Bill and Pam Campbell get a little misty when they talk about their upcoming 30th anniversary in business, the artists they’ve loved and lost at William Campbell Contemporary Art and the new talents they’ve nurtured to become nationally recognized art stars. And they’re planning a big party to celebrate. “This…
Ongoing If you want to scare the bejeezus out of most kids, threaten them with a Saturday-afternoon visit to an art museum. (“Culture! Education! N-o-o-o-o!”) If you want to frighten their fathers, an evening at a fund-raiser for an art museum usually works. (“Black tie! Canapés! N-o-o-o-o!) So it makes…
10/30 Last year’s Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships had its moments of high drama, including a rare dead heat, first in the Cup’s history. But I got my money’s worth watching the spectacular hissy fit of Six Perfections, a gorgeous French-bred filly who forced rider Jerry Bailey to bail out…
10/30 Every 300 years or so, a great idea comes along. Martin Luther had his, our nation’s forefathers had theirs and now we have ours thanks to the Deep Ellum nonprofit DEFMAN’s fifth annual Goth Ball, perhaps the largest Halloween party of its kind, which has an ’80s theme asking…
10/30 This summer, the country had hope. Lollapalooza was set to unleash a hearty slab of unknown gold to the Midwest, as the traveling festival would have given MTV-loving kids a sample of non-mainstream live acts such as The Flaming Lips, Broken Social Scene and, possibly, the Bellydance Superstars. We’re…
“Whadyawant, motherfuck?” They’re the first words Charles Bukowski speaks in John Dullaghan’s documentary about the poet and novelist, famous for his writing and infamous for his drinking and brawling and screwing. The audience member, either the acolyte or just the curious stranger, might respond, “To hear your story, Hank, that’s…
Thursday, October 28 Want to see Dallas, we brag, then rent Office Space. From the stop-and-go traffic to the rows of chain restaurants offering “American food” to blocks and blocks of identical beige apartments, there Dallas is. That’s probably most cities, but, hey, Office Space was inspired by Dallas and…
Only once during her tenure as a Dallas Observer columnist did Laura Miller ever ask if she could go to an early screening of a movie, and it was, of all things, Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. As I recall it now, some 11 years later, Laura had heard that…
How does Mike Leigh do it? The years pass; film fashions come and go; Hollywood churns its commercial pap. Careers sparkle; others fizz; whom the gods would destroy, they first make famous. Meanwhile, over in England, Leigh makes his films, tracking the intricacies of the lower-class family with the patience…
Whatever else can be said about Tarnation–and there is plenty to say–there is no denying this: It is a very brave movie. Rarely is the subject of a documentary willing to lay himself bare before the camera, exposing his very consciousness to the audience, and it’s still more uncommon for…
Let’s just get the term out of the way up front. The term is “fag hag”–and a thousand pardons, sensitive readers, but there is no PC equivalent. This new film, Stage Beauty, is an absolute fag-hag fiesta. Beneath its historical leanings and classic veneer, it’s utterly gaga for girls who…
The Grudge bears the imprimatur of Sam Raimi but, alas, neither his sense of fun nor his smarts. The wunderkind director behind the Spider-Man and Evil Dead franchises has followed in the path of Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver with their Dark Castle releases, launching his own lucrative spook factory,…
Let’s do the time warp again and again and again. The Rocky Horror Show returns, this time at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, where the rip-roaring, raunchy fun starts well before the first glimpse of that “sweet transsexual,” Dr. Frank ‘N’ Furter (played by Paul Taylor as a cross-dressing cross between…
Camelot Casting younger actors in the leading roles of King Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot and Pellinore is a nice gimmick. Too bad we don’t get a good look at them in Plano Rep’s current production of the 1960 Lerner and Loewe musical. Instead, Regan Adair (a dramatic actor who turns out…
We imagine dead celebrities are granted VIP access to some big postmortem party. In this afterlife Green Room, Julia Child is serving hors d’oeuvres. Richard Avedon is taking candid photographs of Christopher Reeve, Janet Leigh and Rodney Dangerfield. Marlon Brando is hiding out, not wanting to be photographed. In the…
Thursday, October 21 Single people with dogs, wouldn’t it be good to know that someone you meet approves of your schnauzer from the beginning? And doesn’t it feel good to support homeless pets? And wouldn’t it be even better to meet a caring, animal-loving friend while sipping wine, spending quality…
Surely you have friends in Fort Worth who’ve been nagging you to visit. “A nice long weekend visit,” they may have said. “And bring the kids.” Wow, you thought. A weekend in Fort Worth with the kids. We’ve found a good way for you to meet your social obligations, enjoy…
10/23 If you can only afford to attend one comic book convention this year, then save your pennies for next month’s Wizard World Texas in Arlington. But if you have an unlimited budget to “get your geek on,” the Dallas Comic Con (actually taking place in Plano) is a pretty…
10/22 It pains every last journalistic bone in our cynicism-addled body to admit it, but Pillsbury’s publicity plan for hyping its new Perfect Portions Refrigerated Biscuit was just about the neatest, most skeptic-proof notion we had encountered in a long time. Because Perfect Portions biscuits are baked two at a…
10/23 By the time you hit first grade, you’ve learned there are bodily functions that aren’t supposed to be expressed in public. Flatulence is inappropriate, as is eructing. Polite society frowns on fingers plumbing the depths of nostrils and definitely does not allow sampling anything you’ve extracted from a bodily…
10/22 Cleopatra was not the dainty, beautiful woman movies and art make her out to be. The real Cleopatra didn’t look a thing like Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Claudette Colbert or any other thin, porcelain-skinned Hollywood actress who’s played one of the most infamous rulers of Egypt. But it’s not…
A parody of Gerry Anderson marionette shows (such as Thunderbirds and Joe 90), Jerry Bruckheimer action movies and the ’80s cartoon-toy line M.A.S.K. , Team America: World Police boils down all those ingredients to their essences, starting with the theme song “Americaaa… Fuck yeah!” (scored like Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone”…
