According to The Story of Us, men and women have different responses to life, love, and sex, and this can sometimes result in conflicts and tension in a marriage. And you thought American Beauty was daring. The “us” of the title are Ben (Bruce Willis) and Katie (Michelle Pfeiffer). He’s…
Surely it’s masking tape. When you closely scrutinize each of Kirk Hayes’ paintings — the wood grain, the torn paper, the meandering glue splatters — you eventually make out that it’s all actually paint. But when you walk to the next one, you’d swear the illusion has finally given way…
If we stage critics think our deadlines are cruel to us, they can be murder to actors — especially when a preview performance must be reviewed. Psychological preparation is everything for a stage actor, because that safety net known as “retakes” in the film world doesn’t exist on stage. The…
I think I may have discovered the perfect formula for enjoying a popcorn-throwing spoof at the Pocket Sandwich Theatre — mid-sized audience composed of a big chunk of theater people consuming moderate amounts of beer watching a script written by Dallas playwright Steve Lovett. Yes indeedy, all the stars were…
In denial Dan Hartsfield, lead attorney for Talley Dunn in her million-dollar lawsuit against former employer Gerald Peters, says Peters has answered by filing a general denial of all claims, which he expected. What he didn’t expect was Peters’ moving the case to federal court. “You could say they made…
Growing up in this melting pot of a country we call home, is it surprising that the exposure of most Anglos to the Hispanic culture came from reruns of Chico and the Man and a half-dozen Cheech and Chong movies? Sure, there was much to absorb from the adventures of…
There was a young curate whose brain Was deranged from the use of cocaine He lured a small child To a copse dark and wild Where he beat it to death with his cane Welcome to the perfidious pen of author-illustrator-playwright Edward Gorey, who for five decades has drawn those…
He still looks young, even up close — like a memory come to flesh-and-blood life, not yet the vestige of a hero. There is a little gray in the eyebrows, and his hands look callused and battered. But otherwise, sitting beneath a shade tree behind the Four Seasons Resort and…
You’d think that the biggest annual fair in the nation’s biggest state would pack some genuine art. Not only crafts — quilts, pottery, and such — which a fair seems obligated to showcase, but some indication of the region’s artistic leanings. If the State Fair of Texas is supposed to…
With all the recent publicity about school shootings, a story about a classroom terrorized by a sadistic, witchy substitute teacher seems quaintly anachronistic — no Goth makeup, no consciences deadened by video-game violence, just disruptive little tykes who love recess and hate homework. I couldn’t help but wonder how many…
By 1954, when English playwright-composer Sandy Wilson wrote the book, lyrics, and music for his first and only major stage success, The Boy Friend, a celebration of the 1920s, America and England were experiencing a déjà vu of decades. Folks on both sides of the Atlantic were comparing the ’50s…
Everyone’s a critic Two big names in art criticism are coming to Dallas, and neither one of them is New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who last week added his name to the list of politicians bent on shaping American minds about art. “It’s not art. It’s disgusting,” is Guiliani’s…
When I was growing up, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was the closest thing I had to a paternal mentor, the only authoritative voice I consistently trusted. Novel after freakish, scattershot, infinitely humane novel, the man provided tools to identify and cope with the daily horrors of America — this vast sea…
The triumvirate is complete. First, Paris, Texas; then Dancer, Texas Pop. 81; and now Happy, Texas. German existentialism. Coming-of-age melodrama. Screwball mistaken-identity crapfest. Is there any situation small-town Texas can’t fulfill, any scenario it can’t endure? Apparently not, according to indie filmmakers. In this one, two cons on the lam…
Trust Allison Anders and her old running mate Kurt Voss to come up with a piquant, carefully observed movie about tarnished hope, overfed vanity, and half-baked scheming on the treacherous Los Angeles music scene. They know the territory. In 1988, the ex-UCLA Film School classmates wrote and directed Border Radio,…
Insomniacs, rejoice! During the first several decades of Sydney Pollack’s bloated, interminable Random Hearts, your eyelids will droop, your pulse and respiration will slow, and you’ll get that $8 nap you’ve been craving. Once the credits roll and the lights come up, you’ll awaken refreshed, undisturbed by vague dreams about…
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! The repressed Irish Catholic schoolgirl that Molly Shannon plays on Saturday Night Live is certainly not everyone’s cup of glee. But there’s no denying the tug she exerts on anyone whose past is littered with the dry husks of Latin verbs and memories of nuns swinging…
A few generations got their first taste of Julia Child through Saturday Night Live. In the late ’70s, one of Dan Aykroyd’s most popular impersonations was of the trilling, stoic female chef; she (or rather he, in gruesome drag) walked SNL viewers through the preparation of a turkey when –…
There are plenty of legends about journeys and locations of historical objects. The History Channel dissects the tales from George Washington’s wooden teeth to Marilyn Monroe’s dress from The Seven Year Itch. Then there’s how the “Cowardly Lion” costume from The Wizard of Oz was found in a studio’s trash…
The guy in the corner of the lobby gallery of Continental Lofts doesn’t live here, but he is camped out nonetheless. He’s too tidy to be a panhandler, but too casual to be a security guard, even in Deep Ellum. His short ponytail pops up as he bends his graying…
That championship season Dallas area arts organizations, ever in survival mode, have to hate the Irving Arts Center and the 13 small local arts groups that benefit from IAC’s total funding by the city of Irving. Public funding means no pledge drives, no schmoozing of corporate sponsors. IAC’s financial plan…
There is nothing gratifying about watching a bullet blast through a woman’s skull. Exploding helicopters and splattered cattle are utterly indefensible. And few would smile at the image of a little boy being obliterated by a flashy missile. So why is David O. Russell’s Three Kings such rousing entertainment? This…
