Trends in movie themes are peculiar things. Sometimes they don't manifest themselves in predictable or expected ways, but they're there right on the screen, looking you straight in the face, begging to be noticed. Case in point: Less than a week after Dallas' first and only showing of Abel Ferrera's...
thursday february 29 Ad-Libs Ninth Anniversary: Having any kind of business survive for nine years is an impressive accomplishment, but when you consider said enterprise is an improvisational comedy troupe, that's an even bigger deal. When Phil Larsson and his buddies started Ad-Libs in 1987, the live-comedy performance field was...
There's been a whole lotta coffee talk going on during the last few years. Mainly, it's been about beans and that's what it amounts to. Bad coffee used to be a hallmark of the cuisine of America, home of the percolator. Now, on every block, there's a place where you...
The March night promised to be chilly. An unusually large crowd turned out for the Sulphur Springs City Council meeting, more than could fit within the warm confines of City Hall, so the meeting was moved to the much larger civic center. When the doors opened, citizens of the small...
Would a bleeding-heart liberal kick a guy while he's down? Should a girl like me, in whom the milk of human kindness flows copiously for everyone, from protein-shy Hottentots to the glandular obese, actually aim a few swift boots at the prone form of Sen. Phil Gramm? Nah. But it's...
It is 9 in the morning, a time most musicians do not see unless their day jobs beckon or they wake up to find themselves in the unfortunate embrace of a sleepover mistake. Deep Ellum usually does not wake at this hour, either, save for the construction site that is...
I wondered, last week as I explored the eponymous cafes of Addison and Highland Park, whether I would find in them any essential "Addison-ness" or "Park-iness," some quality that linked the places with their food and towns. This week found me at Plano Cafe (or rather, I found Plano Cafe...
It's Ladies Week in the ongoing announcement of the 1996 Drive-In Academy Award nominees, and somewhere in this column you will find our favorite Hubbie category (as if I have to tell you which one that is). Get out your pencils, and gimme the goldurn envelope. Best Actress * Maria...
Jackie Chan, the most popular screen actor in the world, doesn't make movies. He is his movies--a one-man film industry, kicking and spinning and leaping his way into cinemas all over the planet. For more than 15 years, he's helped define and develop the Hong Kong film community, appearing in...
Former Dallas Independent School District trustee Dan Peavy has filed suit against the Dallas Observer for reprinting a transcript of the profanity-peppered tape recording that led to his resignation. In its October 5, 1995 issue, the Observer printed a transcript of racist, sexist, and homophobic comments that Peavy admits he...
Just another politician Though it's nothing new for a candidate to stump as "not another political insider," Buzz had to stop and look twice at a campaign sign planted in the Midcities. Bob Stewart, a Republican running for the District 42 state House seat representing parts of Hurst, Euless, and...
Pee-pee? No, GOP I was somewhat appalled at your suggestion that Dallas Morning News editorial-page editor Rena Pederson should take a "G.O.P. urine test" simply because you were not in agreement with the News' editorial assessment of President Bill Clinton's State of the Union address [BeloWatch, "Marching in Lockstep," February...
The good, gray Dallas Morning News has ended its search for a new managing editor by elevating a veteran of 16 years at the paper, and--though he and the News are loath to admit it--a stint chasing UFOs at the National Enquirer. The elevation of Deputy Managing Editor Stuart Wilk,...
Got any out-of-town friends, relatives, clients or other cadgers coming to visit in the next few months? If so, consider taking them to see A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline, which is playing at the Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth through June. Not only will your guests get to...
Frank Black is starting to become unhinged. It is 1 in the morning in England, and he has just finished a performance and is secured in his hotel for the night. The show has gone well, so he says, and throughout the conversation Black is affable and funny--a far cry...
Eating the scraps It is believed, in some critical quarters, that Garbage is a soulless band--the product of three producers so in tune with their studio environment they have lost their passion in their rush to master technology. After all, producers are so often the people who shape the chaos...
One of the noteworthy features of John Kenyon's new bad-boy Red Jacket Nightclub is the mezcal boutique in the bar. Mezcal, the cactus-based liquor from Oaxaca, has always been a bad-ass drink: harsh going down, hallucinatory in its effects. As if to prove what a bottom-of-the-barrel drink it was, there...
The Music of Chance, a little-seen film directed by Philip Haas, is an enigma of sorts, but a fascinating one: After a card sharp loses a poker game, he and a friend must pay off their debt by building a stone wall that serves no purpose. You keep expecting the...
thursday february 22 Let's Play School: With the explosion of high-quality children's entertainment during the past decade, the consistent craftsmanship and wit that infuses the Children's Television Workshop's Sesame Street is a measure of the love behind it. Those of us who learned numbers, letters, and a fine satirical sense...
Back in 1986, Ed Zabel was always watching himself do things he said he wasn't going to do. It happened too many times to count, this exercise, and the photographer marvels at it to this day. "I'd tell my wife, 'hey, I'm going up to 7-Eleven to get a six-pack...
We usually think of the effects of downsizing on those who get laid off. The blizzard of pink slips hits not because the company is in trouble or even because its profits are down, but because downsizing is the corporate vogue. The company's stock goes up, the shareholders are happy,...
Long John Hunter had a gig the day after he picked up a guitar. No shit. One minute he's working at a Beaumont box factory and reluctantly on his way to see B.B. King at the Raven Club at the insistence of some fellow workers; two days later, he's a...
