In Sweden, Lucia Day is celebrated to honor the promise of the sun’s return after winter. Although the sun doesn’t disappear for too long here in North Texas, we like the idea of celebrating the lightness to come, especially as we close out another year. The North Texas Chapter of…
Consider the Trans-Siberian Orchestra one of the oddest concepts in rock opera if you must. But there’s something about progressive power-metal guitarists teaming up with classically trained musicians to create a multimedia Christmas show that might just warm your heart. Or at least steam it up. What’s a TSO show…
There are things to be learned from Love Actually. First, the title must be pronounced with an upper-class accent (think Thurston Howell III), where “actually” has four syllables instead of three. It’s a moral imperative, and should be a required question on the SATs. Second, Hugh Grant is much hotter…
Veins, arteries, muscles and all sorts of other mysterious and squishy elements are constantly squirming around beneath your skin every day. Most of us never stop to think how they function or how the subdermal landscape might look without our pretty skin to keep it all nice and safe inside…
Doomsday is upon us, and Half Price Books is hosting the much-anticipated event. Well, not exactly. Artist and former Dallas Cowboys Doomsday Defense member Dave Edwards will be on hand from 10 a.m. to noon Friday at the 5803 E. Northwest Highway location, with 50 limited-edition reproductions of his original…
Few things are as tacky as a Gaylord Hotel. Big, brash and garish, Gaylord’s larger-than-life accomodations hit you on the head with their all-thumbs design. The Gaylord Hotel in Nashville, for example, features a slightly smaller version of the Mississippi Delta where Midwestern tourists can be seen paying for boat…
For many children, Santa Claus’ impending arrival is first signaled by his appearance at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But when I was a kid, you didn’t even think about Santa coming until Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band said so, usually by launching into a…
Every Santa’s been there. One minute you’re dropping off a little gift, just trying to do your Santa business, and the next you realize—”Whoops! Slipped down the wrong chimney.” The first tip-off is usually a startled woman screaming at you. “It’s slippery out,” you say, trying to calm her down…
The stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ contemporary Christmas comedy classic, The Santaland Diaries,/B>, returns for its spectacular sixth season, this time in the Studio Theatre of the Addison Theatre Centre. Ted Wold fills Crumpet’s tiny, bell-toed booties and relives the tales of Sedaris’ brief employ as a department store elf…
Apocalypto has a faux Greek title and an opening quote from historian Will Durant that ruminates on the decline of imperial Rome. It may seem an odd way to comment on the supposed end of an imaginary, unspeakably barbaric Mayan civilization—but WWJD? Mel Gibson means to be universal. Not just…
From its wink-wink, nudge-nudge movie-within-a-movie opening through to its bold-faced quoting of such classic Hollywood farces as The Lady Eve and His Girl Friday, Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday wants us to know that it’s different from the kind of rom-com pabulum that fills the multiplexes these days. And it is…
Like Joanne Woodward’s characters in The Many Faces of Eve, the Dallas Museum of Art is a cultural beast with multiple personalities. There is the mousy, provincial Eve White who wears out-of-date clothes and speaks with a slow Southern drawl. She is fearful, old-fashioned and kowtows to the world. Then…
That fat Christmas tree in the parlor is the first hint that things aren’t exactly kosher in the Levy/Freitag family. In Alfred Uhry’s light and likable play The Last Night of Ballyhoo, set in 1939 Atlanta, the Levys and Freitags celebrate the Nativity, hold Easter egg hunts and aren’t exactly…
Rocky: 2-Disc Collector’s Edition (MGM) An old TV commercial for Rocky included here compares Sylvester Stallone to Pacino, De Niro, and Brando — and though we now know this to be pure madness, it’s easy to see what inspired it. Sure, Stallone (who also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay) slowly destroyed…
I did not have to fend off a horde of bloodthirsty geeks for my PS3. And nobody shot me either, as one hapless Connecticut gamer was. Actually, I just preordered my console weeks ago, and on the day it came out, I walked into the store, paid for it, and…
The Architect (Magnolia) Beerfest: Unrated (Warner Bros.) Charlie Chan Collection, Volume 2 (Fox) Coma Girl (Cinequest) The Conformist: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Dinosaur Valley Girls: Mammoth Edition (Cinema Epoch) Dungeons & Dragons: The Complete Animated Series (Brentwood) Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton: The Film Collection (Warner Bros.) Gwen Stefani: Harajuku…
Because the audience is so—ahem—tired at a midnight showing, the louder and more easily followed a movie is, the better…if it’s going to be followed at all. The Fifth Element is on the marquee for Midnight Madness at the Inwood Theatre this weekend, and it fits the bill nicely. The…
What’s the perfect present to give someone you hate? Um, how about tickets to both nights of KDGE’s Christmas craptacular, How The EDGE Stole Christmas? The radio station presents two nights of uninspiring rock and roll blands (no typo) just in time for the holidays. You know, there was a…
Not only can ladies sing the blues, but sometimes one lady can hold within her many types of them. The Black Academy of Arts and Letters proves this as Sandra Reaves Phillips channels the lives and music of blues and jazz greats such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday…
Peptoboonsmal. At first it sounds like a child’s nonsense word. But the multi-syllable proper noun means the world to author Elaine Hall. Peptoboonsmal is the name of a cutting horse, one specifically chosen by her husband, Larry Hall, to be the future of their horses’ stock. Larry singled Pepto out…
I’ve never crossed the Caribbean via raft, but I can’t imagine a painting that captures the mood of those fleeing Cuba as well as Rolando Diaz’s “Ahora Que? (What now?).” In it, a man sits in a wooden boat with his head in his hands, and the full moon shines…
To paraphrase the old Saturday Night Live skit, if it’s not A Scottish Christmas, it’s crap. Which is all the more reason why you want to catch A Scottish Christmas, a veritable holiday extravaganza coming to the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth. The event will include traditional Scottish carols,…
