​The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association just dispatched its year-end best-of, the whole list of which follows. Given my retreat from film crit in recent months -- though I did review We Bought a Zoo, opening Christmas week, and ... not bad -- I can't argue with this year's list as I've done in recent years. Still ... no Margin Call amongst the Top 10? Shame. (No, that's there at No. 9.)

Long story short: The DFW critics' list looks like a cross between New York and Los Angeles', with Alexander Payne's The Descendants coming out on top in several categories, among them: Best Film, Best Actor (George Clooney) and Best Director (well, you know, Payne). One thing with which I heartily agree: Rango as Best Animated Film. A pee-wee league Fear and Loathing.More >>

Photo by Anna Merlan

​If you were were strolling through Main Street Garden late this afternoon, perhaps accompanied by Angela Hunt and a homeless acquaintance or pausing to let your dog take a leisurely crap on its spacious green lawns, you may have seen a group of increasingly sweaty teenage boys running towards a camera over and over again, each of them clutching what looked like a large orange machine gun.

In case you were wondering what was that about, as some Friends of Unfair Park were: Hasbro Toys hired a production company to film a new Nerf commercial downtown. They're wrapping up shooting later on tonight.

"This an unbelievable place," Francis McIntyre, the location scout and production assistant for the project, told Unfair Park. "It really feels wonderful," which is why Hasbro wanted to shoot here. Also, it was free: The city waives permit fees for shoots at Main Street Garden, such as today's commercial, which depicts a mob of around 60 people running through downtown and arriving there.

The production company also rented out a couple rooms at the Hotel Indigo down the street, where they took any actors or crew who looked like they were about to spontaneously combust from the heat. They also had iced-down bandannas, lots of water and an EMT on-site.

​If you drove to Grapevine last night, entered the mall on the corner of Grapevine Mills Boulevard and Stars and Stripes Way, hurried past the Legoland, the Foot Locker and, outside the aquarium, two children strapped into some kind of bungee-jumping ride, pogoing slowly over and over again from floor to ceiling, then walked down the long hall of the AMC 30 movie theater, you could find a special "leaders only" screening of the new documentary about Sarah Palin, The Undefeated. To RSVP online for the event, one had to check a box, which stated, "I testify that I'm a leader with significant influence in my community." There was also a blank field to describe "what you do as a leader."

"You missed the beginning where everybody's cussin' about her," the volunteer at the table outside the theater told me. A tall, muscular, sandy-haired kid with very wide blue eyes and a polo shirt tucked into crisp jeans, he shook his head in disbelief, "It's pretty harsh."

But that's about the only harshness you'll find in The Undefeated, which was made by director Stephen K. Bannon without Sarah Palin's direct participation but with her clear blessing. The film uses significant portions from the audio book of her memoir Going Rogue as voiceover, and when the film debuted in Pella, Iowa on June 28, Palin and husband Todd attended the festivities.

The movie, which charts her career as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska, is less a documentary than a glowing two-hour infomercial for Sarah Palin, Presidential Candidate To-Be. It's pre-screening in select cities now and will be distributed in some AMC theaters on July 15, including in Dallas. So, what to expect? Jump to find out as we split a box of popcorn with some Tea Party-goers.More >>

​On and off since posting that original item about Andy Carl Valentin and Chris Durbin's plans to save the Bottle Rocket motel in Hillsboro I've spoken with the twosome about...related matters, let's say. And today, we can officially announce at least one significant bit of breaking news: The Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse has added a Bottle Rocket screening to the July 9 sleepover at the Days Inn in danger of shuttering thanks to franchise fees too big a burden for the motel's owners.

It's a last-second addition to the Drafthouse's Rolling Roadshow series, which includes a Red River screening in Fort Worth tomorrow, followed by a Bonnie and Clyde shootout in Pilot Point on Saturday and a Tender Mercies Foote-rest in Waxahachie on Sunday. And, no, there's no Bottle Rocket poster for the event...yet. But I've been told one will be made available ASAP, and it'll be on sale the night of the 9th. Incidentally, we'll have a quote from Alamo bossman Tim League later.

So. Look for the poster here when it's available; by then maybe Bob Musgrave will have given me a firm yay on whether he can make the trip down with me that night.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of iconic local movies, do me a favor? Keep July 1 open. I'll tell you why soon enough. Thanks.

Coming to an AMC near you next month

​This morning we find two items of local interest contained within the virtual pages of IndieWire. First: Long-ago Observer-er Dana Harris sends word that the extremely authorized Sarah Palin propaganda filmdocumentary The Undefeated has found a collaboratorexhibitor, the AMC chain of theaters. As a result its producers and distributors say it will play at least 10 markets on July 15, with Dallas among the cities getting a screening of the film described in this morning's announcement as "the story of a small-town girl who, against all odds, rises to the pinnacles of American government." If it doesn't star Rachel McAdams, or Julianne Moore, I am not interested.

