Dallas News Blog

​So, you say you wanna meet Drew Barrymore -- have ever since E.T. or maybe since she gave Dave Letterman a birthday surprise? Well, this week you get your chance: She's doing a meet-and-greet at Urban Outfitters in Mockingbird Station on Wednesday. But, of course, it's first come, first served, so how to get served. Well ... wristbands for the how-do will be handed out beginning at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday; Barrymore will stroll the, um, red carpet 'round 7ish. At that time, the folks behind the visit have wrangled quite the perfect li'l stunt: Barrymore, who's in town to promote her directorial debut, the shot-in-Austin roller-grrrl Whip It, will be made an "official" Dallas Derby Devil. Then, at 7:15, the autograph free-for-all will ensure. You've been warned: Bring your own helmet.

Incidentally, one of the best things about Whip It is Andrew Wilson -- right, Bottle Rocket's Future Man. Turns out, he may be the most talented of the Wilson brothers after all.

​At long last -- which is to say, close to 20 years since Joyce Ann Brown was freed from prison for a robbery and murder she did not commit -- the South Dallas woman's story will become a movie. So reports The Hollywood Reporter, which makes special note of the announced film as it marks the feature-film directorial debut of actor Brian Dennehy, who's co-writing with the producer of HBO's 61*.

For those who don't recall Brown's story, she provides a recap on the Mothers (Fathers) for the Advancement of Social Systems Inc. Web site. (MASS is an Atlanta Street-based nonprofit she founded in order to help newly released prisoners readjust to life on the outside.). Better still is the 1990 book Joyce Ann Brown: Justice Denied, published one year after a 60 Minutes feature on her case and conviction (based on a single eyewitness's testimony) helped set her free. After the jump is a three-minute-long June KXAS-Channel 5 profile, in which Brown compares her case to those of the wrongly convicted Dallas County men who've been freed using DNA evidence: "We have a long ways to go, but you can see the system changing."

​Speaking of the late John Hughes, one of his biggest acolytes is Kevin Smith, who told The Los Angeles Times last year, "Basically my stuff is just John Hughes films with four-letter words." So happens that the writer-director of Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma will bring his one-man stand-up Q&A act to Dallas on November 7 at the House of Blues; tickets for the evening-with are available here.

And speaking of Smith, his comic-book-smudged fingerprints are all over The Variants, a Web series from the folks at Zeus Comics. The premiere episode debuted yesterday (on new-comics day, natch), and it's veeeerrry Clerks-y. And, it's after the jump. Highly recommended if you have any idea what I'm talking about. Any idea at all.

​Pardon the break in postings -- I spent the last little while watching this nine-minute tribute to the eight films John Hughes wrote and directed, among them Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Weird Science (co-starring Fort Worth's Bill Paxton) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Because, you see, he died today in New York City at the age of 59. Hughes, who long ago stopped making movies, suffered a heart attack.

Neko Rahmen Taisho, an AFFD must-see

Alas, Pussy Soup is the rather unfortunate translation for the delightful-looking manga-to-movie Neko Rahmen Taisho, one of the films in this year's Asian Film Festival of Dallas, which kicks off July 17 at the Magnolia Theater. The fest is in its eighth year now, and though it doesn't get the pub or push that accompanies, oh, the now-former AFI Dallas or even the Dallas Video Festival, its lineup has always been uniformly top-notch from opening night to last call. The complete catalog's available here for those buying early tickets, always good advice; and, for those who like to put something in their back pockets, here's the smaller schedule card. We'll have a more detailed sneak peek in a few days; till then, after the jump you'll find the newly released trailer for the entirety of the fest's estimable offerings.

In other film news ... On the same day the AFFD opens, Dallas will be one of the few cities in which Warner Bros. will screen the director's cut of Watchmen in advance of its DVD release, as we mentioned a couple of weeks ago. But, just moments ago, we got word that the movie technically ain't opening in Dallas. Instead, it will have a limited run -- July 17-20 -- at the Rave Hickory Creek 16, which, last I looked, was up in Denton County.

The watch-listed Danny Hurley sends the sad news: Joe Christ -- filmmaker, musician, provocateur, parent and all-'round hell-raiser -- died on Father's Day. According to the Facebook memorial page to which the faithful have been posting fond memories and farewells, he passed away in his sleep -- heart attack, three days after he'd turned 52.

For those who don't recall Joe, or didn't live in Dallas when he did (throughout most of the 1980s), he was John Waters turned up to 11 -- don't watch this at work, seriously. Shannon Sutlief nailed it in the paper version of Unfair Park in 2005, when she wrote about one of his many frequent trips back to Dallas: "a sultan of sick humor." And speaking of Waters, this is Joe in 1999, talking about perhaps his most infamous moment in Dallas:

As I understand it, John Waters has seen my movies, and considers them "bad" bad taste, as opposed to his concept of "good" bad taste. But when my band pulled a big publicity stunt -- on the 20th anniversary of his assassination, we rode in a limo through the JFK memorial services in Dallas in costumes resembling JFK and company -- John Waters personally congratulated us over the phone on our immensely bad taste.

As for the music, well, "Acid is Groovy ... Kill the Pigs" remains an unheralded surfabilly classic. What you see above is Joe and his late, great band, the Healing Faith, on a Dallas cable access show called Hi-Res Diner hosted by Paul Quigg; it dates back to August 17, 1987, a million years ago.

