Human Rights Dallas and "Venom" Frog
Greetings all,
Early voting is happening. Please go out and vote. Make a plan and get it done. Your vote can and will make a difference on the local, state, and national levels.
There are a few programs I have been working on that are happening soon, and all of them are free!
This first is from a new series I have been working with called Human Rights Dallas Film Series. On Saturday, October 26, at 3pm, at the Angelika, we are showing “No One Asked You.” The screening is free.
Comedian, disruptor-extraordinaire Lizz Winstead (co-creator of The Daily Show), and Abortion Access Front crisscross the U.S. to support abortion clinic staff and bust stigma. Pop culture icons and next-gen comics fuel this six-year road film activating small-town folks to rebuild vandalized clinics, exposing wrongdoer politicians, anti-abortion extremists, and media neglect as the race to the bottom ensues. A bold call to action reminds us that even as our rights burn down, joy will prevail.
If this sounds familiar, we programmed this as the opening night of the Thin Line Festival.
Speaking of films about abortion, the powerful documentary “Zurawski v Texas” will be playing at the Texas Theatre on Sunday afternoon (October 27), Monday evening (October 28), and Tuesday evening (October 29).
The Director, Maisie Crow, and Dr. Austin Dennard will attend the Monday and Tuesday evening screenings.
Women denied abortions in Texas despite life-threatening circumstances join forces with a lawyer to file a lawsuit against the state, aiming to restore reproductive rights for themselves and others.
On a lighter note, this Sunday is Home Movie Day. Here in Dallas, it will be at the Dallas Public Library on the seventh floor. If you have some home movies in any format, come by, and we will screen them. Home movies tell us so much about who we were and what the world looked like in the past. With so much going on in the world, it is nice to take a day away from the present and immerse ourselves in the past. If you live somewhere else, you can find your home movie day here.
I will be doing a Q&A for the film “Union” Tuesday night at 7pm at the Angelika.
Next week, Frame of Mind, our series on KERA and other PBS stations in Texas, returns. This year, instead of running every week for the series, we are showing only one film each quarter.
The film we are showing next Wednesday at 9 pm is “Cowboys without Borders.”
More on this next week, but here is the poster image.
“Cowboys Without Borders” follows the story of Gaston Davis, a sixth-generation Texan with a ranching background, as he explores ranches from Montana to Argentina and everywhere in between.
I will be headed to the Austin Film Festival on Thursday to do a mobile film-making workshop. If you are in town, stop by at 1 pm at the Omni Downtown, 700 San Jacinto Blvd. (Mansfield Room). If you know a bookstore or other place where I can do a workshop in support of the book lunch on November 22, let me know.
Matt Zollar Seitz is presenting “The Fly” at the Texas Theatre on Thursday night, October 24. The Texas is also showing “Shaun of the Dead” on Saturday, October 26 and Sunday, October 27, and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” 8 pm on Friday Night this is a film that I thoroughly enjoyed when it came out but now has become the epitome of audience performative theater, which I do not like.
The Majestic will be showing Brian DePalma’s “Phantom of the Paradise” on Saturday, October 26, with Paul Williams in attendance.
On Monday, October 28, the Angelika Theater has a screening of the classic “Chinatown,” which will be great to see on a big screen. On Wednesday, October 23, they are also showing Hitchcock’s classic “Strangers on a Train” as part of their Hitchtober series.
I will list your Halloween selections next week.
Also, the Dallas Producers Association’s showcase at the Texas Theatre on Wednesday, October 23, and the Lone Star Film Fest are coming soon.
Penny Lane’s “Confessions of a Good Samaritan” is showing on Netflix.
Have a great week
And remember, early voting is happening now!
-Bart
Howdy,
At the Modern this weekend, we are showing a new French film called “The Goldman Case.” Its a pretty chatty courtroom drama and I am including the entire description below because I had not heard of this film or the real-life case before.
In 1975 Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter), a fiery left-wing figure and revolutionary activist, goes on trial in France, in this dramatization of actual events. Accused of multiple crimes including two murders, Goldman proclaims his innocence. Twenty years before the O.J. Simpson case, the Goldman trial reflects the political, ideological, and racial tensions that marked the 1970s in France and Europe. Considered the trial of the century in its day, the case divided an entire country and widened the gap between the conservative right and left-wing intellectuals.
The only wide-release this weekend is the third part in the “Venom” series of films. Before Marvel was acquired by the Disney corporation, it had licensed out Spider-Man and all of his variants and villains to Sony Pictures. In the early 2000s, they made a trilogy of movies starring Tobey Mcguire, then there was a reboot with Andrew Garfield. When Marvel started it’s own blockbuster studio, Sony “lent” the rights to Spider-Man back to them so that Tom Holland could be in the Avengers movies, as well as in his own trilogy.
Meanwhile, Sony was still able to make their own movies with the characters. This resulted in the Spider-Verse animated movies, the first of which one the Oscar for Best Animated Film. They also started making movies starring other characters from Spidey’s world. Two of them “Madame Webb” and “Morbius” were critical and box office disasters. Meanwhile the Tom Hardy starring “Venom” films have done rather well with the original making about $900 million and the sequel “Let There Be Carnage” made about $500. I think the downgrade reflects the quality of the films (the first one is fun, the second one is not as much.) Hopefully “The Last Dance” this weekend can finish the trilogy on a high-note. Later this year, yet another villain story “Kraven the Hunter” releases after four(!) delays. Without a streaming service, Sony relies on theatrical success and “Harold and the Purple Crayon” and “AfrAId” are not going to cut it.
With Halloween next week, a lot of the streamers have been releasing holiday themed films and shows on their platform. Disney has it’s ever popular 31 Days of Halloween with films like “Hocus Pocus” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” The also brand some shows like “American Horror Stories” as Hulu-ween which I think is cute. Every Friday, Max has released some pretty heavy-hitters with “Caddo Lake” produced by M Night Shyamalan and a new version of “Salem’s Lot.” It also helps that HBO and Warner Bros have a huge library of classics like “Scream” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Peacock took more of a TV focused approach bringing back the prank-show “Scare Tactics” as well as releasing original horror shows like “Teacup” and “Hysteria!” It’s actually pretty surprising how services like Prime Video and Netflix don’t lean into the season more. The traditional studios seem to have the libraries of scary franchises that people want.
-Elijah