IndieWire also rounds up a few notable in-productions "to root for" and includes on the short list Hal Sample's in-need-of-funding-for-finishing Something for Nothing. As you no doubt recall, that's his years-in-the-making documentary about Tachowa Covington, the homeless man who turned an abandoned water tank on the Pacific Coast Highway outside of Los Angeles into his home ... only to see it yanked out from under him, literally, after it was branded by Banksy. I see Hal's raised about $3,000 toward his goal of $30,000, with 17 days of Kickstarting to go. He's also posting deleted scenes from the doc in the hopes of spurring more donations. A heads-up in IndieWire also can't hurt.

Tachowa Covington and his former home in a still from Hal Samples's in-progress Something From Nothing. The whole trailer's after the jump.

​Over the years photographer Hal Samples has shown me bits and pieces of his in-progress documentary about Tachowa Covington, who turned an abandoned water tank on the Pacific Coast Highway outside of Los Angeles into his home. Samples has been shooting Covington since the fall of '08; just last summer he shot Richardson's own Caleb Jones performing in the tricked-out tanker. It was part of his so-called "Samples of Society" series devoted to the down but not yet out for the count.

But Samples, who years ago was working on that doc about the homeless in Dallas, never had much impetus to finish the doc -- that is, not till earlier this year, when legendarily mysterious U.K. street artist Banksy, who was in L.A. for his Oscar-nominated doc Exit Through the Gift Shop, decided to turn Covington's home into a canvas, stenciling on its side the phrase, in all caps, "This Looks a Bit Like an Elephant." At which point Covington's home was snatched off the abandoned site and offered for sale by something called the Mint Currency, whose shadowy origins were detailed in the U.K. Independent in March. And Covington was left homeless once more.

That act, Samples says today, "caused an upheaval of my friend's home." Covington, he says, is now living in a motel and having a hard time adjusting, given his spending almost three decades living on the fringes.

I bothered the photographer during his lunch near the SMU campus today because Brother Bill Holston directed my attention this afternoon to his Kickstarter page: The Deep Ellum-living photographer's trying to raise $30,000 to wrap the film, titled Something For Nothing, by no later than fall, when most film fests start selecting their offerings for next year's lineups. Since the launch last week, 16 donors have so far kicked in $1,505.

"We're hoping that once we finish this and submit it to the festivals, we can get it picked up and afford to buy him a more permanent residence," Hal says. "That's the end goal. He can't have his old life back now. He's calling me every day, and he's got good spirits, because he knows we're working on it. At least using Kickstarter, people can now contribute and begin to own their piece of the project."

I asked him how, exactly, did a Dallas photographer wind up making a doc about a homeless man living in L.A.? Turns out, Samples says, you can blame our art director.More >>

Via.

Hilary Swank

​I got a call yesterday from the mighty Robbie Brenner, one of the producers of the fingers-crossed film The Dallas Buyer's Club, which, as you're surely aware by now, is the long-in-the-works adaptation of the true-life tale of Dallas electrician Ron Woodroof and his journey from homophobe to AIDS sufferer in 1986 to smuggler of life-saving drugs. As noted earlier this week, producers and film reps are in France at this very moment trying to make a deal for the U.S. and international rights -- deals, Brenner hopes, that will lead to getting the movie made after a decade's worth of tentative starts and dead stops.

"That's the intention," Brenner says. "But we're living in a world where it's very hard to get financing, especially for a movie about a cowboy from Texas living with AIDS."

Right now, at least, Matthew McConaughey is signed on to play Woodroof; Hilary Swank is also attached. And Jean-Marc Vallée is going to direct.

Brenner, who's at Relativity Media in Los Angeles, has been with the project for 10 years -- back when it was at Universal Studios, back when Brad Pitt and then Ryan Gosling were attached to star. She's been with it through myriad writers and directors, among them Guillermo Arriaga (Babel, 21 Grams) and Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland). But, she says, Universal balked repeatedly when it had the chance to make the movie.

