Instead of an original score that might deepen our connection to the characters, we get a jukebox set list carefully formulated to light up the “nostalgia” sections in the suburban brain.

In the wake of Homegrown, Fort Worth hosts its own music festival. What does the programming reveal about the two cities? Plus, the virtues of “Taco Punk,” and more.

It’s exciting watching the celebrity commentary pile up — Giorgio Armani; Patricia Field, the Sex and the City costume designer; Vogue contributing writer Lynn Yaeger; Jason Wu, etc. — until you realize they’re all performing the same cheerleading routine. And why would they do otherwise? It’s clear that Bergdorf Goodman is not a store you want to disappoint. Or, as designer Isaac Mizrahi puts it, “If your clothes are not at that place, then they have no future.”

The new documentary Koch tries to put New York’s famous mayor’s legacy in perspective. It is an affectionate, but by no means a fawning biography.

The early praise that J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek is receiving is an indication of just how low our expectations have sunk for the summer blockbuster.

Whether you enjoyed yourself, left feeling underwhelmed, or fell somewhere in between like I did at Homegrown last weekend, moments like this encompass why I adore music festivals. As I left the festival gates prior to the Divine Fits set to find an indoor restroom, I saw members of The Relatives crossing the Main St. intersection towards a group of street performers nestled under the Indigo Hotel. I took a quick shot of them on the street corner (see above) and then followed them as they joined the buskers:

The Relatives with street performers from Andi Harman on Vimeo.

If Homegrown was started as a way to supposedly “highlight” local music, how is it that we have ended up with the Polyphonic Spree as one of the headliners in 2013?

The Design District galleries have another round of openings this weekend, which, when added to the now-normal scattering of peripheral activity, creates a rather jam-packed weekend.

This past weekend, the Homegrown Music and Arts Festival took over Main Street Garden. Photographer Jason Janik captured some of the fifteen Texas-based acts that performed.

Highlights of the second annual festival include a few anticipated films from the festival circuit, shorts showcases, Robert Altman and Terry Southern, and bicycles.

Eight brand new operatic projects paraded across the stage in an event promising at least the possibility that audience members might be catching an early glimpse of the Carmen of the early twenty-first century.

He thought he’d be 50 before he got this job. Twenty years ahead of schedule, Tre Garrett is the best young artistic director in North Texas.

The AT&T Performing Arts Center announced last year the box office/information center would open in May 2013. Well, open it will, right on time this coming Monday. The structure was a point of contention way back in 2009 when the center first opened. Critics cited the lack of any features in the then-new AT&T PAC that could facilitate pedestrian engagement and park life in a multi-million development that was billed, in part, as a neighborhood development and urban revitalization project. Well, the information center, which will include a Pearl Cup coffee shop, will now hopefully be part of the solution, generating some activity outside of performance and food truck times. Here’s the full release.

Say what you want about Baz Luhrmann’s busy, caustic, cacophonic, messy, indulgent, slapstick, adaptation of The Great Gatsby. The director is at least trying to make Fitzgerald’s novel feel new.

If you are familiar with the work of director Ramin Bahrani, then his new movie will surprise you, not least because Bahrani has exported his talent from the East Coast to Iowa.

The adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is visually rich and sporadically entertaining, but something is lost in the translation from page to screen.

The idea of the hippie commune — idealist, utopian communities founded in a haze of exuberant mysticism, doting guru fidelity, and marijuana smoke – likely conjures up vague generalities: white robes, white-eyed meditation sessions, alfalfa sprout diets.

“We’re not survivors. We’re fighters. We fought,” wrote Esther Stermer years later about her family’s struggles during the Second World War. I’d never thought of that distinction before in regards to those who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust, but there’s no doubt that that’s what many of them did. They fought for their lives.

Generations of the Stermers and a few dozen others Jews of a small Ukrainian village spent more than a year during the conflict living in underground caverns to hide from the occupying Germans and avoid being carted off to concentration camps or gas chambers. There was little food and water available, at times almost none. They spent days at a time in complete darkness, only a few of them ever able to risk venturing to the surface to obtain whatever provisions they could beg for or steal.

On punk and fashion. Does Homegrown Fest really need to be all local? A uncharacteristically glossy show in Fort Worth, and more.

Rebuking the ideal with contemporary art is the clear polemic at play in a new CentralTrak exhibition, which belongs to consumer culture in the way that Pussy Riot belongs to Putin. Plus, all the weekend’s art events.

To read all of the posts in the series “Questions With” click here.

At only 19-years-old, Casey Veggies already has six mixtapes and a forthcoming album under his belt. The Inglewood native began his career as a member of hip-hop collective Odd Future, which includes the likes of Frank Ocean, Tyler, The Creator,  Hodgy Beats, Earl Sweatshirt, and Domo Genesis, just to name a few. This up-and-coming star has also performed with hip-hop sensations Kendrick Lamar, Dom Kennedy, and Nipsey Hussle.

