Could William Shakespeare have had any idea that the suicides of two teens would take over as the standard for romantic sacrifice? Perhaps not, but Franco Zeffirelli certainly did. Especially when he saw the magic that would come from casting two “show business nobodies” in his 1968 version of Romeo…
2/11 Damn Frances Mayes. As if it weren’t enough to move to a farmhouse in Italy. As if it weren’t enough to write a book about it. As if it weren’t enough that the book exploded into a best seller and spawned two follow-ups and a successful film in which…
2/11 The human brain contains about 150 billion neurons. That’s a lot, but it’s still a finite number–that is, there’s only so much brainpower to go around, and most people need all they have and could use a few billion more. So it’s with some small amount of despair I…
2/14 If you’re wondering why your girlfriend has that gleam in her eye, why she’s always talking about how “special” you make her feel, why she left the Tiffany brochure in your briefcase, then you’re stupider than you look. Wake up, buddy, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. Or…
2/10 As much as we love professional dance, there tends to be a separation between the people onstage and the people in the seats that sometimes feels a bit alienating (and not just distance-wise). Having a background in dance, we realize that’s often the case for the dancer as well…
One should expect little from the man who has directed an Olsen twins movie (It Takes Two, the one with Steve Guttenberg, no less), Matthew Perry’s first Friends-to-film entry (Fools Rush In, its title an apparent nod to audiences that went to see it) and Sweet Home Alabama, one of…
The mammoth remodeling project that transformed dominant Oak Lawn nightspot the Village Station into the even larger juggernaut Station 4 was given a much ballyhooed grand opening over the holidays. (Station 4 because it’s the fourth incarnation of the Village Station.) But now that the out-of-towners have gone home and…
The Sea Inside, the new right-to-die drama from Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar (The Others), is a flawed film worth seeing. Based on Letters From Hell, a book by quadriplegic Ramón Sampedro about his 30-year quest to kill himself, the movie favors the emotional over the legal, foregrounding Sampedro’s relationships with…
PARK CITY, UTAH–John Singleton, director of Boyz n the Hood, was all warm grins at the frigid outdoor party on January 22, and with good reason. Hustle & Flow, a movie he produced for 33-year-old writer-director Craig Brewer, was in the process of being sold for $9.5 million to Paramount…
For less than $15, anybody can buy a disposable camera, take 24 shots and pay someone to develop them in an hour. Instant art. It’s understandable why some people refuse to consider color photography as a serious art form. It’s the “works on paper” version of marking a piece of…
Thursday, February 3 Dearest one, How I miss you! I am so excited about your upcoming visit. I bought two tickets for us to see Dear Liar at Theatre Three, 2800 Routh St. on Thursday evening at 7:30. Don’t worry, love, they were only $25 to $30, so I didn’t…
2/5 Humans need surprisingly little to survive: shelter, water, food, the Dallas Observer. As for Americans, we take these natural necessities and then take them to the extreme. Warehouse-sized homes with five bedrooms, three baths, game room–for one lonely occupant. Bottled water from only the freshest streams, pristine valleys, regal…
Taking two steps into the space of an installation by Daniel Roth is more like leaping several miles into the fathomless realm of the imagination. His conceptualist installations invert and explode space, expanding the hemmed-in much in the way the legendary wardrobe did for the children in C.S. Lewis’ The…
Concentrations 46: Zones of Dissolution Escapism can often provide the most direct path to reality. In his three-room installation, Daniel Roth pops the escape hatch, leading us to a reality that is bifurcated–equal parts fantasy and factuality. Roth works in a variety of media, including drawing, photography, sculpture and architecture,…
A Country Life David Mamet updated and rewrote Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya a decade ago. So did British theater great Brian Friel and others. But now Terry Martin, producing artistic director at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre, tries his hand at it, and by golly, he’s come up with a fine adaptation,…
She scoffs at the notion, offered facetiously but sincerely nonetheless, that she is the Paul McCartney to Martin Scorsese’s John Lennon. “I am not the initiator of the concepts and the great simple ideas that make things work,” she says, laughing off the compliment, once more, as she always does…
2/4 Some think the Harlem Globetrotters are nothing more than some corny banter with the kids in the audience and another easy W over the long-suffering Washington Generals. And, yeah, they are, for the most part. That’s the gig. No one wants to see withering defense, hard fouls or constant…
2/8 The key to success–be it in regard to business, art or social situations–is to know your audience, its limitations and how to exploit it. Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding wouldn’t be one of the most revered and accomplished off-Broadway productions if the focus had been on a trip to the…
Hal’s Samples of Dallas 2/5 Should you find yourself at IR Gallery from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, admiring one of Hal Samples’ photographs and on the fence about purchasing said piece, here’s a word of advice. Four, actually: Give until it hurts. Why? Because that’s what Samples has…
When was the last time you lost yourself in a Shakespeare film? It’s a testament to the success of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the sharp and brooding new version directed by Michael Radford (Il Postino), that we leave the theater without concern for the production. Instead, the response…
In her first stab at narrative drama, writer-director Shainee Gabel has managed to assemble a superstar cast and a seasoned technical team. She spent five years on the project, adapting an unpublished novel written by the father of a friend, working with a clarity of vision and an admirable goal:…
Forget, if you want to, that A Country Life is based on Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (originally subtitled Scenes From a Country Life). Chekhov is too tough to digest, so many long Russian names to swallow and heavy soliloquies to chew on for three or four acts. It’s better to…
