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Articles by Jamie Laughlin
These 30 DFW Movie Theaters Will Show Die Hard. Yippee-ki-yay.
We can all agree that Die Hard is more than just an amazing holiday movie: It's also the greatest action film ever made. If you're one of the few remaining people who haven't seen it, it's the story of an off-duty New York cop who becomes ensnared in a high-stakes monetary heist, disguised as a grand act of terrorism, housed in a glass-windowed office building on an otherwise calm Christmas Eve in Los Angeles.
Live Nation and Mark Cuban's HiFi Brings a 1,000-Capacity Venue to the Design District
Today, the gutted used furniture store next to the Mavs headquarters and Community Beer Co. looks pretty unassuming — but give it a few months. Mark Cuban and Live Nation are turning it into the Design District’s first major concert venue. Inside, the new HiFi is meant to feel intimate. Its 1,000-person capacity groups its size with Canton Hall and the Granada Theater, but its stacked design presses you forward, closer to the stage.
This Documentary Tells the True Story of Dallas' Weirdest Cult
About 40 years ago, Doug Smith (a.k.a. Reverend Ivan Stang) and Steve Wilcox (a.k.a. Dr. Phyllo Drummond) started a cult in Dallas, Texas. But they didn’t mean to. And even though they weren’t employed by this publication, they certainly didn’t intend to infiltrate D Magazine’s offices in the middle of the night back in ’79 to design and print out their welcome pamphlets, which are still in circulation today, along with the “sacred” teachings of J.R. “Bob” Dobbs.
If You Want To See These Movies at DIFF, You’d Better Reserve Your Seat Right Now
The Dallas International Film Festival is back, and this year it’s bringing some new additions. The most important for moviegoers is the new e-ticketing, reserved seating policy. After a year of development and collaboration, DIFF and Atom Tickets built a platform from scratch. Brandon Jones of FilmFrog Marketing says the goal is to get away from long lines and to position DIFF as a leader in festival innovation.
Relaxer Director Joel Potrykus on Gaming the System
Abbie is sticky, shirtless and drinking eight baby bottles of milk. He is not allowed to leave the leather couch, lest he forfeit victory. This milk challenge was dictated by his brother, Cam. There are a lot of rules. All of them arbitrary. As Abbie is on the cusp of winning, the rules change. The goal post is moved further down field. Now, instead of eight baby bottles, his bro demands Abbie finish the entire gallon.
Best of Fests Packs 22 DFW Film Festivals in One Weekend
Orchestrating a great film festival is an art form. It’s also a strategic and financial nightmare to pull off. From wrestling over film availability to reviewing (hopefully) hundreds of submissions; keeping a cohesive feel to it all while still showing timeliness and diversity. It’s a wonder how our area successfully supports even a half-dozen of these suckers. It’s positively jaw-dropping that we’re home to 25 of them.
Oh, Hal Yes: Texas Theatre Made This 2001: A Space Odyssey Parody
When the Texas Theatre team gets into a movie, they really get into it. To celebrate the new 4K Un-restoration* of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the team shot a teaser inside the theater’s cavernous walls. Hal’s there. So is Aviation Cinemas co-founder Eric Steele. Their only company? The tension of a screening that must not be jeopardized. Check out the bumper before Texas Theatre opens the film on the 31st.
This Year's Women Texas Film Festival Veers Away From The Expected
Justina Walford thinks “women have gotten ballsier.” The founder and artistic of Women Texas Film Festival is talking about a recent uptick in films made by women that have found space on the big screen in recent years—a trend especially evident in the festival circuit. For Walford, this rise may not be a sign that demand for these stories has suddenly expanded. Or that in the span of one year, women have increased their collective creative output by 20 or 30 percent.
Augustine Frizzell's HBO Pilot Euphoria Gets Picked Up
Dallas filmmaker Augustine Frizzell is having a transformative year. Just as her feature debut Never Goin’ Back hits screens around the country, it’s been announced that the HBO pilot she directed and co-executive produced, Euphoria, will be picked up for a full series. And according to Deadline, the show—which already had teen star Zendaya attached as the lead—will come with even more celebrity shine now that both Drake and his manager, Future the Prince, are attached as executive producers.
Beyond The Increased Parity at Oak Cliff Film Festival, A Whole Streaming Service
Find a guide to the Oak Cliff Film Festival, which runs through Sunday, here. Before #TimesUp and #OscarsSoWhite became household hashtags, Seed&Spark co-founder Emily Best was acutely aware of Hollywood’s parity problem. She was already working to develop a multi-platform approach to get funding and visibility for those trying to tell stories from new perspectives. The problem was, few others understood film had a problem with diversity. Not yet anyway. But then, something interesting happened.