Patrick Michels

Michael Cain, kicking off the 2009 AFI Dallas International Film Festival on March 26 at the AMC NorthPark

In September 2006, some local cineastes were terrified to learn that Michael Cain was shuttering his mom-and-pop Deep Ellum Film Festival and spending a little less than $1 million to license the Los Angeles-based American Film Institute's name and consultants. Sell out, they whispered, especially when it was announced that Target was ponying up around $1 million for above-the-title sponsorship. But that was before the AFI Dallas International Film Festival became a hot ticket for filmmakers and film fans alike -- before bold-faced names strode red-carpet premieres, and before selling out turned into sold-out screenings over the last three smartly scheduled springs.

But the AFI Dallas International Film Festival is no more. As of today, that name is dead. Gone forever.

It will be replaced by the Dallas International Film Festival -- which, Cain tells Unfair Park today, is precisely what he'd hoped would happen back in September 2006, when he signed a three-year licensing and consulting deal with AFI that was allowed to expire without a renewal. Says Cain, the new festival will operate under the auspices of the Dallas Film Society.

"The board, the sponsors, the film fanatics, they don't care what we're called, so long as we're good," Cain says. "The team will remain untouched, and there may even be additions down the road. It's control of our own brand, the ability to develop what we want to do and what we want to be in the future at an amazing time to be doing it, given what's going on with things like the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. We can take advantage of those things without checking in, which is exciting, and it opens up sponsorship opportunities as well."

The Texas flag's waving in the Oklahoma breeze at this very moment: Noted The Oklahoman yesterday, director Michael Winterbottom's about 200 miles north of here shooting the second big-screen adaptation of Jim Thompson's 1952 novel The Killer Inside Me, about a deeply disturbed West Texas lawman who kills 'cause he just can't help himself. Casey Affleck's playing Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford, and the cast also features the likes of Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty, Simon Baker and Bill Pullman.

And while producers did consider shooting in Texas, well, they decided to go with Oklahoma City -- which, at this very moment, so happens to be doubling for downtown Fort Worth circa 1957. Says producer Brad Schlei in one of several accompanying video interviews, "We went to Texas, we went to New Mexico ... and Michael really loved it here. It has everything we need." Which means the closest Killer Inside Me gets to Fort Worth is MC 900 Ft Jesus's 1991 track off Welcome to My Dream, apparently.

Katie Scullin

Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner Shane Carruth, left, and Brothers Bloom writer-director Rian Johnson at the Magnolia last night

As mentioned late last week, Brick-layer Rian Johnson was at the Magnolia last night for two Q&A's -- one after the 7:10 p.m. screening of his Brothers Bloom; and one before the 9:45 p.m. showing. The house was packed for both screenings, each filled with fans who knew every last detail of Johnson's 2005 debut and asked thoughtful questions about the sophomore effort, well done.

And in attendance for the early screening was Johnson's pal and recently moved-to-Frisco Shane Carruth, whose Primer, you'll no doubt recall, picked up two significant prizes at Sundance in '04 and from whom we haven't heard much of late. But till the wee small hours of this morning, Carruth laid out the details of his Grand Jury Prize-winner's follow-up, about which, sadly, nothing can be said at this point. Alas, it will be worth the wait -- however long that'll be. Incidentally, Johnson points our direction to this Primer timeline -- which is either five years too late or three years too early, depending upon how many times you've seen Carruth's time-bender and tried to figure out what happens when and to whom and whyohwhy.

And whilst we're on the subject of moviegoing at the Mag, do not forget Friday's appearance of Anvil, who'll put metal on metal following the 7:45 p.m. screening of the band's eponymous rockumentary (and not the 9:45 p.m. showing, as originally advertised). Having finally seen the movie over the weekend, it's every bit as astounding as advertised, only more so.

Nathan Fillion "as" Green Lantern in Jaron Pitts's faux trailer

Making the virtual rounds in recent days is a fan-made trailer for a Green Lantern movie that ain't -- one "starring" Firefly's Nathan Fillion, so win-win for the fanboys. And it merits mention on Unfair Park because the creator of the clip is Dallas resident (and Berkner High School Class of '01 grad) Jaron Pitts, the multimedia director at the Farmers Branch Church of Christ. We exchanged a few messages via Facebook this morning, during which I asked him: Why'd ya do it, and how long did it take? To which he responded:

I did it because I am a big fan of the comic to film concept, when it's done right. I love the mythology and depth that it can have. It seems like either the big studios get it really right or really wrong, and before we saw anything that they did, I wanted to imagine it for what it could be. I never imagined it would get the attention it has, but who knows -- maybe my little trailer could help make this movie a little better.

I had the idea back in March and have been tinkering ever since. It was definitely a lot of late night hours, so we should all be thanking my wife for not killing me.

Clearly, it was no easy feat: As Pitts explains on his YouTube page, Pitts mixed and mashed dozens of different elements to create the phony trailer, incorporating everything from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring dialogue to Star Trek trailer music to, natch, Serenity clips -- for starters, as the trailer contains, all told, elements from some three dozen works (Iron Man, Galaxy Quest, the Fantastic Four movies, you name it) weaved into one 2:38 clip already viewed more than 138,000 times since it was posted Friday. If nothing else, Fillion's clearly a fan: As he tweeted over the weekend, "I LOVE THIS! this guy rocks!"

The clip follows.