Tonight’s edition of “Thursday Night Live” at Central Market (4651 W Frwy, FW) is a particularly funkalicious one: Denton’s nine-piece funk-jazz-R & B outfit Backside Pick owns the stage 7-9 pm. Americana singer-songwriter Sean Russell opens at 6 pm. The outdoor show is a great way to enjoy the cooler September temperatures that may or may not stick around.
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Backside Pick at “TNL”
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 by Jimmy FowlerButterfly Connection Seeks Actors
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 by Jimmy FowlerThe Butterfly Connection seeks local actors for an American Heart Association training video for health care providers. All actors should be relatively fit, height/weight proportional, and be able to perform in constant motion for extended periods of time without becoming winded or fatigued. Roles include:
Narrator: Male or female, 30-50 yo, with a clear, mature voice and the manner of a mentor
Jogger: Fit thirtysomething male, able to jog and deliver dialogue
EMT: 30-45 yo Anglo, Hispanic, or Asian male. Must be able to lift an adult male with another person’s help onto a gurney. CPR certification a plus.
Nurse: 30-40 yo male, any ethnicity. CPR certification a plus.
Audition date 9/2/10 (Thursday) 9am-noon and 2-6pm. Auditions for this paid gig are by appointment only. Send resume and headshot to tbccasting@gmail.com or drop them by at 2812 Race St, FW 76111.
Does Jeffress Worship Satan?
Monday, August 30th, 2010 by Jimmy Fowler
ANOTHER CLOWN FOR CHRIST... OR SATAN?
If you think Pastor Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas made a royal ass out of himself when he recently claimed that Islam promotes pedophilia, well, that’s just the latest salvo in a looong history of idiotic public statements and actions. And we’ve still got that hideous giant glowing cross Jeffress wants to build in downtown Dallas to look forward to.
On her blog Translinguistic Other, Seattle musician and visual artist Emily Pothast offers a hilarious and surprisingly well-reasoned argument on why she believes Pastor Jeffress actually worships Satan. Seriously, take the time to read this piece. It’s pure brilliance.
“Hold” at Four Day Weekend
Friday, August 27th, 2010 by Jimmy FowlerNorth Texas director-actor-writer Frank Mosley has been busy the last year or so co-starring in other filmmakers’ projects and co-developing a web series. If you want to catch his most acclaimed work so far, take note: Hold –Mosley’s 2009 feature film debut as a director – gets three public screenings this weekend.
The movie, which premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival in April, deals with the slow disintegration of a marriage after the wife is raped during a home invasion, though “sensationalistic” and “sordid” are not in Mosley’s vocabulary as a director. He trades in the kind of lo-fi tension that can only be achieved with a careful combination of wide angles, long takes, minimalist sound effects, and unsettlingly perceptive performances achieved partly though intensive rehearsals and on-camera improv. Call it “eerie realism” if you need to call it anything, but Mosley is unique among young North Texas filmmakers in the scrupulous, humane detail of his work.
There are screenings of Hold this afternoon and Saturday morning at the first annual Glen Rose Neo-Relix Film Festival in Glen Rose, TX. But your best bet to see it will be Sunday night’s (August 29) 7pm screening hosted by The Endeavor Cinema Group in the Four Day Weekend theater at 312 Houston St, FW. Doors open at 6pm. Mosley is scheduled to attend. It’s free, btw.
STEPHANIE RHODES STARS IN FRANK MOSLEY'S UNSETTLING MARITAL DRAMA "HOLD"
Digital Overload on “Fresh Air”
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 by Jimmy FowlerYou can usually count on NPR’s star interviewer Terry Gross to facilitate a great conversation, and last night’s Fresh Air was no exception: She interviewed New York Times technology writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Matt Richtel on what he calls “the screen invasion”– the ubiquity of cell phones and personal digital devices that keep people plugged in to online information and entertainment constantly. Richtel talks about the latest neuroscientific research on how our plastic brains are being shaped by our smart phones, ipads, blackberries, etc.