Wayne's World Director Penelope Spheeris Reveals Why She Stopped Making Movies
Back in the late seventies, filmmaker Penelope Spheeris heard about a dude who wanted to make a porno. He ran a payroll service and car rental business out in the Valley. She saw an opportunity to fund her first feature project. So, she took the investor to a Black Flag show.
Your Guide To The Oak Cliff Film Festival's Hottest Tickets and Hidden Gems
Aviation Cinemas, the crew behind Texas Theatre, has been busy. Without missing a programming beat at their original Jefferson Boulevard headquarters, Jason Reimer and Barak Epstein announced they’d bought an historic Denton theater to renovate and run, just before their annual Oak Cliff Film Festival launches its 2018 run Thursday. All that hustle has resulted in a win for audiences.
Bring Your Home Movies To Top Ten Records Saturday and UNT Librarians Will Digitize Them For Free
Laura Treat just struck gold. While on a house call to a DeSoto studio, the image preservation historian found programs, ticket stubs, photographs and promotional giveaways documenting Dallas’ 1960s Interstate Theater era. It was a golden time for Dallas’ filmhouses, when Interstate’s three Elm Street beacons — The Tower, Majestic and The Palace — lit brightly every night, baiting crowds with their neon marquis.
Here Are All The Wild Movies You Can See At Oak Cliff Film Festival This Year
The Oak Cliff Film Festival just announced the full lineup of its 7th annual run, and you can’t help but notice a theme in its programming. It may stem from an increase in women making films, from those same films getting more circulation and traction, or from an organic response to the current climate, but one thing’s for sure: ladies have a strong— and loud— presence. Opening the event is Bad Reputation, the new Sundance-selected doc tribute to Runaways’ guitarist and vocalist, Joan Jett.
Michel van der Aa, Sunken Garden's Creator, on the High Technology Coming to the Dallas Opera
We’re chatting through Facetime to sidestep international calling fees, but my tech reality isn’t equal to the Grawemeyer Award-winner’s. He’s explaining how he created, composed and filmed the world’s first 3D opera, Sunken Garden, which gets its U.S. debut in Dallas tonight. I’m shaking my refurbished iPhone at a window, hoping to snag a longer thread of conversation before the line breaks up.
This Dallas Filmmaker Debuted Her First Feature at Sundance
Dallas filmmaker Augustine Frizzell is sitting in a sunbeam and talking about failure. It’s an unlikely turn in conversation, considering her recent successes: Her writing and directorial feature debut, Never Goin’ Back, just played the Midnight lineup at Sundance, and will soon road trip to Austin as an official selection for the 2018 SXSW Film Festival. Frizzell will go too.
When Art is Stolen From a Museum, Should its Market Price Matter?
When Irby Pace found out his art was stolen from the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, he was deflated. The hijacked stereo cards had been a challenge to craft. Pace liked the fresh way they allowed viewers engage with his work. Plus, his subjects — vibrantly colored smoke clouds — looked super dope in 3D. Now he’d have to start over.
Austin Out-Employs Dallas for Young Professionals. Is Day-Drinking Now Considered "A Career"?
Forbes posted its list of Top 15 Cities for Young Professionals this month, and Dallas didn't make the cut. The rankings took job growth, employment rate, cost of living and median income into account, so it feels counterintuitive that Austin holds seat number 11 while Dallas warms the bench. Known more as a place with rich social opportunities than a city where a college graduate can find a decent career, Austin's placement on this list baffles me.
Our Top 12 Photos from Diorama-O-Rama
Jennifer Dunn and Cara Crossley, "They say her name was Jasmine" This Saturday, things got ree--eeee---eeeal dorky at Bolt Studios as Diorama-O-Rama gathered followers of the dark, nerdly arts for a day of craftivism. The event raises loot for local charities, with this installment's kitty getting kicked toward Café Momentum, a group that teaches culinary skills to at-risk youth in the Dallas community.
Update: The Two Macaws That Blew Away Yesterday Have Been Found
If you see two birds who look like this, it's probably them. *** Update: Park officials recieved a call just after noon from a family in the East Dallas neighborhood of Little Forest Hills. Two parrots were perched in a tree in the back yard. Bird handlers were immediately sent out and have confirmed that these are the missing 13-year old macaws, Curly and Joe. They're being reunited with their fellow co-workers.
