AltWeeklies Wire
At Long Last, Geeks Get Respectnew
Ashley Eldred was trying to figure out how to make Hell into a cuter place. The young blonde woman with a confident manner is a student at the Guildhall at SMU - the school Jay Leno was talking about that teaches students how to make video games.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Kristian Lin and Cole Williams |
02-03-2010 |
Media
Breeding Trouble in North Texasnew
In the August heat, more than 500 dogs sweltered in un-air-conditioned kennels on a farm near the town of Mabank in Kaufman County. They panted in wire cages stacked atop one another, fleas swarming, many of the dogs sick, most of them filthy. Near the gate across the gravel drive, part of a dog's skeleton lay like an omen.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Sarah Perry |
02-03-2010 |
Animal Issues
In a Coup, Texas Museum Acquires 'The Torment of Saint Anthony'new
The Kimbell Art Museum's relatively recent acquisition of Michelangelo's earliest known painting, The Torment of Saint Anthony," was a real art-world coup. North Texas' only museum devoted to world art effectively beat out the Met.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Anthony Mariani |
01-25-2010 |
Art
Snake On a Train: Getting to Know Patricia Highsmithnew
It's no small achievement that playwright-biographer Joan Schenkar is able to find perverse charm and consistent fascination in the messy, globetrotting life of Patricia Highsmith. At almost 700 pages, Schenkar's The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith is a horse pill of a book.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Jimmy Fowler |
01-25-2010 |
Nonfiction
TCU Professor's Memoir: Happy, Poetic, But Slightnew
Titled after his college nickname, Alex Lemon's Happy is another in a slew of memoirs in the vein of Boy Meets Obstacle, Boy Overcomes Obstacle, Boy Finds Redemption. Typically in such books, a self-destructive young man is thrown into exigent circumstances that force him to confront the selfish asshole in the mirror.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Anthony Mariani |
01-25-2010 |
Nonfiction
Tags: Alex Lemon, Happy
Rob Williams on How He Fell into Filmmakingnew
The director of Make the Yuletide Gay only dreamed of being a screenwriter, but while attending a scriptwriting workshop with his life partner Rodney Johnson, the light bulb went on.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Kristian Lin |
08-27-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Kids Film 'Shorts' is Uneven but Enjoyablenew
Shorts isn't nearly as good as the first Spy Kids. Still, on a scale of Robert Rodriguez's kids' movies, it's much better than The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Kristian Lin |
08-20-2009 |
Reviews
Municipal Workers Are Copping a Comfy Retirement ... But At What Cost?new
Workers across the country -- particularly police and fire groups -- have been so good at politicking for increased pay and benefits that observers are starting to worry whether those successes could leave cities vulnerable to financial straits.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Jeff Prince |
07-24-2009 |
Politics
Two North Texas Daily Papers Have Reached a Partial Detentenew
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Dallas Morning News have begun sharing content, but the cooperation between competing media companies in the same media market is raising red flags. Some question whether the agreement may violate federal antitrust laws.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Dan McGraw |
01-08-2009 |
Media
Prophet of Boom (and Bust): Now Will They Listen to Ravi Batra?new
The 65-year-old academic has an amazing record of economic and social forecasting going back several decades, from the rise of Islam, which he predicted in the 1960s, to the mergers booms and soaring stock prices of the '90s, and the stock market crash of 2000.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Kendall Anderson |
12-22-2008 |
Economy
The Music Soars and the Story Bores in 'Cadillac Records'new
The story obeys the same music-biography conventions that we last saw being parodied in Walk Hard. This film is by Darnell Martin, the writer-director who has largely been confined to TV since his 1994 filmmaking debut I Like It Like That, a movie pitched at Latino audiences at a time when very few other movies were. He doesn't have the advantage here of working in a field where there's no competition, and his sense of drama is incurably hackneyed and unsubtle.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Kristian Lin |
12-04-2008 |
Reviews
Drug-War Violence Has the Border Under Siegenew
The current violence is beyond anything anyone has ever seen here before, an epidemic of murder and sadistic violence that's being waged with American weapons and aided by American government dollars, led by forces trained by the American military.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Peter Gorman |
12-04-2008 |
Crime & Justice
Friend and Foes of Illegal Immigrants Deal with the Delugenew
As the number of undocumented immigrants in this country continues to grow, so does the volume of the debate over how to fix the problem. The controversy has no clear end in view, or even likely to come into view for a long time.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Eric Griffey |
10-10-2008 |
Immigration
David Noblett's Last War Was to Get His Doctor Backnew
When the Texas Medical Board suspended the license of Noblett's doctor, it left him and hundreds of other patients unable to get meds because there aren't many doctors willing to specialize in treating chronic pain, a field of medicine that is drawing the wrath of regulators.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Jeff Prince |
10-02-2008 |
War
Dallas Filmmaker Casey Gooden Pays for His Funny Short Films as He Goesnew
Last year's Lone Star International Film Festival saw the unusual sight of a program of short films playing to a packed house, and among the entries screening for an appreciative crowd was Casey Gooden's Intervention. Written and shot in less than a week during January 2007, the film is a comedy about two down-and-out criminals who try to rob a church that they think is empty.
Fort Worth Weekly |
Kristian Lin |
09-05-2008 |
Movies
