It started as Texas Frightmare Weekend: Three days of horror flicks at the DFW Alamo Drafthouse alongside celebrity appearances by the likes of filmmakers, writers, make-up artists and stars. Then, it grew to an entire week of screenings, panels and opportunities to meet everyone from the original Creature from the…
Two years after the private, rough cut screening of what was then called The Starck Project, which played to a packed theater at the Angelika during DIFF 2012, director Michael Cain is ready to unveil his finished product. The Starck Club debuts this Saturday at Texas Theatre, and although that…
The most perfect works of art are those suspended between conception and realization, the ones that seize you up with how great they’re gonna be. (Well, those and Busby Berkeley numbers.) Alejandro Jodorowsky’s daft, daring, surrealist, possibly impossible adaptation of Dune, Frank Herbert’s spice-mining science-fiction novel that later proved unadaptable…
A grave has been freshly dug in the opening shot of director Gareth Evans’ ultra-violent Indonesian flick The Raid 2. It’s a start, but Evans is going to need 400 more. In the first few minutes, Evans dispenses with three-quarters of the survivors of 2012’s The Raid: Redemption, the writer-director’s…
There’s been a lot of speculation and serious concern about the direction of the next movie in the Star Wars saga and rightfully so. Remember all the giddy anticipation that bubbled out of our collective consciousness in the days leading up to the release of the first Star Wars prequel…
The week of Conan’s Dallas reign has come to end. I’m so fucking sick of his creepy face. Yeah, I said it. Don’t get me wrong, Conan’s great. But he’s taken over my life. I have people in my Facebook feed posting selfies with him or live Tweeting the whole…
Everyone’s favorite ultra-budget dragon tease mega-series returns for its fourth season on Sunday night. We’ve constructed a drinking game in its honor. I would opt for a light mead. Not wildfire. Will Daenerys actually make it across the sea? WILL JOFFREY EVER DIE? How amazing is Brienne of Tarth? Will…
When Chris Dowling began writing his film Produce, he didn’t know he was writing a film about down syndrome. “I wanted to write a story about faith,” he says. “And then as I was working on the film’s narrative, I realized there had to be a character with this childlike…
Before we continue, I should give you a few reasons to hate me: The only time I’ve been called into jury duty, it was iced out. I still have my tonsils. Oh, and this week my job includes writing about Conan O’Brien’s stop in Dallas. I’ve always been a Jimmy…
By Mark Walters Earlier this year, the Texas Film Awards honored Richardson native David Gordon Green for his achievements as a director. The 38-year-old writer and director launched his film career with the indie flick George Washington in 2000 and followed that with more independent work, as well as mainstream…
Tucked into a pocket of his workout sweats, Steve Rogers — aka Captain America, the serum-enhanced Yankee Doodle Dynamo who’s spent the last six decades in deep freeze — keeps a notebook of cultural beats he’s missed: Star Wars, Marvin Gaye, Thai food. If only he’d added ’70s conspiracy thrillers…
As its subtitle suggests, one reason Errol Morris’ 2003 documentary The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara proved so resonant is that its subject was partly a proxy for his most notorious professional successor, the decidedly less available Donald Rumsfeld. “I don’t do quagmires,”…
Let’s start with the ending, the closing credits disclaimer that insists that none of the lead actors in Lars von Trier’s two-part erotic epic Nymphomaniac filmed penetrative sex. If there is real sex in the movie, and it sure looks like there is, it must have been the duty of…
Why can’t women stay friends? That’s a trick question, of course, but also one that British actresses Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells lifelong pals in real life attempt to answer earnestly and honestly in their new HBO cringe comedy Doll & Em. In the sixepisode series, Mortimer and…
“I’ve interviewed a lot of nasty characters over the years,” says a cheerful Errol Morris over lunch on a bright Los Angeles day. “I’m a connoisseur of bullshit.” He’s sampled some of the finest: Holocaust deniers, murderers swearingtheir innocence, a beauty queen who claims she only kidnapped and raped that…
“I think the basic [cowboy] tradition is manliness, bravery, perseverance. You’ve got decades and decades of imagery that say that’s who it is. ” The opening lines of the film Queens & Cowboys are given by Western historian Michael Johnson. A few shots later, you meet Wade Earp, a 45-year-old…
Monday night Conan O’Brien played with guns; Tuesday night Conan put on lipstick. Clearly the man is taking a sincere interest in Dallas. He’s really doing some research. Last night he joked that during a visit to a strip club he met all of the Dallas Cowboys. I have quite…
Let me give you five excuses for why you didn’t watch Conan last night: You didn’t care. Your toddler finally let you get some sleep. You’re a bartender at one of the few local watering holes without a television. You hate funny gingers. Or maybe you didn’t know he’s filming…
We’ve told you plenty about Halt and Catch Fire. Now you can see it for yourself, at least 30 seconds of it, sliced up and laid under some sweet 80s dreams. It premieres June 1, and having seen the pilot I can assure you: It starts with a bang…
Wondering how the hell to navigate the more than 170 films gracing the screens of the Dallas International Film Festival? Well, how about some help from two DIFF-going veterans — Merritt Martin and Jennifer Medina — offering their best-intended, possibly challenging, but definitely enthusiastic assistance. Grab your hoodie (you’ll need…
The inspiration for Mark Goshorn Jones’ quirky comedy Tennessee Queer was anything but funny. The Shelby County Commission in Memphis wanted to pass an equal rights law in 2009 that protected LGBT city workers from job discrimination. They eventually did, but they were met with harsh and heated opposition for…
The Chicano labor leader César Chávez can now join Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in the pantheon of heroes whose world-altering achievements are dutifully recounted in timid, lifeless films any substitute can pop into the school DVD player when the regular history teacher is out. With César Chávez, Mexican director…