Nevada Hill's Favorite Skate Shop, Index, Honors the DFW Artist, Musician and Skater Who Died in 2016
When Scott Newton first encountered Guinea Pig, it wasn’t a sprawling backyard halfpipe. It was one piece of wood, and Nevada Hill was obsessively sawing into it. On the ground. With a jigsaw. In the snow. “I was like, dude — there’s no way this thing is getting built,” Newton remembers. “Then the ramp started expanding. … It was like he was building Noah’s ark.” But that was Nevada Hill. He was a manic maker. A cosmic cowboy.
Miami's Jacuzzi Boys In Town for Behind the Screen Set at Texas Theatre
A rainstorm's been hammering their van for two straight days — but like everything, the Jacuzzi Boys take it all in stride. When they play behind Texas Theatre’s screen in Dallas on Saturday night, they’ll show Texas the easy energy that’s made them hometown heroes in Miami. Since breaking out with their low-fi, psychedelic first album, No Seasons, the trio quickly did what few other South Florida bands have been able to do: get heard on a national scale.
What to See at the Oak Cliff Film Festival This Week
The Oak Cliff Film Festival crew is sitting in the back of Wild Detectives, bantering over the recent uptick in interest for slow-core Soviet cinema. They just showed Tarkovsky’s Stalker, a challenging piece of stitched-up long shots, and each has theories on why the crowds were so large. One thing they know for sure: They weren’t getting these kinds of crowds for difficult films seven years ago, when Texas Theatre first opened. They are completely unaware that they’ve created this demand.
Fort Worth Modern Opens Immersive Doug Aitken Exhibit, 'Electric Earth'
Walking up to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s second-floor galleries, you’re greeted by a phone booth pulsating with light. The Wi-Fi-controlled sculpture nods to a less convenient time when apologies, laments and assuring words were spoken publicly on street corners as others waited nearby, impatiently. It breathes like an X-ray with a heartbeat, emitting a soft, white glow – just like the Apple symbol on your MacBook. No wonder it feels so comforting.
Oak Cliff Film Festival 2017 Schedule Topped by David Lowery and Alejandro Jodorowsky
As the Oak Cliff Film Festival enters its sixth year, you see it growing into its future. Filmmaker friends of the festival have become more established, giving the content added weight – along with highly anticipated regional and statewide premieres. Left-of-center visionaries keep a revolving seat at the table for this year's fest from June 8 to 11 at the Texas Theatre, with the platter passed down to the psychedelically surreal Alejandor Jodorowsky.
What to See at Dallas' USA Film Festival April 26-30
We are in the thick of film festival season, a span that’s grown wider and richer across DFW. Now host to 11 film festivals, some new regional offerings like Women Texas Film Festival are much more niche, and others, like DIFF give a span of styles and budgets targeting a variety of tastes. And then there’s the longest-running and sometimes tough-to-classify USA Film Festival, which celebrates its 47th program this weekend. Here you’ll find a mix of old and new, steeped in celebrity culture.
The 5 Best Films to See at Dallas International Film Festival This Weekend
Whether you’ve been movie hopping for a week or plan to catch your first eyeful of DIFF this weekend, you’ll get a fresh crop of films filling the screens plus a chance for a few encores. Voting is currently underway for all of this year’s plucky competition categories, and the winners of each will get their victory lap screenings on Saturday.
Watch This: Five Comedies to Catch at DIFF
There’s a lot to navigate in Dallas International Film Festival’s 2017 line-up. But what if — between the human rights documentaries, dark family dramas and ready access to booze — you just want to chill out and watch something funny? Well, you’re in luck there too. We’ve got five of ’em for you. And you know what else? Four of them even have Texas ties. So snag a ticket, grab a seat and find your new favorite indie comedy.
Watch the Just-Released Trailer for David Lowery's New Film, A Ghost Story
Scooped up by A24 at Sundance, Dallas filmmaker David Lowery’s new minimalist tale, A Ghost Story, now has an official trailer. And yeah, it presses all the emotional buttons. Reuniting Ain’t Them Bodies Saints actors Rooney Mara and recent Academy Award winner Casey Affleck, A Ghost Story unravels your loose threads, pulling you through the passing of time, love and life. And by the look of this new trailer, grief has never appeared so lovely. It’s official Dallas opening is set for July.
Three Perspectives, 170 Films, One Obsession: This Is Dallas International Film Festival
A cherished movie takes viewers on a journey. Whether it's an impossible moment, a peek inside an otherwise unnoticed life, or an immersive soak in unfamiliar subject matter, film's ability to shape our perception of the world is limitless. As the curtain lifts March 30 on this year's Dallas International Film Festival, we will take our seats and ease into a curated collection of 170 handpicked movies.