Being in “the game” for five years has been a life-changing experience  for Veggies.

“I definitely had to grow up a little faster and catch onto things a little quicker,” Veggies said. “I’m happy I had the chance to be ahead of the curve and be in this position at such a young age.”

Veggies said he’s “very excited” to be working on his debut album, which is set to release later this year or in early 2014. He’s also happy he’s able to market and package his work “officially,” not like his former strategy of “free giveaways.” While he cites Kanye West and Nas as influences, he said he’s inspired by his time in the business and has developed his own “zone.”

“All of the little phases where I’m feeling a certain way, I just let those emotions, like, portray into the music, or I try to make a story of it,” Veggies said. “I get inspired by regular people, more than anything. Just people that don’t do music, people that are just in my life, that I come across, you know.”

In just three days, the young artist will embark on his first headlining tour, which kicks off in Dallas, no less.

To check out this promising talent, head to Veggies’ 8 p.m. show on Sunday, May 12 at Trees. Fellow young hip-hop artist (and Houstonite) Travis Scott will co-headline, making for a night of fresh music and energetic performances.

FrontRow: What is the best concert and the worst concert you have ever been to?

The best concert was Kanye West’s “Glow in the Dark Tour” in San Diego. I think it was like April 25, 2008, I believe, or ’09 . That was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever been to. Me and my sister drove down to San Diego, about two hours to the show. Yeah, it was crazy. That was like my first time seeing Kanye live.

The worst show, let me think. It might have been, I don’t know. Probably, like, just a rock, like them screaming and stuff like that. It was a rock show, I forgot the name of the actual group, though. They were like hard rock, you know. Not that it was like the worst thing, but it was just, like, so different, you know.

FR: What was the first movie you saw in the theaters?

That would be hard to remember. That’s a hard one, I don’t remember, really. One of the first ones, like a few years ago, I remember seeing Click by Adam Sandler. That was a few years ago and that couldn’t have been the first one.

FR: What’s the closest you have ever come to dying?

That’s a crazy question. But I actually got hit by a car when I was younger, that probably was the closest. I was walking across the street. I was seven-years-old. I had to go to the hospital. It was an Expedition, it broke my leg. I learned a lot at seven. I learned to appreciate life at that moment. I’m the chosen one. (Laughs) 

FR: If you could choose any decade to live in, which would it be?

It would be the nineties. I would want to be, like, 18-years-old in 1991. Maybe not ’91, maybe, like, ’93. Because I feel like the authenticism of the culture was very, very high. It started something, you know, the renaissance of the hip-hop culture, a lot of great music came out. I don’t know, I just would love to be one of those people, like, buying Illmatic when it first came out, and buying, you know, all these dope albums when they first came out. I know I would be one of those guys that would be super up on it. 

FR: What was your favorite toy as a kid?

Basketball, even though it’s not a toy. I used to play with toy wrestlers. Me and my brother had, like, a toy wrestling ring and we had all the wrestlers in the WWE. My mom used to buy us all the action figures and we had, like, the ropes and the tables and stuff and actually, like, wrestle with the fake toys. 

FR: If global warming melted the ice caps covering 90 percent of the known world with water, what city would you hope was spared so you could live there?

Los Angeles because it’s where I’m most comfortable. It’s home.

FR: If you could change one law — make something that is illegal legal, or something legal illegal — what would it be?

It would be the “Three-Strikes” law because my uncle is on his third strike. But on his third strike he didn’t really do anything, like, super bad or anything, but the way the laws work, you know, he still got, you know what I mean? I would change the “Three-Strikes” law. 

FR: If you weren’t playing music and had the talent and circumstances to do anything else, what would it be?

First of all, I would try to pursue college, maybe, to just try to see where it’d take me. I don’t know, like, from my experience as a rapper, or if I didn’t have that experience, I would use the experience I had and try to be in the business somehow. Or maybe I would have played basketball or try to pursue that heavy. Yeah, I think if I was capable of being a pretty good basketball player. 

FR: What’s on your playlist right now?

I was just listening to Young Scooter out of Atlanta and Niko-G4, he’s a new artist out of Los Angeles. I’m also listening to my new music, my new album.

For all the darkness both literal and figurative inherent to Fly by Night, an ambitious work that examines high-minded ideas of fate, prophecy, and connectedness, there’s something almost blindingly brilliant about it.

A panel discussion about art criticism at CentralTrak failed to get to the point: art criticism is of paramount importance in a city like Dallas precisely because it creates a place for a work of art to mean.

We have four tickets for you and your entourage to move, groove, and wine and dine al fresco Thursday night.

Broken Water, an Olympia, WA export, offered a straightforward delivery of grungy indie pop to a sleepy crowd wading through the tail-end of their Sunday.