Email Author Nick Keppler

2008 Stories by Nick Keppler

• Theater District Open House

  published August 21, 2008

  You know the drill by now. Today, at the fifteenth annual Theater District Open House, a slew of the city’s performing arts companies and... More >>

• Artful Thursday: Porgy and Bess

  published August 21, 2008

  Porgy and Bess is perhaps the most controversial opera in the history of American music, and you can get the lowdown on it when cast... More >>

• Death Proof

  published August 21, 2008

  After Quentin Tarantino finished his two-part epic Kill Bill, a tribute to every obscure film that inspired the geek god, he took it easy... More >>

• How to Draw a Bunny

  published August 14, 2008

  Like The Devil and Daniel Johnston and Neil Young: A Heart of Gold, 2002’s How to Draw a Bunny is that rarest type of... More >>

• Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

  published July 31, 2008

  In 1936, experimental filmmaker Maya Deren got a grant to shoot voodoo rituals in Haiti from the Guggenheim Foundation and soon found herself... More >>

• Saturday Night Fever

  published July 31, 2008

  Saturday Night Fever has all the hallmarks of a good dumb movie. It’s got a famous soundtrack. It’s got great dance scenes.... More >>

• SPIN4

  published July 24, 2008

  Today’s SPIN4 party at the Houston Center for Photography brings Lens Libs, a variation on the word game Mad Libs. To play, photographers... More >>

• Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

  published June 19, 2008

  Made just before horror movie spoofs became almost as cliché as actual horror movies, 1978’s Attack of the Killer Tomatoes... More >>

• Alice Neel

  published June 19, 2008

  Painter Alice Neel was known for her “inner landscapes,” portraits that reflected the hearts of her subjects in mood and background.... More >>

• Diva

  published June 12, 2008

  Because of its sleek production values, well-constructed visual language and philosophical undertones, the 1981 French classic Diva gets... More >>

• Superman

  published June 12, 2008

  Richard Donner’s original Superman is paced less like an action movie and more like a biography, with a story everyone knows presented... More >>

• Dust

  published June 5, 2008

  Marc Fox draws his stuff. For Dust, his self-described “meditation on ownership,” Fox drew over a thousand items sitting around... More >>

• The Gates

  published May 22, 2008

  Christo and Jeanne-Claude have covered entire islands in pink polyester and whole landscapes with umbrellas. The Gates, another... More >>

• Grease Sing-along

  published May 22, 2008

  Singing along to Grease, the musical that will not die, is a guilty pleasure — no one admits they do it, but everyone does. If... More >>

• Fine Hour: Short Films by Humphrey Jennings

  published May 15, 2008

  “Pioneer,” “poet” and “propagandist” are all terms that apply to Humphrey Jennings. The early British filmmaker made... More >>

• “Max Neuhaus: Circumscription Drawings”

  published May 15, 2008

  “Max Neuhaus: Circumscription Drawings” is now open at the Menil. Born in Beaumont, Neuhaus is a leading creator of “sound... More >>

• “Tales”

  published May 8, 2008

  Local artist Constance Braden shows fairy-tale images with heavy undertones. Six of the Victorian-ish images included in her exhibition... More >>

• John Witherspoon

  published May 8, 2008

  We’re not sure if John Witherspoon tells jokes exactly, but we do know that the bowtied entertainer is very animated. To begin his... More >>

• Liars, Lovers and Lunatics

  published May 1, 2008

  Amber Benson is best known as the -second-hottest lesbian witch on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She continues acting, but what she really... More >>

• “Happiness Is a Warm Gun: The Thomas Imbach Films”

  published April 24, 2008

  Genre. Tone. Fiction. Fact. Documentary. Drama. These terms don’t seem to mean much to Switzerland’s Thomas Imbach, a director for whom... More >>

• Vijay Iyer

  published April 24, 2008

  Called one of the “new stars of jazz” by U.S. News & World Report (the magazine that’s always in your dentist’s... More >>

• “John Alexander: A Retrospective”

  published April 17, 2008

  A native son is finally getting his due at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s “John Alexander: A Retrospective.” Born in Beaumont,... More >>

• Ed Wood

  published April 17, 2008

  Long before Ed Wood flopped into theaters in 1994, moviemakers had a fixation with the man both mocked and applauded as “the... More >>

• Glass Exhibition

  published April 10, 2008

  As April 15 approaches, Alex Gabriel Bern-stein may have the most interesting list of “work-related expenses” of anyone in North... More >>

• American Psycho

  published April 3, 2008

  Paving the way for his role as the brooding Batman of 21st-century cinema, Christian Bale played one of the great psychopaths in film history in... More >>