“Everyone knew Zack was gay. Admit it.” With those few words, Dustin Diamond screws with my head. What’s Screech from Saved by the Bell trying to pull? Back in the ’90s, I watched SBTB three times a day, memorized entire episodes and still never picked up on that possibility. But…
12/4 Few people who attend the Neiman Marcus Adolphus Children’s Parade can actually afford to shop at Neiman Marcus or stay at the Adolphus. Fewer still are those who do shop at the luxury department store who bother to attend the holiday charity event. In fact, any rich old ladies…
12/4 It’s time to dig deep into the recesses of your brain for inspiration. No, not the quarterly report you filed last month. Go further, past your first sexual experience, your first beer and even further beyond. There, you’ve reached it–your “360-degree arctic-blast” throw. You ruled fifth-grade gym with a…
12/2 Quick decision time: Clay Aiken or Johnny Thunders? Jerry Bruckheimer or Jim Jarmusch? Peter Max or Jean-Michel Basquiat? The latter of each pair operates on the artistic fringe; the former is known for his glossy vanilla output. One makes you feel; one makes you forget. Opening Thursday with a…
12/4 Bill Bellamy fits into the category “People About Whom I Have Nothing to Say Whatsoever,” alongside Gallagher II, Hulk Hogan, Sinbad, the father from Alf, Erika Elaniak, the bass player in Lionel Richie’s band and, oh, you. He’s as generic as a bar code, the kind of guy you…
We used to literally wear our religion on our sleeves–the bright red knit ones of our St. Andrew’s Catholic School cardigan sweater. And we wore it even when we weren’t in uniform, so proud were we–nyah nyah–that we got to attend parochial school and were one with God. Then one…
If you’ve ever gone line-dancing with a gaggle of amputees on crank and hallucinogens, you know something of the feeling engendered by viewing Alexander. This broad, bold and ambitious film by Oliver Stone presents itself as a fairly straightforward endeavor, but its rhythms quickly go strange while its participants hobble…
As the year stumbles toward its conclusion and critics begin penning their best-and-worst compendiums, here’s a holiday contender fit for the all-time Naughty List. Based on the John Grisham novel Skipping Christmas–which, face it, is less a novel than a pint-sized impulse item stacked on bookstore checkout counters–Christmas With the…
There are only so many Cratchits and Nutcrackers and flock-watching shepherds a person can stomach this time of year. It’s nice to see theaters offering alternatives to the traditional tinsel-dripping holiday hooha. Opening over the next couple of weeks: Theatre Britain’s lighthearted “panto” version of Snow White at Trinity River…
Circumference of a Squirrel (A Riff With an Inner Tube) It’s not really about a squirrel. And yet, it is. John Walch’s one-man one-act considers the fuzzy circle of life, namely the connections between fathers and sons and men and squirrels. Chester (played with great physical and vocal pizzazz by…
Libby Johnson, New Paintings Johnson paints still-life flora–flowers in vases set against velvety backgrounds, made otherworldly by way of crepuscular glow. Her obsession with the transformation of light at sunset brings to mind the odd counterfeit quality of photo-realist painting, such as early Chuck Close, Richard Estes and Malcolm Morley…
Thursday, November 25 This holiday season, we’re launching a new dieting fad we’re calling The Charitable Diet. The theory is that if you do all the walks and fun runs between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, you’ll burn enough calories to counter all the extra ones you’re eating this season…
When last we saw David Brent, manager at Wernham Hogg’s Slough branch, he was being fired by higher-ups Neil and Jennifer. Brent, his eyes welling with tears, begged for his job, without which he believed he would cease to exist. “I will try twice as hard, I really will,” Brent…
11/26 The 24th annual Dickens of a Christmas on McKinney’s Main Street is met with nothing but a warm embrace and a bit of nostalgia on our part. Our first recollection of Christmas, in fact, is that of logically debunking the myth of any jolly, bearded, red-and-white chimney-giver and adopting…
11/26 You know that wacky family on your block that always goes overboard with the Christmas decorations every year? The one that always manages to come up with a new and different way of working Santa and his reindeer into the Nativity scene with Jesus, Mary and Snoopy? You can…
12/1 In photographer A.O. “Malek” Matesun’s studio is a photo of a woman staring right into the camera, defiant but also worn-out and wasted. Even if you didn’t know that Matesun is putting on an exhibition of photos from sub-Saharan Africa, so overwhelmed by AIDS, it would not be difficult…
11/27 It makes us puke when the Neo-Cons espouse their pet theory: The U.S. government doesn’t have to help anybody. Just let other people help everybody. Keep it in the private sector. Now go away and let us preach to the kiddies. Well, it goes something like that–we don’t always…
We doubt our mater knows the word “punk.” If it is in her vocabulary, it surely appears only when preceded by the words “some little neighborhood.” Rarely would she think to couple it with “rock” or “music.” And in her tapered jeans and layered hair, she would never apply that…
Oh, that Johnny Depp. Played in some dime-a-dozen rock bands, did some average television, made a few cutesy little movies. Whatever. Yeah, he messes with his looks in a fun way sometimes, but otherwise he merely rides that nicotine-sunken-cheeks thing all the way to the bank. The guy’s popular, but…
Jerry Bruckheimer has always insisted he cares less about critical acclaim than commercial appeal. “We make movies for the common man,” he said when we spoke almost three years ago, as Black Hawk Down was crash-landing in theaters. “The pictures that I’ve made over the last 20 years or so…
They’re packing ’em in over at Teatro Dallas for the touring production of Making Porn, a lurid little comedy about the gay porn industry that stars one of its bigger, um, talents. That would be Matthew Rush, a puffy-lipped he-man with arms that hang like chuck roasts from his massive…
Making Porn It’s a bad play with a bunch of naked men in it. And it’s selling out the house at every performance. Matthew Rush, a star of gay porn flicks (one hesitates to call him an actor), plays Jack Hawk, a newcomer to the X-rated world of gay-for-pay. When…
