“I see myself writing in the tradition of Shakespeare and Moliere,” playwright Don Evans once told The New York Times. “I’m very much aware I come from a street tradition, but my work came about because of writers I love, like William Shakespeare.” I’m pleased to report that one of…
The damnedest things happen in (early) middle age. At first it’s only a little scary; you see a few crow’s-feet, you wake up a bit stiff, you agree with a Wall Street Journal editorial. Next thing you know, you’ve got metastasizing gray and you’re muttering about “standards” and, worse yet,…
Given the number of people lining up to humiliate themselves on shows such as Temptation Island and Chains of Love, you’d think the connection between fame and shame is a new-millennium phenom. But New Yorkers Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman have been making a scary public spectacle out of themselves…
The notice for the Good/Bad Art Collective’s eighth birthday party was normal. Normal, at least, for the Good/Bad. It was just another wacky, but smart event put on by the prankster artists (or is it artistic pranksters?) at their home at 120 Exposition Street in Denton. It described Forget Anything…
Like some errant, black-sheep Coen brothers movie that slipped away in the night only to be shorn and butchered by neighboring filmmakers, One Night at McCool’s is set in an obnoxious alter-America populated by obtuse caricatures. While this production from Michael Douglas is being touted as a sexy romantic comedy,…
With luck, Yi Yi (A One and a Two), the seventh release from writer-director Edward Yang, one of Taiwan’s most respected filmmakers, will open a vein of interest in Taiwan’s cinema, but it will be an uphill struggle. While it’s a rich and rewarding film, its pace is more leisurely…
A co-worker who regularly attends the theater fairly recoiled when he learned that Dallas Theater Center had programmed Margaret Edson’s Wit into the final slot of the season. He had seen the New York production, and while he could note some of its admirable qualities from a safe distance, he…
All Access: Front Row, Backstage, Live! does not offer the no-holds-barred access to the excess that its name implies. That may not come as a big surprise since IMAX prides itself on maintaining its wholesome, family-entertainment values. And most of the artists highlighted in the film left their decadent periods…
We still can’t decide which type of educational filmstrip did the most damage to our delicate young psyches–the ones in driver’s education that made us fear accelerating over 20 mph and crossing train tracks, the sex films where cartoon kids reacted stoically to the news they’d soon be experiencing nocturnal…
Gabe Kapler calls from Tulsa. His voice is friendly but a little garbled. It’s not the phone line, though. Sounds like he’s munching on something. “My leg feels great,” he says, chomping away, nourishing a body muscular enough to launch a fitness craze if he’d ever go Billy Blanks. “It…
There is no good place to begin with Harry Shearer, because he doesn’t sit still long enough to allow one the chance to focus. He is a blur, forever in motion–on his way to the radio station, on his way from the movie studio, on his way to the publisher’s…
As a kid in Brooklyn, Darren Aronofsky used to steal into Manhattan, taking the D train across the East River to sneak into movies such as A Clockwork Orange and Eraserhead. These were R-rated, and he was still 15 or 16. “They were films,” he says, smiling, “you weren’t supposed…
If you don’t like Tom Green, there’s no point in going anywhere near Freddy Got Fingered, as it won’t win you over. If you don’t know much about Tom Green but are curious, you might be well advised to watch videotapes of his show first, and be aware that inasmuch…
Joe Simon doesn’t read comic books anymore, and not because he’s an 87-year-old man with far better ways to spend his time. The former and, perhaps, future comics writer and illustrator simply doesn’t get them anymore; he doesn’t know who they’re for, what they’re about, why most of them even…
The game is still fresh. Plastic beer cups and wax popcorn bags litter the floor while 18,000-or-so fans strut their way to the nearest Reunion exit, beaming. Some steal one last glance at the frozen scoreboard, nodding approvingly before shuffling off like herded cattle. It was a good night, one…
Playwright Diana Son, who contributed some of the best material to last season’s TV show The West Wing, is a woman who wears her hair very short and eschews makeup. In interviews, the Korean-American writer talks about having been mistaken for a man at various times in her adult life,…
Robert Schimmel, talking from a hotel room in Las Vegas, is a smorgasbord of medical procedures: At this very moment, the stand-up’s on painkillers because of yesterday’s root canal; he suffered a heart attack in 1998; and he spent last year undergoing chemotherapy after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Some…
Sports are a good way to measure a culture. Cricket, for example, reflects the English culture that developed it. In the same way, football (Australian-rules style, natch) rules Australia. In the upcoming World Cup soccer championships, one can witness how a nation’s culture dictates its style of play–from the methodical…
Come clean. You were freaked. It was scrawled across your face, plain as a girl from Tarrant County. Easier to read than simple cousin Merl from Argyle. Even if you don’t follow hockey, even if it isn’t your bag, you were at least a little concerned because, when the second…
“Keep a diary and one day it’ll keep you,” said Mae West, and while the sentiment rings true, it does little to explain the mystery of why Helen Fielding’s sliver of literary history managed to keep anyone. Fluffy, shrill and approximately as deep as Cosmo magazine, the book somehow hit…
Josie and the Pussycats is not a comedy, and it’s even possible the movie’s not a work of fiction, despite being “based on” Dan DeCarlo’s 38-year-old Archie Publishing comic book. It’s tempting to brand the film as documentary, this year’s Scared Straight. There’s very little that’s funny about a movie…
One doesn’t watch Amores Perros (Love’s a Bitch) so much as absorb–like a body blow. “I wanted to make a movie that smelled of filth,” Alejandro González Inárritu has said about his feature directorial debut. He has succeeded beyond perhaps even his wildest dreams. One of this year’s Academy Award…