An Austin Artist Doc, a Punk Rock Tragedy and a Twisted Rom-Com Rep the Lone Star State at DIFF
Sandra Adair never expected to direct. She was busy mastering her craft as an editor, bringing filmmakers' visions to life. Then she had a studio visit with an artist who was taking a risk of his own, and she understood that together they had a story to tell. "It just flipped my switch on," Adair says from her home in Austin.
Dallas International Film Festival Reveals Its 2017 Schedule
Patti Cake$ might be one of the festival's biggest crowd pleasers this year. The Dallas International Film Festival has released its full 2017 schedule, and it’s loaded up with festival hits, rising stars and repertory classics, so you might want to schedule that out-of-office notification now. Here are a few highlights. Scroll down for the full list. David Gordon Green will make the long hike from Austin to receive the L.M. Kit Carson Maverick Award.
Tonight Alamo Drafthouse Screens XX, a Collection of Spooky Shorts Directed by Women Including St. Vincent
Women don’t have to be gracious. They can be monsters. Mothers. And mothers of monsters. XX, the new collection of spooky shorts by four female filmmakers, drills down to the meat of these ideas. Fresh off of Sundance, it’s getting a local screening — charmingly — on Wednesday, March 8, for International Women’s Day. “I’m not really a ‘holiday person,’” says Women Texas Film Festival’s director, Justina Walford.
New Earth Day Film Festival Announces First Two Selections
Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman looks at four men living sustainably off the earth and sea. Dallas’ newest film festival addition feels especially prescient. EarthXFilm’s inaugural showcase will focus on “films and emerging media that explore conservation, climate change and the environment” in hopes of generating awareness and sparking action.
Polish TV Series The Dekalog Takes On Big Questions About Morality as It Tours a Warsaw Apartment Complex
It takes balls for a one-screen movie house to air 12 hours of Polish television programming, but that’s what happens beginning this Saturday at Texas Theatre. Dekalog, a collection of 10 one-hour, made-for-TV films focused loosely on thematic elements of the Ten Commandments, will get the big screen treatment thanks to a partnership between the arthouse movie theater and the Nasher Sculpture Center.
Dallas Artist Robert Wilson IV Brings Comic Heartthrob to Life
What’s the cure for a good girl with a bad heart? A transplant. From a criminal. And a whole lot of Stevie Nicks. That’s the premise of Heartthrob, a philosophical joyride of a comic that’s illustrated by Dallas’ own Robert Wilson IV. Its first five issues have just been released in trade paperback, so if you’ve been waiting to take it for a spin, it’s time to grab the wheel, hang on and buckle up: This one’s all hard angles.
The Dallas International Film Fest Released its First 10 Films, and Local Talent Made the Cut
It's begun. The Dallas International Film Festival is rolling out its selections for this year's fest, which will consume our minds and eyes from April 4 through April 14. The first 10 films were just announced, and two of them are products of filmmakers who get their mail delivered in Texas. Hot off its screening at Sundance, we'll get a needed look at Pit Stop, the project of Dallas-turned-Austin filmmaker Yen Tan, with a producing assist by Oak Cliff's own Eric Steele.
The Dallas Opera’s Institute for Women Conductors Passes the Baton
Maestra Marin Alsop is sitting near the harpist. She’s leaning back with her index finger resting across her cheek, observing the interaction between conductor Chaowen Ting and the orchestra. You can tell she wants more than she’s getting from this overture. Alsop gestures a cutoff and walks toward the podium. “Do you need those glasses?” she asks Ting. “Perfect,” says Alsop. “I want you to take them off and set them down. And this time, put your hands behind your back.
Dolly Parton Displayed Her Storytelling Gift in Between Songs at Verizon
Dolly Parton shimmied through the Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie on Saturday night with her longtime band, a menagerie of instruments and what seemed to be several metric tons of cubic zirconia. “Leave no rhinestone unturned, is what I always say,” she joked, in her charming-as-all-get-out manner. You learn a lot about Dolly by seeing her live, as she's basking in heavenly spotlights. Her songbook is vast, composed of a half-century’s worth of hit ballads, dance numbers and full-on barn burners.
A High-Tech Version of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk Gets Short Shrift in Dallas
A Dallas theater showed Ben Fountain/Ang Lee’s new film in a very cool way. But then, it vanished. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Dallas nightstand that hasn’t felt the weight of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. The New York Times bestseller, penned by local author/writing superstar Ben Fountain, is even set in North Texas on Thanksgiving — timehopping between a Dallas Cowboys halftime show and Iraq war flashbacks.
