But for his first cinematic leading role, the Plano native and former Saturday Night Live regular knew he had to find the right project. The indie satire Molli and Max in the Future fit his offbeat comic sensibilities while enabling him to broaden his background.

The science-fiction romantic comedy will screen on Saturday as part of an eclectic lineup for the Oak Cliff Film Festival at the Texas Theatre.

“The script was very unique. Right away, I knew the director was a visionary and I wanted to be involved,” Athari said during the recent the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival. “He allowed me to make it my own. It was a great experience.”

The feature debut of director Michael Lukk Litwak is a futuristic twist on When Harry Met Sally set in an intergalactic world where Max (Athari) and Molli (Zosia Mamet) keep meeting by chance over the course of several years and various dimensions, trying to survive their harsh surroundings while wondering if there are sparks between them.

“Everything I work on gives me a chance to expand on what I’ve already done,” Athari said. “I’m always looking for projects that put me in a situation where I’ve got to sink or swim. I feel like I operate best that way.”

The film was shot in New York last summer, just after Athari wrapped his only season as a featured player on SNL.

Athari, 31, grew up in the North Texas suburbs with his mother, who owned an alteration shop across the street from the old Prestonwood Town Center shopping mall. That jokingly came to mind when he recalled the extensive green-screen work on the effects-heavy Molli and Max.

“I spent a lot of time in fitting rooms after school, talking to nobody,” Athari said. “So talking to nothing is not that weird to me, unfortunately.”

He was more into the visual arts at a young age, but remembers seeing stand-up comedy for the first time. George Lopez was playing the Addison Improv, a venue at which Athari has since performed multiple times.

He relocated to Los Angeles before graduating from high school, then attended USC, where a classmate encouraged him to try stand-up. That launched a career that has included numerous sketch shows as an actor and director before breaking through on SNL during the 2021-22 season.

Upcoming projects include the independent film The French Italian and a recurring role on the third season of the MAX series Hacks. His connections to Dallas these days are mostly of the gastrointestinal variety — fond memories of trips to Colter’s, Luby’s, Taco Bueno, or Shipley’s Donuts.

“There’s certain things about Dallas that will never leave my body,” Athari said. “I’m guided by my stomach, is what my mom used to say. The Great Outdoors is the best sandwich shop on the planet.”

OCFF has several feature projects and short films with local ties on its schedule, which opens on Thursday and runs through Sunday at multiple screening locations. Highlights include:

100 Ways to Cross the Border — This documentary directed by SMU film professor Amber Bernak profiles the life and work of queer Latinx artist Guillermo Gomez-Pena.

Quantum Cowboys — The latest from filmmaker Geoff Marslett (Loves Her Gun), a Dallas native, is a time-travel Western incorporating various animation styles.

Somewhere Quiet — Dallas-based Last Rodeo Studios is behind this buzzy horror film about a young woman trying to adjust to normalcy after a kidnapping.

The post OCFF Preview: Aristotle Athari’s Long Road to Becoming a Big-Screen Leading Man appeared first on D Magazine.

In his new Netflix docuseries Waco: American Apocalypse, the Park Cities-born Russell found that while the historical facts of the tragic 51-day standoff in 1993 haven’t changed, the context in which we view it has evolved.

“History is something that’s not static. We’re always retelling it and reiterating different versions of it,” Russell said. “America is haunted by the ghost of Waco in a fairly profound sense. This was the biggest news story in the world, and it unfolded in real time on national television. Right from the get-go, it was this very politicized blame game that went around. How did we get into this mess? What was it like to be trapped in the maws of history? I wanted to find the humanity.”

As part of that approach, Russell wanted to frame the three-part series as a vivid and immersive thriller, incorporating 3D graphics to reconstruct the compound where the tense standoff matched religious leaders and acolytes with federal officials.

Producers uncovered unseen footage inside the on-site hostage negotiation room that was originally intended to be used an FBI training tool but was later stashed away. They also secured raw footage from local television stations that had never been aired. Those discoveries galvanized Russell.

