A meeting of the Dallas Observer minds found us arriving at a happy–and unusual–consensus: Yes, there’s some good stuff playing at the 31st Annual USA Film Festival, but the programming is eclipsed by the people being imported for after-screening Q&As. We’re not talking a Cannes-like cavalcade of A-list names. No…
In 1984, an 8-year-old Hunter Carson made his screen debut as the son of a wanderer (played by Harry Dean Stanton) and a stripper (Nastassja Kinski) in director Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas. Seventeen years later, Carson lives in Dallas and is preparing to craft his own films (as writer and…
As you read this, a 38-year-old Merchant Ivory production called Shakespeare Wallah, about a troupe of English actors traveling through India, is playing to capacity houses at a Left Bank movie theater in Paris. This is not because some film scholar or rep house booker is hosting a festival of…
The Two Years Code War is over, although it’s difficult to say who won. Dallas’ protracted struggle with the Topletz family, one of the city’s biggest owners of slum properties, ended recently with a wheeze: a lawsuit settlement that, in the nature of such things, gave in on both sides…
Suckers: “Pigeon drops,” home-remodeling scams, vacation time-share offers, the Texas state lottery, recording contracts from major labels. They’re all obvious scams that no intelligent person would fall for if he or she just remembered one simple rule: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Pretty basic…
Hypocrites All The truth gets lost: Concerning your story, “Dump Bolton” (April 12), I would like to point out the hypocrisy of the police, John Wiley Price and Laura Miller and her husband. If I were to protest in front of someone’s house and shout obscenities, I am quite sure…
It never works: Trying to pick a winner before the race is over, calling the election before every pencil mark and mouse click is accounted for, tabulated. (Insert your own Dan Rather/Peter Jennings/Tom Brokaw joke here, because we don’t feel like it.) There are always upsets, last-minute votes, surprises. For…
The candidate points disapprovingly at discarded crack vials littering the stoop of an East Oak Cliff convenience store. Then he reaches into his stylish black suit and gives a stringy-haired drifter five bucks for dinner. Dwaine Caraway, friend of the downtrodden, explains his generosity. “He didn’t buy a quart of…
HUNTSVILLE–Stampy the nervous beagle weaves through the metal chairs, braving a tangle of feet and ignoring the hands that sporadically descend to pet him. The dog finds his destination by scent and stops, lifting a leg to spray the weathered base of a wooden pole. His display takes the attention…
Where’s the Proof? Witch hunt: I read Jim Schutze’s article about Dallas police Chief Terrell Bolton (“Dump Bolton,” April 12), and Jim seems to actually believe the chief is silently orchestrating the protests outside Ms. Laura Miller’s home and is therefore responsible for the emotional pain experienced by her husband…
Sauce for the goose: Steady now. This is tricky. Buzz is going to sermonize about civility while trying not to look like the biggest hypocrite since evangelist Jimmy Swaggart went looking for love in all the wrong places. Here goes: That Mayor Ron Kirk, when he’s right, he’s right. Buzz…
She laughs often, a big whooping holler that makes you feel stupid for taking this interview and this story and your life so damn seriously. It’s what makes her well-known, what makes her special. That in a 10-minute conversation, by sheer force of personality, she can make you forget about…
Bumping along rutted caliche roads used nightly by prowling U.S. Border Patrol agents near the South Texas town of Eagle Pass, Isidro Garza sketches in the contours of the brave new world of the Kickapoo Indians. Below, on the brushy bank of the Rio Grande, an 18-hole golf course is…
She stood by the bailiff, arms folded, nostrils in full flair, obviously incensed that she essentially had been arrested and forced to appear in court. But her detention last Friday was not for complicity in the murder that put her husband behind bars for life. It was not for her…
He looks as confident as ever striding into the room, and for a moment you think he might peel back his suit jacket and patterned, blue necktie to reveal a hidden No. 8 jersey. Could be that it’s all some sick ruse, a poorly played joke for the media and…
Letters…We’ve Got Letters: It looked like an April Fools’ joke, except that it was announced on April 3, and the organization that announced it, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, isn’t–how should we say this?–a big fan of the yuk-yuk. According to the DFW chapter of CAIR, it had reached an…
Same Old Bigotry Turn the tables: Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price is at his bullying best when he’s dealing with women and children (Buzz, April 5. Also see this week’s Jim Schutze column.) Dallas City Councilwoman Laura Miller criticized police Chief Terrell Bolton because of accusations that he reduced…
It was a Friday in June 1994, and Dallas private investigator Bill Dear, dapper as ever in his three-piece suit, monogrammed shirt and alligator boots, had completed his speech to the National Conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors and remained in the St. Louis Convention Center to answer questions. On…
Lawrence McBride had reason to celebrate when he met James Halpin for dinner that spring night. With help from his pal Halpin, then chief executive of Dallas-based CompUSA Inc., McBride had just pitched a deal to expand the retail chain south of the border, a project he hoped would one…
Belo Corp. delivered historic preservationists a fait accomplis this week, quietly securing a permit to demolish a historic 10-story building in the West End and then announcing its intentions as the wrecking ball was being hoisted into place. “There’s nothing wrong with the building,” said Ron Emrich, a member of…
Welcome to Monday morning at the corner of Hermosa and Peavy. It’s a mess. Approach the ravaged intersection like a crime scene: There’s one deep wound along the southwest corner, a 3-foot-long, 18-inch-deep pothole half filled with water. There’s a collapsed square of temporary asphalt in the center of the…
Humorless: It’s not that Buzz is getting a big head or wishes to take credit–or blame–where none is due, but we can’t help but feel a little responsible for some of the foulmouthed picketers who gathered outside City Councilwoman Laura Miller’s house twice this week. Last week, writing about how…