The Love Witch Playfully Inquires What's Going On Inside the Mind of a Sex Siren
“It’s time to get a little sympathy for women,” says filmmaker Anna Biller from her California home. “Women are great, even when they’re awful.” We’re chatting about her latest work The Love Witch, a technicolor kiss blown toward female-centric thrillers like Repulsion and Marnie — the kinds of films that allowed women to tumble as deeply into the sociopathic void as men, and to look better doing it.
The WFAA Archives at SMU Are a Treasure Trove
I’m looking at old WFAA news clips with Jeremy Spracklen, moving image curator of SMU’s G. William Jones Film & Video Collection, and the kid on screen has an awful lot of ventriloquy dummies. This footage is from the mid-'70s, and shows a 14-year-old Richardson boy with his right hand stuffed in the back of his puppet’s jacket — both boy and dummy are being interviewed on a local news program.
Our Guide to Dallas Videofest 29
Dallas VideoFest enters its 29th year on Tuesday, Oct. 18, and that means more than 150 boundary-pushing things to see and do. Its programmer/creator, Bart Weiss, is a local counter-culture staple who’s helped push new media to the forefront of Dallas life for more than three decades. His reach runs so deep that it’s truly tough to imagine our city’s fabric today without his influence.
Former Dallasite and Monkee Michael Nesmith on His Surprising Career in Film and Being Awarded at The Kessler
Michael Nesmith and I are chatting on the phone, and I’m being greedy with his time. But what you realize when reviewing the former Dallasite’s career is how influential his efforts have been to the oozy creative goop of subculture. From those hook-heavy Monkees tunes, to his work in music videos, television and films like Tapeheads and Repo Man, Nesmith’s mischievous nature and artful drive helped take unlikely projects in new directions. He’ll be back in Dallas Saturday, Oct.
Sherlock and Doctor Who Director Rachel Talalay on Struggling to Be Taken Seriously in the Film Industry
“I’ve never considered myself the ‘Woman of the Year’ type,” said director Rachel Talalay into the microphone as she accepted her award from Women in Television and Film Vancouver in June. “I’m more the ‘Tank-Girl, post-punk feminist warrior.’” For those who never saw Tank Girl or were too young to remember Talalay’s 1995 film, imagine a gnarly future world where power and water go hand-in-hand.
A New Film Festival Brings a Diverse Lineup and Hope that Women Filmmakers Will Get an Equal Share of the Pie
Justina Walford is the founder director of the Women Texas Film Festival (WTxFF), the first event in the state to exclusively showcase cinematic work created by women in high-profile positions. But perhaps more important, Walford was just slipped a coupon for a free coffee, an unexpected perk of being on the same Pokemon Go team as her local barista. “Just a moment, I need to Instagram this,” she says while framing her shot of the gift.
A Record Collection at Holly Johnson Gallery Tells the History of the Human Heartbeat, and What We've Learned From It
The box set sitting under glass at Holly Johnson Gallery isn’t your standard rock compilation. And while its contents resemble CDs in their size and shape, they are actually custom 5-inch vinyl records — little palm-sized things, complete with sleeves, album art and liner notes. Housed inside their grooves is a poetically detailed history of human heartbeats, told through sound.
To Party with Sex Lab Inc., You’re Going to Need to Sign a Waiver
If you end up following a group called Sex Lab Inc. from the Texas Theatre this weekend, they will stop you and ask you to sign a liability waiver. Then, when they've shuttled you to an undisclosed second location, you might witness something unsavory. The name “Sex Lab Inc.” belongs to a theatrical arts collective that’s determined to create unique, immersive experiences, and whose members include a filmmaker, a theater director, a performance artist, an actress, an investigator and a scientist.
The Oak Cliff Film Festival Kicks Off Thursday - Here's What You Shouldn't Miss
The Oak Cliff Film Fest returns this week to share its treasures across Dallas’ favorite spaces. And while previous iterations have celebrated cinematic pioneers, obsessive documentarians and subversively innovative collaborators, this year’s inspiration is drawn from the New American era of 1970s filmmaking, a time when directors wrested creative control from studio financiers in order to swing the cameras in bold, at times gritty, and impossibly imaginative new directions.
Kid Classics, Documentaries and New Works Grace Oak Cliff Film Festival's Lineup, Announced Today
At this year's fest you can catch a free screening of the kid classic Flight of the Navigator . From June 16 to 19, the Oak Cliff Film Festival returns for the fifth time to offer up a curated hotlist of screenings, panels and interactive to-dos. The fest’s organizers just released this year’s fully cooked schedule, so slide your gaze south to see what the Aviation Cinemas crew is serving up for 2016.
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