Once, while in the throes of a Sunday morning hangover, I agreed to go to a Dallas Desperados football game with a friend. To me, football has always been a game where it took a bunch of guys in white pants about 20 minutes to move four yards—hardly a spectator…
At this time of year, when the words “Bowl” and “Hall of Fame” are mentioned, they’re usually related to sweaty athletes. That’s not the case for violinist Joshua Bell, recent inductee to the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. He plays in G major instead of the major leagues, and his…
Freedomland manages a seemingly impossible feat: It’s both turgid and overwrought, eliciting the shriek that fades into a yawn without anyone ever noticing. It’s a wholly dreary piece of work, yet another dismal entry on the résumé of director Joe Roth, an only-in-Hollywood hack who’s allowed to make movies, among…
Penguins, shmenguins. If you want some new insight into the codes of animal behavior, have a look at Eight Below, an inspirational adventure in which a team of sled dogs marooned in Antarctica fights to survive winter without benefit of man or Milk-Bone. In the process, the intrepid furry heroes…
Aida the grand opera by Giuseppe Verdi and Aida the Elton John/Tim Rice rock musical now running at the Uptown Players have one thing in common. One thing, that is, besides the title, the setting (Egypt at the time of the pharaohs) and the love triangle involving handsome navy captain…
When you think of Robert Ryman’s work, you think white. Ryman has made square paintings in various alabaster hues–waxen, pearly, gray–for the last 50 years. They are carefully wrought surfaces without the avant-garde hullabaloo. His work brings to mind the Soviet painter Kasimir Malevich’s vaporous “White on White” (1918), a…
Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson: Uncensored! (Paramount) This sucker’s vulgar — duh — but not shocking in the least bit; Sarah Silverman swears, and Courtney Love drinks and smokes . . . who knew? That said, this roast ranks among the meanest ever televised; why Bea Arthur shows up…
Ah, the Winter Olympics. The nip of drama in the Alpine air. The purity of amateur competition. Swedish women in full-body spandex. These are all things we enjoy about the winter games. Now for some things we don’t: losing to Canada in hockey, male figure skaters in blouses, and of…
Disney Princess Sing Along Songs, Vol. Three: Perfectly Princess (Buena Vista) Emmanuel’s Gift (First Look) The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: The Complete First Three Seasons (Warner Bros.) The Frisco Kid (Warner Bros.) Gimme a Break!: Season One (MCA) Grey’s Anatomy: Season One (Buena Vista) He-Man and the Masters of the…
“He lied, cheated, and killed all in the name of love.”—that tag line cited on Internet Movie Database sums up the plot of the oft-filmed thriller Love From a Stranger, adapted from a short story by Agatha Christie. Cecily (Alicia Bullen) wins the lottery, then falls in love and marries…
It’s surprising that Forrest Gump made the lineup of the Quick Comedy and Cocktails night at the Lakewood. I wouldn’t consider a three-hour movie about a slow-witted Southerner (containing 30 solid minutes of shrimp recipes) a “quick” comedy. And the timing couldn’t be worse. Every bite of that Valentine’s Day…
Beware the Black Watch! These formidable agents from overseas will soon arrive on our hallowed land with all their dastardly weapons in tow! Yarrrr, these Scots be armed with tartan! With bagpipe! With drum and dancers! With such enthusiasm as to force otherwise calm, collected writers to overuse exclamatory punctuation!…
Depending on how many whiny pleas for videogames and sugary breakfast cereals you cave in to, it can cost up to $15,000 per year to raise a child in the United States. Responsible cats ponder this stuff too; what with the high price of catnip mice, designer litterboxes and hairball…
Mapmaking has never been an easy job. If you weren’t lamenting the earth being flat or figuring out a secret passageway to India, you were hoping Stalin would like your communist cartography—so you wouldn’t be shot. Mapmakers after the Civil War had a uniquely challenging (if slightly less life-threatening) task:…
Your basic art exhibit finds people doing the requisite mill-and-pose in front of various works, mumbling about the pieces or nodding in agreement until they casually leave to go make fun of other attendees’ clothing. It’s all rather chichi and typically anticlimactic. Not so with Bytes and Pieces, an electronic…
I, for one, have never heard of gay gypsies. I’m quite certain they exist, but they have never landed on my gaydar. Similarly, a friend of mine told me he couldn’t see Brokeback Mountain because “there aren’t any gay cowboys.” After wiping away tears of laughter, I thought, what if…
Dallas doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being the most low-key, down-to-earth of cities. We are the home of the $30,000-millionaires. Our semi-private clubs (cough, Medici, cough) have both the nerve to mispronounce the actual usage of the family name and advertise themselves on a billboard on Cedar Springs Road…
Texas needs more politicians like Kinky Friedman. He’s got a heart bigger than his hat, at least when it comes to stray animals. In 1998, the author, musician and gubernatorial hopeful founded the Utopia Animal Rescue with friend and fellow dog lover Nancy Simons. Since then, the no-kill shelter has…
On the third Thursday of each month, the Nasher Sculpture Center hosts Thursday Night in the City, a night of special programs, evening walks and cocktails. On February 16, the Nasher reflects on what Thursday nights in this city might be like in the future. Raymond Nasher leads a panel…
Iraq today is a lot like Spain after its fascist dictatorship ended in 1978. Spain had mutually hostile provinces and well-armed terrorist groups. So what kept Spain from bloody anarchy? Clearly not the legions of U.S. troops stationed there. No, it was the fabulous food (it’s hard to fight in…
You’ve got to work with what you’ve got. And if you’ve got 10 personalities vying for top billing in your body, why not give each one its own time in the limelight? For Jamie Dakis, that’s exactly what’s happening. She’s an Alaskan woman diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and her…
Dallas artist Jennifer Morgan paints more than her share of women, all fairly attractive despite their freakishly exaggerated features. However, while I can certainly handle some big eyes and bee-stung lips, these ladies’ noses are out of hand, each bearing a squiggly line that’s meant to demarcate the boundary between…