Stage West Takes “Steps”
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 by Jimmy FowlerThis week’s ”Stage” page features an interview with Jim Covault, artistic director of Stage West and director of their current comic production Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, which opens tomorrow (Thursday). AH39S is a shot of undiluted theater for fans of the daredevil aspects of live performance, as three actors assum
POSTER IMAGE FROM A U.K. PRODUCTION
e more than a hundred roles in retelling the complicated plot from Hitch’s 1935 spy classic. If Stage West pulls it off, this could become one of the most talked-about North Texas shows of the year.
Here’s a brief but very famous clip from the original film version that gives you a good feeling for all the incidental complications – handcuffs, sandwiches, silk stockings (va va voom!) — that the Stage West actors must work with. Here’s a clip from the same handcuffs-sandwiches-stockings scene in the Broadway production of AH39S. Here’s a ten minute entertainment news/promotional piece about the U.S. touring production that came through Dallas earlier this year. (Covault saw that staging and made different creative choices for Stage West’s version).
Can The Kids Still Cut It?
Friday, August 20th, 2010 by Jimmy Fowler
While I was a little nervous when I first heard about the cable mini-series The Kids in the Hall: Death Comes To Town (the U.S. premiere is tonight at 9pm on IFC), there are enough funny online clips from the Canadian broadcast debut last January to (partly) relieve my concerns. Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson debuted on HBO in 1989 during my college stint at UNT. Like many of us, they’re older, fatter, and more weather-beaten. But they’ve still got a smart and weirdly compassionate sense of humor.
I became an instant KITH fan back in the day, mostly because they’re more than just good comedians, they’re really good actors (especially McKinney and Thompson). Their work was always unique in that they didn’t concentrate on lampooning pop culture but on creating their own universe with richly detailed characters a la SCTV. Like those Canadian forebears, the Kids sometimes generated an uneven laugh quotient because trying out new ideas came first for them. What has always been reliable is the pure pleasure of watching them inhabit and then develop the characters over time. And when they’re funny, they’re funnier than anyone else on the planet (except maybe SCTV in its prime).
Here’s a great long interview with Scott Thompson in which he discusses his bout with stomach cancer last year and his complicated relationship with the LGBT community. Back in my movie critic days, I got to interview Thompson for the uneven 1996 KITH flick Brain Candy. He was warm, funny, and outspoken in a very un-assholish way. Best wishes, Scott.
Phil Pritchett at “TNL”
Thursday, August 19th, 2010 by Jimmy FowlerTonight’s “Thursday Night Live” at Central Market should be a hot one in every sense of the word: Singer-songwriter-studio wiz–podcast pundit Phil “The World’s Most Fiercely Independent Artist” Pritchett will perform at 7pm at 4651 W Freeway, FW. Americana rocker Greg Schroeder opens at 6pm. Call 817-989-4700 for info.
Hip Pocket Puppets
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 by Jimmy Fowler
THE CAST OF "LOWDOWN WAX" AT THE COWTOWN PUPPETRY FESTIVAL
This week’s ”Arts” page explores Hip Pocket Theatre’s Cowtown Puppetry Festival, celebrating its sixth anniversary this weekend at the Silver Creek Road compound. HP co-founder Diane Simons created the Festival with her daughter Lake, a puppeteer and mime who has performed the miracle of making a living off of puppetry in New York City. Her friend Erin K. Orr, a New York artist, co-conceived the Festival’s sundown Puppetry Pageant. She’s spent part of the last eight summers down here because she thinks Fort Worth is just too cool – even in August.
One of the Cowtown Puppetry Festival’s big influences is the politically conscious Bread and Puppet Theatre in Vermont. Check out some fuzzy but viewable video examples of their work that is decidedly, um, left of center: ”Who’s a Terrorist?” (dig the scary giant Ben Franklin head!); ”Plastic Surg-a-tron” (about America’s obsession with beauty); and ”The Grand Forgiveness Society” (which lampoons Pres. Bush commuting the sentence of Cheney’s ex-chief of staff Scooter Libby in 2007). The Cowtown Puppetry Festival steers clear of political content, by the way.
Chow, Baby didn’t really — maybe a little bit, but not really — expect its
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on
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Before
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Grindhouse
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