“I was hesitant to tackle it. I didn’t know what I could add to it,” he said. “That was a way to take the story and electrify it, so it seems like it’s unfolding before your eyes.”

The filmmaker also weaves in new interviews with lawyers for cult leader David Koresh, one of his spiritual wives, the drummer from his band, and more.

“Everybody I sat down with was different from my preconceived notions about what I expected them to be. It kept transforming my understanding of the story,” Russell said. “It’s a very diverse cross-section of people. Rather than pushing an agenda from one side or another, I just wanted to understand the human experience.”

Russell grew up in University Park, where he worked at a video store so he could rent movies for free. He never fit in at either Highland Park High School or St. Mark’s School of Texas, and instead graduated from an East Coast boarding school on a wrestling scholarship.

His interest in true-crime storytelling stems from his father, who worked in the Dallas County District Attorney’s office. Russell worked as a crime reporter in Northern California before shifting gears after writing a profile on Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris, whose The Thin Blue Line helped exonerate a Dallas man.

“I was a bit of a wild child and a reprobate, but I found that world uniquely fascinating,” Russell said. “The stakes, whether you’re a cop or a crook, are life-or-death every time you walk out the door.”

Russell’s recent projects including the docuseries Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer as well as the 2021 narrative feature Silk Road. He is an executive producer on a project revisiting the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that debuted on Netflix in April.

As for Waco, Russell said it’s important to revisit and reconsider the tragedy, which still resonates an examination of religious freedom, gun rights, and government intervention.

“Waco is a story about God and guns in America, and how it affects our children. These are issues that are burning today like they were 30 years ago,” he said. “History is most relevant when it’s speaking about today.”

The post Why Documentarian Tiller Russell Is Taking Us Back to Waco, 30 Years Later appeared first on D Magazine.

“Soup’s On!: Cinema Like You’ve Never Tasted” is this year’s theme, an expression of what the team behind the festival strives to provide filmgoers every year. That means highlighting challenging and exciting voices in film, both new and old.

While the 2023 festival will hew closely to OCFF’s typical format—with screenings and concerts held at venues throughout Oak Cliff, including the Texas Theatre, The Wild Detectives, the Kessler Theater, and others—the mix of films being shown always varies.

Each year, loose themes or focal points emerge as the schedule comes into view. “It just … happens organically,” says Ashton Campbell, OCFF’s festival producer. “We don’t really try to write it.”

For 2023, the programmers ended up with a lineup emphasizing music. “Every year is different,” Campbell says. “We have a really large music component to this year’s festival … which we love, because it’s not something we were heavy on last year.”

Campbell spotlights the festival’s opening night feature, Going Varsity in Mariachi, about a South Texas high school mariachi team. “That’s a documentary … that has a music background,” Campbell says. “The background is about mariachi, but [the movie is] obviously about way more than that. It [focuses on] high school mariachi bands [and] all the things that come and go with that at competitions.”

Going Varsity in Mariachi is also representative of how the OCFF team tries to book films that have Texas ties. While the festival features movies and talent from all over, Campbell says, “We always try to … bring in Texas films and things that are filmed in Texas because we are a Texas film festival. We’re trying to champion independents from Texas.”

Live performances will also be a key component of this year’s OCFF. Mission of Burma’s Roger Clark Miller, Alloy Orchestra’s Terry Donahue, The Locust’s Justin Pearson, and Negativland are all expected to perform during the festival.

A heavier musical influence is not the only change for OCFF 2023. The festival always features a selection of student short films, but they’re typically created by college students. This year will also include shorts created by local high school students as part of the 2023 OCFF student workshop. The program is a partnership with the nonprofit For Oak Cliff, which pairs students with dedicated mentors who advise them while they write, film, and edit their own shorts. They will each screen during OCFF 2023.

Audiences will also have the chance to see classic films on the big screen. Tampopo, the renowned 1985 Japanese film about ramen, will be shown, as will the cult classic gonzo western Walker, with director Alex Cox in attendance.

