With a tightening economy and a city hall threatening to drastically slash spending on arts – as well as virtually every city service, the Business Council for the Arts has good news for those looking to jusitify increased funding of local arts organizations. This morning, the non-profit organization of arts-supporting businesses and the accounting firm Deloitte released their 2010 Economic Impact Study of Arts and Cultural Organizations in North Texas, which estimated a total economic impact of over $1 ..read more

The film on which Jay Roach’s Dinner for Schmucks is based, The Dinner Game, ends on  a much harsher note than the remake, partly because it’s French, and partly because it manages to make its central idiot, played by Jacques Villeret, a real person. In the American version we get comic superstar du jour Steve Carell. Although Steve Carell is hilarious in this film and occasionally endearing, the role seems like an amalgamation of his previous roles. He’s not unique. ..read more

Filmmakers Eric Byler and Annabel Park set out to make a documentary film about the impact on a community of a law that required police in Prince William County, Virginia, to question anyone they suspect of being an illegal alien. What the filmmakers didn’t expect is that they would be dragged into the center of the debate, a discussion that began on radical blogs and continued onto the documentary’s YouTube channel. It’s this participatory role of the documentary in its ..read more

1. As if it hasn’t already been a rough few weeks for the AT&T Performing Arts Center, with CEO Mark Nerenhausen resigning abruptly and a handful of other key staff leaving. Now Wyly Theater namesake Chales Wyly is accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of an insider trading scheme. That news doesn’t directly affect the PAC, but let’s just say it doesn’t exactly produce warm feelings:

“The cloak of secrecy has been lifted from the complex web of foreign structures used by the Wylys to evade the securities laws,” the SEC said in a statement, calling the Wylys’ accounting an “elaborate sham system of trusts and subsidiary companies.”

2. As you may have noticed in our weekly rundown of gallery openings, this weekend the annual New Texas Talent show opens at Craighead Green, and it is always one of my favorite shows of the year (you can preview the work here). The juror for this year’s juried show of emerging talent is Thomas Fuelmer (pictured here in spacesuit). Although it is not yet available online, if you see a copy of A+C Magazine during your gallery hoping this weekend, you’ll find an interview with Fuelmer, who also is an artist and the director of educational programming at the Rachofsky House.

3. Writing in the Telegraph, Lorna Bradbury argues that the long list for this year’s Man Booker prize easily refutes the claim that “Fiction is dead.” Had older literary stars – writers like Martin Amis and Ian McEwan — made the list, “commentators would doubtless be fretting about why we hadn’t moved on and are still dependent for our literary celebrities on grey-haired men who came to prominence in the late Seventies,” Bradbury writes. The depth of young writing talent should come as no surprise, however, if you have been following along with The New Yorkers’ 20 under 40 fiction series (and you should be). I suggest starting with “Lenny Hearts Eunice.”

4. And finally, thanks to everyone who came out to FrontRow’s screening of Herb and Dorothy last night at The Public Trust (pictured above). It was great fun to get some of our readers in the same room. If you missed the screening, no fear, on August 26 we will screen a movie selected by Dallas Video Festival director Bart Weiss at a location to be announced in a couple of weeks. The series will continue on the last Thursday of each month through the end of the year (and hopefully pick up again in January). A full schedule can be found here. Hope to see you there.

Let’s Fall in Love

Taiwanese director Wuna Wu has found a good subject in her documentary Let’s Fall in Love: matchmaker Helen Chen is a fascinating, larger-than-life figure, reminiscent of Rosalind Russell’s Auntie Mame with her dramatic meddling in other people’s lives. She is officially a “marriage consultant,” a lifelong passion on the side of her other, full-time job. She says she does it for the good of Taiwan, which has a 50% divorce rate. She meets someone who ..read more

Here are this weekend’s gallery openings.

Photo: Powdered Icons, 2010, by Jay Shinn. Screenprint on glass & mirror, framed, ed. of 3, 13 x 13 in. ea.

“Art Happy Hour” by David G. Smith and Roy Vance at the Artisan Style – July 29 : 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM; 2417 Mahon Street, Dallas, Tx 75201.

“Open House” at the Gremillion Gallery – July 29 : 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM; 2251 Vantage Street, Suite 200, Dallas, Tx 75207.

“The Yellow Definitive” ..read more

FrontRow’s film series kicks off tonight with a screening of the documentary Herb and Dorothy at The Public Trust. Remember, in order to attend, you need to RSVP, and there are only a handful of spots left. If you plan on attending tonight, let us know by emailing rsvp4@dmagazine.com. To find out more about the series and to see the upcoming schedule, visit here.

One of the freshest and most acclaimed new theater companies to come on the scene in recent years is Josh Glover and company’s Upstart Productions. Upstart launched two years ago with an opening season capped with a wonderful production of Kenneth Lonergran’s This Is Our Youth. The Upstarts continued to produce some the area’s best loved productions in the 2009-2010 season, including two works by Eric Bogosian, Talk Radio and subUrbia. Alexandra Bonefield said that Upstart possessed the “creative cojones ..read more

1. The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded the Dallas CityDesign Studio a $100,000 grant, one of 21 grants given through the endowment’s Mayors’ Institute on City Design 25^th Anniversary Initiative. The design studio was established with a grant from Deedie and Rusty Rose in 2009 to design and plan in the neighborhoods surrounding the Trinity River.

2. Tonight is the last night of the Asian Film Festival, and filmmaker Quentin Lee is in town with his film The People I’ve Slept With, the closing night feature. The Dallas Voice spoke with Lee about his movie and wrestling with the modifier “gay filmmaker.”

3. We mentioned some time back that the New York Times’ christening of Pitchfork as a mainstream media outlet could incite even further hipster backlash. Now the Chicago-based Pitchfork looks to be acting like a mainstream media giant, attempting to restrict the circulation of fan photos from its annual Pitchfork Music Festival.

The Asian Film Festival of Dallas runs until Thursday night, but it announced its Jury Award winners yesterday. I suppose that means that only the movies screened through Tuesday were up for big awards. The Audience Award hasn’t been announced yet, and voting for that will continue. But does this signify that the films will drop in quality for the last two days of the festival? I hope not.

The jury was composed of several local figures, including D’s Best Actor ..read more