the writer-director has made another indulgent film about…
When the MPAA handed Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine an NC-17 rating this fall, cynics suggested that the so-called “kiss of death” was better publicity for the gently experimental marriage drama than anything famously crafty distributor Harvey Weinstein could buy. When the rating was reversed this month—downgraded to an R without…
Feels good to start the theater year with some laughs. First show of 2011, Death Is No Small Change!, is right on the money. It’s the new comedy from Pegasus Theatre, now performing its yearly three-week run at the Eisemann Center in Richardson. There’s nothing like a Pegasus show and…
Now that the new year is underway, it is time for you to really start working on all of those resolutions. Yes, that’s right, the smoke has cleared, the confetti has been swept up and you may have even kicked that colossal hangover by now. Get to work! Get out…
Photography is a particularly challenging art form because it serves not only as a vehicle to stimulate our senses, but as a way to document the world around us. So a photographer doesn’t just have to possess an artistic flair–an ability to frame shapes and colors to make a visual…
Back in the day, the coolest birthday parties had ice cream cakes and pinatas filled with good candy, but now it seems a kid’s party isn’t cool unless you have a jumpy house or something even better, like a miniature pony that juggles. We never get invited to the birthdays…
OK, I’m not really a crafty person, so I still haven’t started my life’s scrapbook. Of course I’ve heard about those scrapbooking weekends, but what about us beginners? Well, look no further. Heirloom’s Grapevine Rubber Stamp and Paper Arts Festival is bringing the art of scrapbooking, and just about every…
What do Glee and Oxygen (the TV channel, not the scientific element) have in common? Well, nothing, really, except that they have taken up the call of finding a recurring guest star for the next season of Glee. Believe it or not, the Oxygen network, a channel responsible for high-caliber…
If your New Year’s resolution is to lose the nickname “fat ass,” register for the Jiggle Butt Run, a 5K run/walk for women that benefits Safe Haven of Tarrant County Women’s Shelter. Get a jump start on that resolution and finally get a nickname you deserve, like “hot ass.” The…
If you’re familiar with Joel McHale and The Soup, you’ve probably seen segments featuring Cee Dub, the champion of Dutch oven (cast-iron cookware) campfire cooking. Dub–aside from being a small-screen sensation–is a fan of the Lone Star Dutch Oven Society. On his website he boasts: “After I checked out [its]…
Way back in 1915, some Mexican banditos raided the McAllen Ranch, one of the largest ranches in Texas. The next day, the Texas Rangers came riding in, just like John Wayne in The Searchers, to eliminate the problem. Roland Warnock, a 19-year-old cowboy, saw how the Rangers did it–shooting two…
From his freaky “Thriller” video to his white socks, sequined glove and tight dance moves, Michael Jackson moonwalked his way into the hearts of Americans everywhere after his debut with the Jackson 5 back in the 1960s. With original hits like “ABC” and “I’ll Be There,” his sweet, soulful voice…
Enter the world of high-end hunting at Visions 2011, the Dallas Safari Club Show & Expo. The annual sporting show draws an international crowd interested in safaris and socializing. Hundreds of booths, with vendors ranging from local dealers to African hunting lodges, offer eye-popping items for sportsmen and -women who…
Everybody, including the world’s top assassins, is against Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau. When the insane former chief inspector, Charles Dreyfus, reaches his breaking point, he tries to blackmail the rest of the world into killing his replacement, the world’s most bumbling detective, Inspector Clouseau. In The Pink Panther Strikes Again,…
Stand-up comedian Pablo Francisco’s knack for spot-on vocal impersonations and eerily realistic sound effects combined with his insightful skewerings of our modern pop-culture obsessed world have earned the former MAD TV cast member quite a reputation as a touring comedian. But of all the zany impersonations Francisco incorporates into his…
Two of us at the Observer competed year-before-last in a hot-wing eating contest, racing to down 25 drummettes and wingettes so powerful our skin numbed wherever the sticky orange-red sauce touched. After going the distance, Patrick Michels downed soothing milk, while I begged for mercy and a beer after 13…
From Beck to Woody Allen, some of our most brilliant artists only really hit their stride when they’re forced to grapple with break-ups and frustrated love. Add to the list writer/director Tommy Wiseau, and his 2003 instant classic The Room, which casts Wiseau as the All-American-slash-vaguely-Eastern-European everyman torn apart by…
Many of us grew up on animated canine-based classics like Lady and the Tramp, Snoopy, The Fox and the Hound and All Dogs Go to Heaven. Maybe some even named their own pups after one of these famous pooches. Now it’s time to share the puppy love with the next…
