I was so miffed that I couldn’t write about Oscar-watching parties, I had to take the closest thing to satisfy my penchant for cinematic blurbs. And thus I was presented with Simply Streisand. A film festival? Oy! I hoped not. But rather, a concert presented by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra…
We know what jokes you non-gingers are going to make, so let’s be clear about the entertainment you won’t find at this weekend’s North Texas Irish Festival. Don’t show up to Fair Park’s Centennial and Automobile Buildings with a net expecting to catch leprechauns and swipe their gold—they’re not comin’…
Kettle Art, artist Frank Campagna’s Deep Ellum gallery, was born in November 2005. We weren’t familiar with Kettle, save that Campagna is known far and wide for his commissioned portraits and murals on the side of Gypsy Tea Room and the Black Forest Theatre, so we did a little sniffing…
Online bios of comedian John Witherspoon tell me what makes him “so captivating” and how he makes the audience care about his characters. Now, for the record, I didn’t really care about his character, Mr. Jones, in Friday—he was just damn funny. And he’s probably the best thing about “film…
Set against the backdrop of the 1906 quake, the movie San Francisco (1936) starred Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy. Nominated for six Oscars, it won only best sound recording. Tracy lost as best actor but was the first to win back-to-back Oscars for Captains Courageous (1937) and Boys…
Of course they voted down the Robin Hood tax plan—there’s no name recognition attached to that kind of charity. Nevertheless, there is still good to come out of the Park Cities. Let’s see, there’s the Jimmy Choo shoe store and the Jean Connection. And we can’t forget the police force…It…
There’s something undeniably charming about the streetcars on McKinney Avenue. Even if you’re stuck behind one in traffic, it’s still a refreshing reminder of a time when Dallas marched to a much slower beat—one better suited to the easy cadence of our collective Southern drawl. Since 1989, the streetcars have…
The conservative New York magazine City Journal recently published an article by Hunter Husock claiming that Hollywood’s bias against conservatism would prevent it from ever giving Merle Haggard the same star treatment it gave Johnny Cash in last year’s Walk the Line (“Why Hollywood Loves Johnny Cash–and Not Merle Haggard,”…
Minimum wage, the pay standard, will net you $206 after 40 hours of cleaning toilets/changing diapers/mowing lawns. Minimum Wage, the performance group, sets the small indignities of $5.15 an hour to music, a sort of “Steven Sondheim works at Starbucks” concept. Except they’re belting out tunes about slaving away at…
There are two kinds of kids in this world: kids who dig bugs and kids who are scared shitless by them. When they grow up, they will be further sorted into the two kinds of adults in this world: people who understand deep, troubling irony and people who do not…
Some pictures say a thousand words. Some grab your throat. Dorothea Lange’s photograph of Oklahoma Dust Bowl migrant Florence Thompson forced a nation to experience fatigue and hunger through the hollow, dirt-lined face of a mother desperate to feed her children. Dr. Linda Gordon, writing her second book on Lange,…
Catfish and kiwi? Maybe not. But there are ways to properly pair fish with fruit, and culinary consultant Anne Legg can show you how. On Thursday from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., Central Market, Greenville Avenue at Lovers Lane, hosts Fish and Fruit Pairing as part of its monthly Cooking…
It should be too early in the year to expect a good movie, let alone a great one; anything released prior to the Oscars is bound to be forgotten by spring. Yet here it is, the first–dare we use the term that’s all but been stripped of meaning by journalistic…
If you have any awareness at all of the existence of Running Scared–no, not the Gregory Hines/Billy Crystal cop buddy comedy, but the new film written and directed by Wayne Kramer–chances are you have but one question: How in God’s name does anyone expect us to believe that Paul Walker…
“Just a little touch of star quality” is how the chorus of peasants describes the title character in Evita, just opened by Lyric Stage at the Irving Arts Center. It’s one of the slyest jokes in the 1975 Webber-Rice rock opera, which depicts the rise of Eva Duarte Peron, young…
All the President’s Men (Warner Bros.) It’s no mystery why Warner Bros. chose to rerelease All the President’s Men now; at last we know how much — which is to say how little — Mark “Deep Throat” Felt really looked like Hal Holbrook. A new doc on former FBI second-in-command…
Sony’s approach with its handheld, the PlayStation Portable, is to carbon-copy its most popular titles for on-the-go gaming. “Enjoy Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 2?” Sony seems to ask. “Well, here’s a version for the PSP. Oh, you’re a SOCOM fan? Super, we’ve got that on PSP too.” With the…
Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber (MCA) The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends (Shout Factory) Domino (New Line) Dorian Blues (TLA) First Descent (Universal) Left of the Dial (HBO) The Memory of a Killer (Sony) Midnight Cowboy: Two-Disc Collector’s Edition (MGM) Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Collector’s Edition (Sony)…
What would you do if you knew the world was going to end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds? Would you visit the local multiplex and watch Jake “Dreamy Eyes” Gyllenhaal lock lips with a closeted cowboy? Or would you rather see him taking orders from…
Even if you know little about dance, you will probably enjoy Ballets Russes, a documentary about a group of Russian refugees who toured the globe and in so doing gave birth to modern ballet. The celebrated documentary, which opened in October, tells the story of two pioneering Russian ballet companies,…
Clint Eastwood’s last name ought to be Sheen or at least Estevez. Before Charlie’s Platoon, before Martin’s Apocalypse Now, there was Clint’s Kelly’s Heroes. This film is just as smart as any subversive war film ever made, but in a decidedly unfunny genre it’s also hilarious. Three Kings may have…
Truth be told, the Dallas Observer attracts an interesting niche of readers—convicts. It’s not a statistic that our advertising department touts (“We have a lock on Dallas’ five-to-10 market!”), but it’s certainly there, judging by the letters we receive from locked-up readers out-of-state looking for information about Dallas. Unfortunately, we’ve…