"They collected millions in fees and had many people write on it," she says. "This is a movie that needs to be made outside of the studio system with a good filmmaker, and Matthew is a good ol' cowboy from Texas. So we're trying to raise the money, which is very hard. I've cried a lot of tears over this movie, and the guy who wrote it almost lost his life over it. It's a very touchy subject for a lot of us, but we're living in a world where money's hard to come by, and people don't want to make a movie about a guy who contracts HIV. More >>

Photo by Patrick Michels

​After 10 long years of maybes, doubtfuls and dunnos, it would appear that The Dallas Buyer's Club, the true-life tale of Ron Woodroof, is closer to becoming a big-screen reality: Relativity Media today issued a press release announcing that co-producer Robbie Brenner is shepherding the project from limbo to multiplex, with, as we noted two months ago, Matthew McConaughey set to star as the heterosexual, homophobic electrician who contracted HIV in 1980, was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 and went on to found the Dallas Buyer's Club, through which AIDS patients bought life-prolonging alpha interferon smuggled in from faraway places. Hilary Swank is also set to star.

For those needing a refresher, yet again, may I direct your attention to former Observer editor Julie Lyons' story about Woodroof that first appeared in the Dallas Times Herald on September 11, 1990. It's a riveting thriller that begins thusly:

The thin man in gray approached customs with contraband -- 36 vials of a life-renewing drug packed in dry ice in a black leather briefcase -- bound for Dallas.

It should have been easy to slip out of Tokyo, but there were problems. A conspicuous frosty patch had condensed on the surface of the briefcase, and smoke seeped through its sides as dry ice evaporated.

Ron Woodroof, an experienced smuggler, moved fast. He slipped the vials into his pocket and popped open the briefcase for Japanese officials, understandably suspicious of smoking luggage.

"Why are you carrying dry ice around the world?" one asked.

"Would you believe," Woodroof replied, "that it's a fetish of mine?"

At this very moment, agents and producers are at the Cannes Film Festival attempting to sell the U.S. and international rights. But it's a long way from asking the standard question we love to pose whenever locally based projects are announced: Yes, but will it shoot here? Relativity tells Unfair Park they haven't begun scouting. (When the movie was at Universal, with Brad Pitt attached, producers did visit with Dallas Film Commission officials about making the movie here.) But, hey, Wooderson can always come back to toss balls with Colby Lewis. And, clearly, Hilary Swank has two good reasons to come to Dallas any time she wants.

What, no Caligula? Shame.

​Blessedly, the USA Film Festival is far shorter than its marathon counterpart, the Dallas International Film Festival, which wrapped Sunday after a 10-day run. Dallas's first major film festival, which was co-founded in 1970 by L.M. Kit Carson and introduced local audiences to the likes of M*A*S*H and The Last Movie, starts April 27, concludes four days later and features around two dozen offerings, including short-film collections. There are also, in keeping with the fest's long-running tradition, several tributes scheduled to actors scheduled to attend: Malcolm McDowell (who will be there for a screening of Pound of Flesh), William Fichtner (with, of all things, Drive Angry) and Texas icon Barry Corbin (who's promoting something called NoNAMES).

The fest, which takes place entirely at the Mockingbird Station Angelika, kicks off with two opening-night meet-n-greet movies: Jennifer Grant will talk about her father Cary before a 55th-anniversary screening of To Catch a Thief, while David Hyde Pierce will chat up audiences following the local premiere of The Perfect Host. Also coming is one of my favorite actors ever: Peter Riegert, star of National Lampoon's Animal House, Crossing Delancey and Local Hero, who will accompany White Irish Drinkers.

​You'll find the whole USA Film Festival flier on the other side, where you'll note one local film of profound interest -- the full-length version of Warriors of the Discotheque: The Starck Club Documentary, a shorter version of which premiered at the fest in '09 ... shortly before Dallas International Film Fest co-founder Michael Cain announced he was making two films about the late, great danceteria. Says the advancer, "now the project is a feature film filled with all the material that could not be included in the short work." Now, jump for the whole reel.More >>

Owen and Luke Wilson in the '92 Bottle Rocket short, which screens tonight at the Texas

​I'll be out of pocket this evening, otherwise I'd be at the Texas Theatre for A Very Special Program of short films presently on a statrwide tour courtesy the Texas Independent Film Network, a coalition of Texas film and video orgs intended to spread the gospel about homegrown indie films. It's called "Texas Legends ... Before They Were Legends" and counts among its offerings Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket -- the original '92 short film, which I haven't seen on a big screen since it played the USA Film Festival way back when. Also on the schedule tonight: Richard Linklater's Woodshock, Tobe Hooper's The Heisters and Robert Rodriguez's Bedhead, among others.

Now, back to the Dallas International Film Festival's initial list of offerings, which includes an Indonesian actioner called Blood of Eagles. Look at the names of the co-directors: Yadi Sugandi and Conor Allyn. "Allyn"? As in ... Rob Allyn of Allyn Media? Yup -- Conor's his son, a Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas grad. And Rob co-wrote the movie, matter of fact, his second credited screenplay. I was reminded of this fact this morning, by one of Allyn's colleagues, who confirms "this is his full-time gig now" and only getting fullerer.