Tristan Elwell

In this week's edition, the cover story chronicles the short life and ambiguous death of Lightning Medicine Cloud, the rare white buffalo born to Hunt County rancher Arby Little Soldier. To the Lakota Oyate, the animal was prophecy, heralding the return of the prophet White Buffalo Calf Woman, and a crossroads for mankind.

The white buffalo died in April before its first birthday, and what followed can't be good for any of us if you believe in the prophecy. I won't spoil the story here, but suffice to say the means by which the white buffalo met its untimely end are ... murky. Little Soldier, of the Lakota Oyate and the Sahnish people, claims the calf was murdered in a Cheyenne conspiracy. Investigators from the Hunt County Sheriff's Office and Texas Rangers think it probably died of natural causes.

So it will be interesting to see what brothers/filmmakers Richard and Ethan Marten do with this unsettled, acrimonious tale. Broadly, their film, "White Buffalo: An American Prophecy," is about galactic alignment, the cataclysm predicted by the Mayan calendar in 2012 and the white buffalo, herald of a transformative era. The film is slated for release sometime during the first quarter of 2013, funded segment by segment via Kickstarter.

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Fracking is finally getting the Hollywood treatment. Promised Land, an anti-fracking film conceptualized by The Office's John Krasinski, co-written by Dave Eggers, starring Matt Damon and Hal Holbrook, and directed by Gus Van Sant (Milk, Good Will Hunting), is set in a hard-luck Pennsylvania farming town. Damon must win hearts and minds to pave the way for the "$9 billion" oil and gas company he represents, while confronting his role in changing, for good or ill, these communities forever.

See also:
-"Fire in the Hole"

It hasn't even hit theaters yet and already it's been decried as a hit job on an industry that has fundamentally transformed America's energy landscape. Reasonable minds may disagree about whether or not the film is unfair or inaccurate, but surely we can disagree without inventing facts to support our positions.

Case in point: Phelim McAleer, the pro-industry filmmaker behind FrackNation, penned an op-ed in the New York Post recently about Promised Land. To illustrate what he regards as the fecklessness of claims that fracking is hazardous to health and the environment, he points to the clean bill of health the EPA gave Dimock, Pennsylvania's, water, which had become for the anti-fracking crowd the symbol of an industry that degrades the communities it alights on.

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Filmmaker Bentley Brown was born in Dallas, but he moved to Chad with his family when he was eleven. It was in high school there that he began making short films with friends.

Brown returned to the States for college at Emory and, for a time, suppressed his post-grad predisposition to filmmaking as he worked as a political analyst throughout Africa. In Sudan, though, pen went to paper, and Faisal -- the fictional refugee at the center of Brown's new film about Dallas neighborhood Vickery Meadow -- was born.

On his return to Dallas, Brown gathered a core team of filmmakers and created a Kickstarter account that raised a modest production budget, and perhaps equally helpful, generated buzz that landed them on CNN. Filming was done in Vickery Meadow, the Dallas neighborhood where the film's lead actor, a Sudanese refugee from Kansas City, walked among others living out experiences like his and his character.

Bentley Brown talked with Unfair Park about the film, Faisal Goes West. Here's what he said:

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Fair warning: Combined, the footage above and below doesn't even add up to two minutes. But I've been meaning to post the former since a few days ago, when South by Southwest first made it available -- the trailer for actor-turned-director Jonny Mars's America's Parking Lot, which will world-premiere down in Austin next month (a firm date has not yet been set). He's been working on this for a long time, and he's not done yet: Mars and I talked about the doc-in-progress during last year's SXSW, and this week he's wrapping up final interviews before its formal bow weeks away. I believe the film will also play the Dallas International Film Festival, which kicks off April 12 and is a while a way from announcing its lineup. So, what's it about? To the synopsis:

Pull up a front row seat with Tiger and Cy, two die-hard fans of 'America's Team', as they scramble to preserve their place in AMERICA'S PARKING LOT. When the Dallas Cowboys move to the first stadium built for a billion dollars, the shifting politics and economics of major league sports threaten to dissolve friendships and traditions, and force Tiger and Cy to make the costly choice to follow their beloved team.

Also on the watch list this morning: Locally based TZOM Film's really well done "teaser" about whatever they have forthcoming that documents Shepard Fairey's recent expedition to West Dallas. It's below. Watch it. Obey.More »

​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 »