As the Columbia Pictures logo looms large in frame till its torch becomes the focal point, we find ourselves in what appears to be a tent full of sweaty medieval warriors forging axes, and have to wonder: Did they already make another Scorpion King movie and not tell us? No,…
There is one truly striking shock in the new made-in-Hong-Kong-by-Thai-directors horror flick The Eye, but unfortunately, directors Danny and Oxide (yes, Oxide) Pang saved the best for first. If the film’s opening moments don’t grab you, nothing will; the Pang brothers cut their teeth on commercials, and the first few…
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it’s all PETA’s fault. Oh, we humored those wacky vegan extremists when they threw paint at rich bitches in hideously overpriced fur coats. We laughed when they’d come on conservative talk radio shows every Thanksgiving to get mocked for…
Once in a while a film comes along that is as sound, smart, sweet and significant as can be, and Whale Rider is such a film. Fault the project on various counts if you like (I’ll try), but ultimately the tale is beyond reproach, a bane to cynics and a…
Two years ago, a first-time filmmaker named Andrew Jarecki paid a visit to the Concord, Massachusetts, home of a man who might draw him a road map to his future. Jarecki arrived at the house, belonging to a Pulitzer Prize-winning child psychiatrist, after already traveling a circuitous route and taking…
The playbill profile of B.J. Cleveland, star of Over the River and Through the Woods and self-proclaimed “God of Local Theater and All It Entails,” offers a dedication: “For my grandparents, their parents and all the Milans–Je Mi Rodina!” Which is funny, because 1) the phrase translates into nothing (believe…
Unlike most, we were fooled by the rocks that she got. Damn near put us into cardiac arrest when we got the notion that maybe this J.Lo had taken over our sweet Jennifer Lopez and turned her into some bejeweled, pompous country-clubber. We didn’t know how we’d go on with…
Thursday, June 26 Grapevine will be a mad, mad, mad, mad world this weekend, minus the buried treasure, stoic police detective and, thankfully, Milton Berle when the Great Race’s 120 vintage and historic cars make a pit stop on their way to Daytona Beach. But there will be a stream…
You’re in your grade-school seat stiff with anticipation. You have no idea what the teacher is saying. Timmy’s picking his nose, and for once you don’t care enough to announce it. But you gotta show someone; it’s so cool. You can’t even believe Mom let you get it. You’ve wanted…
6/29 The vintage Chevy Impalas, Monte Carlos and all their vehicular relations are rollin’ oh-so-slowly into town. Bass thumpin’, chrome shinin’, sleek bodies painted and decorated so intricately some could be modern museum pieces. The 2003 Lowrider Experience is here, and it’s more akin to a circus or fair than…
6/28 Street basketball, the kind you’ll find at the 13th annual Dallas stop of the NBA Hoop-It-Up Tour on June 28 and June 29 in the West End, is much, much different from your average rec league game. Such as this example, when I played in the 3-on-3 tournament a…
6/28 Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles. The Grapevine Vintage Railroad this Saturday will be pumping out enough bubbles to make Mr. Bubble proud. The railroad is scheduled to leave the Grapevine Cotton Belt Depot at 10 a.m. as the Hubba Hubba Bubble Train on its round trip to the Fort Worth Stockyards…
6/27 You have to drive a bit, and get past the chains–restaurants, hotels/motels, big-box retailers–and the tourist traps and traffic and all that screams, “Arlington!” to find the soul of the city. Part of it inhabits the Arlington Museum of Art, a de facto safehouse for the city’s well-hidden aesthetic…
6/28 Too often in Dallas, cultural exploration begins and ends with dining. We congratulate ourselves for trying that extra spicy plate of pad Thai or feel we’ve really grown to understand Asian-American culture because of that damn fine helping of mu goo gai pan. Sorry, that don’t cut it. One…
The Hip Pocket Theatre is out in the middle of nowhere at the end of a dirt road–kind of dodgy to city folk unsure about whether cows bite. But as your car scrapes along, the trees part and reveal a grassy clearing lit with strands of tiny lights and hemmed…
He’s 12 feet tall. He’s ripped. He’s quick as a tiger and fierce as a dragon. Lit by his fury to a dull green glow, the guy is sheer, boundless power. Any NFL team you can think of would love to start him at middle linebacker. But, as art house…
I purposely avoided reading anything about Capturing the Friedmans till seeing the film, which has been no easy task. Andrew Jarecki’s documentary, about a Great Neck, New York, family torn asunder in the late 1980s by allegations of kiddie-porn possession and the horrific sexual abuse of numerous children, has been…
The number of boring, uninspired studio pictures hitting today’s multiplexes is getting depressing. To add insult to injury, many of these mind-numbing creations come from formerly–and presumably still–talented writers, directors and actors. Last week saw Hollywood Homicide, a tired–and what’s worse, lazy–buddy-buddy/cop/action comedy, written and directed by Ron Shelton, the…
She does not deserve all the credit, and she would not be comfortable accepting all the thanks. She knows she’s but one soldier among many–a commanding officer, yes, but also a grunt slogging through the muck and minefields. For years, she was a musician like any other, writing and recording…
Everyone knows that old saying, “Behind every child performer there’s a flaming drag queen gesturing wildly for more spirited ‘spirit fingers’ and shrieking ‘sing out! SING OUT!!'” OK…so you’ve never heard that one before. We made it up. But if it were an old saying, Uptown Players’ production of Ruthless!…
If ever you doubt God’s perverse sense of humor, consider Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the most overrated Impressionist. Upon Renoir, Yahweh bestowed great artistic gifts–virtuoso paint-handling, stunning ability as a colorist–and then, in some sort of cosmic in-joke, saddled his creation with a hopelessly third-rate mind. The problem wasn’t just that Renoir…
A film festival with queens, bears and fairies? Think it must be time for the cartoons and Grimm tales of the KidFilm fest again? Catch up on the lingo because this is Q Cinema. But that’s not “Q” for quadruplets or quintuplets or any other combination of munchkins and rug…
