Best Dallas businessman 2000 | Lou Reese | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Dallas businessman

Lou Reese

The crafty Deep Ellum developer stands accused in civil court of bleeding several savings-and-loans in the '80s, ratting out a few bank presidents, doing some very short time in the federal slam, and returning a rich man, flush with zillions stashed in offshore banks. Why is Lou the best? Well, anyone can make a killing in Big D when times are good. Hanging onto it in tough times is the tricky part. In this regard, Reese is a Hall of Famer.

Best Online PR Stunt

dotcomguy

In January, a University Park man decided to do what no computer geek had done before: For one year, he would live his life online, his every movement--sleeping, eating, goofing off mostly--would be Webcast to a global audience 24-7. He would abstain from sex and travel (traveling was the hard part), never leaving his home, which was quickly labeled the dotcompound, and only venturing into his backyard for an occasional breath of fresh air. The Internet would satisfy all his needs. He would order food, furniture, and frivolity online in an attempt to prove that man can live by e-commerce alone. What seemed like an interesting social experiment quickly revealed itself as little more than a publicity stunt. Hordes of media types hungry for some millennial meaning stormed the dotcompound, interviewing the cyberbore 10 to 15 times a day. The mass exposure became its own phenomenon, driving hundreds of thousands to his Web site and turning him into one of the first global cyber-personalities, famous for nothing save a good gimmick. Which actually proves something after all: The virtual world isn't much different from the physical world.

Best new museum

The Women's Museum

Labeled "An Institute for the Future," this new institution will open this month in the former Coliseum in Fair Park. Using interactive media, the museum will tell the stories of American women, including those of Harriet Tubman, Dorothy Day, Jane Addams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Maya Lin. Grab your girls and go...girl.

Best IMAX theater (tie)

Cinemark 17 & The Science Place

All right, you caught us. There are only two IMAX theaters in Dallas, but each one has its advantages, its charm, its je ne sais quoi. While The Science Place generally sticks to more, uh, duh, scientific films, the Cinemark goes for the flash and hype. It's The Magic of Flight vs. Cirque du Soleil's Journey of Man, or Wolves vs. Siegfried and Roy. (If only that last match-up were real.) The Science Place has the huge, domed screen whereas Cinemark has a flat, rectangular screen like regular theaters, only with 3-D capabilities. The Science Place has that neat film of a helicopter tour of Dallas. Cinemark has traditional movie theater snacks. Both will end the year with a second run of Fantasia 2000.

Best radio station

Magic 102.1-FM "Jammin' Oldies"

We can quibble with Magic 102's haphazard sense of history in its programming choices--does '80s Madonna, however much a dance-floor mainstay she was then, really deserve so much airplay alongside Donna Summer, one of the greatest pop singers of the past 25 years and one of the canniest, a woman whose endless string of Giorgio Moroder-produced hits enjoys much-deserved new life among the station's "Jammin' Oldies"? We're also sick of hearing Rick James' "Super Freak," among the most repeated oldies offered here. But overall, this expansive menu of '60s, '70s, and '80s soul, disco, and R&B comes up a winner every couple songs. You can't hear the Rev. Al Green's majestic love sermons with such frequency anywhere else on Dallas radio, nor the sweaty efforts of James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin (less "Respect," please, and more "Rock Steady"), Sly and the Family Stone, and Martha and the Vandellas. Although the corporate radio format forbids experimentation, we think Magic 102 FM would only gain listeners if its list expanded to fill the genre's under-respected genius outsiders--Etta James, Labelle (anything besides "Lady Marmalade"), Irma Thomas, Little Milton, Parliament Funkadelic, and Ann Peebles, to name just a few.

Best theater company

Wingspan Theatre

Wingspan Theatre

Best Gadfly/Activist

Anne Carlson, Dallas County chair, Common Cause Texas

She might look like your benevolent aunt, but Anne Carlson is a pit bull. Her quiet but determined approach to uncovering the sleaze of City Hall politics is a refreshing change from the E-histrionics of Sharon Boyd or the eco-tinged good government babble of the Green Party types. They are her allies, but she puts the best foot forward with a more professional approach. She knows the fight isn't about herself but her issues, and she sticks to them tenaciously. As a champion of electoral reform and government ethics, she seldom misses an important meeting and always has coherent material to back her positions. Combine that efficiency with her smarts and even temper (even when goaded), and you have a badass gadfly who could possibly drive real change in Dallas politics. The odds are stacked against her, but hell, we can dream, can't we?

Best place for foreign and indie films (tie)

Inwood Theatre & United Artists Cine

Hmmm...This category was impossible to nail, because we had to choose between the four-screen Inwood Theatre and the two-screen Cine. Both bring the latest in independent and foreign cinema to Dallas and are much appreciated by their patrons. Aesthetically, however, Inwood is tops. You have to give props to Landmark Cinema for keeping a beautiful vintage theater like Inwood in good working shape. But Inwood suffers in the comfort factor. The legroom upstairs leaves much to be desired. The Cine has more than enough legroom, and bless them for it, but lacks the architectural heritage (and full bar). Regardless, we're willing to deal with missing legroom to see our favorite films, and there is always something good at one of the two theaters. Until Landmark builds its proposed new mega-art house on McKinney, or the Lakewood dips full-tilt into the huge pool of edgier fare that never makes it to Dallas, these will be our haunts.

Best TV News Anchor

Gloria Campos, WFAA Channel 8

This was a tough category. Exactly how, we asked ourselves, should we judge Dallas' top news anchor? We finally nailed down our criterion: Whoever doesn't put us to sleep on the couch. Gloria Campos, practically a Dallas institution, has been around for a while, but she still fronts the most smoothly professional newscast in Dallas, even if it has gone softer in recent years by switching to a fuzzy, "Family First" focus. We're not going to chirp about how much we like her hair, make-up, or voice, but we think she's an engaging pro who has a genuine bond with her audience. While her handsome henchmen John McCaa and Scott Sams are both able TelePrompter readers (the three switch during the week), watch out when McCaa and Sams anchor the news together sans Campos! The Hunter-Brinkley thing just isn't working. We're catching Zs before weatherman Troy Duncan makes it onscreen.

Best place to beat the heat

Hurricane Harbor

Get real. Unless you're 12-going-on-13, the only place that promises around-the-clock cool is a seat that faces the window unit. But for those who insist on getting out into the summer sun without baking, Arlington's newest water park is hard to beat. Think a day at the beach with a little Disneyland thrown in--or as one comedian put it, you can think of it as a ride on the enema express.

Best Of Dallas®

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