Campbell says they always try to tie repertory screenings to the festival in some way. Tampopo was added to complement the Soup’s On! theme. Cox was already planning to attend to help promote Quantum Cowboys, a “hallucinatory, quantum theorizing, philosophical, animated western” from director Geoff Marslett in which he co-stars.

Cox has been a guest of the Texas Theatre previously—he welcomes the audience in one of the videos the theater plays before screenings—and told Marslett he’d enjoy being part of OCFF 2023. That is a sentiment he shares with other directors who have attended the festival. Wendy McColm, whose feature Fuzzy Head will have its North Texas premiere at OCFF, is another returning attendee, and there are others.

“The whole alumni thing with the … Oak Cliff Film Festival is important to us,” Campbell says. Having directors excited to come back to Dallas and participate is an indication that the festival is as positive an experience for artists as it is for audiences. It’s a trend Campbell and the OCFF team are proud of and happy to see continuing this year.

“I guess we’re doing something right,” he says.

The full program for OCFF 2023, as well as information on volunteering with the festival, purchasing badges for the full event, or buying tickets for individual screenings or performances can be found on the OCFF website.

The post The Oak Cliff Film Festival Announces Its 2023 Lineup appeared first on D Magazine.

The post Podcast: Barak Epstein Previews the Oak Cliff Film Festival appeared first on D Magazine.

Specifically, his indie comedy Dotty and Soul enabled the Dallas native to affectionately poke fun at his own upbringing with a satire about cancel culture, corporate greed, and socioeconomic inequality.

“When I was writing this story and thinking about where I wanted to set things, it always came back to Texas,” Saunders said. “Then I made it specific to Dallas. My brain went home.”

The film, which debuts this week in theaters and on digital platforms, stars Saunders as Ethan, a brash and flamboyant entrepreneur whose self-driving car company in partnership with some Highland Park bigwigs looks to manipulate public transportation into big profits. But after a social-media scandal, he’s prompted to partner with elderly snack-cart vendor Dotty (Leslie Uggams), who changes his perspective while prompting a journey toward comeuppance and redemption.

Saunders based the Dotty character on a beloved childhood caregiver who rode the bus almost every day to his Richardson home. Plus, he had friends growing up who lived in the Park Cities.

“The dichotomy of Dallas became a character in the film,” he said. “I know the people and like the people.”

Filming took place mostly in Oklahoma—due to favorable tax incentives outside of Texas, Saunders says—in March 2020 before being shut down for almost two years because of the pandemic.

If the premise sounds similar to the 1983 comedy Trading Places, which starred Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy, Saunders doesn’t mind.

“It was one of my primary inspirations and one of my favorite movies growing up,” Saunders said. “It was also talking about these bigger social issues and was very brave. It was such a popular movie because it was fun and handled it with a light touch. I wanted to tell that kind of a throwback story.”

After graduating from Richardson High School, Saunders earned a drama degree from Duke University and a master’s from Yale. He launched a theater company in between.

He’s been working primarily as a film producer for more than a decade, most recently on the Hulu feature Darby and the Dead, but he sees his new project as an opportunity to expand creatively.

“I felt like I wanted to tell my own stories, and that I was only producing for external reasons,” he said. “That’s similar to Ethan, and then he learns to ultimately do what’s in your heart.”

Saunders is already working on his second directorial effort, Re-Election, a comedy about a man who returns to high school after 25 years to avenge his defeat in an election for senior-class president that sent his life into a downward spiral. That film, which is set in Richardson, is shooting in Louisiana.

“Dallas absolutely shaped who I am as an artist. It’s such a community-based place where you know people personally,” Saunders said. “That’s something that’s part of these stories.”

Dotty and Soul is available on most streaming providers beginning Friday, May 19.

The post Dallas Native Adam Saunders Wants to Use Social Satire to Reexamine Our Priorities appeared first on D Magazine.

While films and ancillary projects from across Lynch’s career—including classics like 1986’s Blue Velvet and his short films—will be included, they will be supplemented by screenings of other work that was not made by Lynch. These will be films and shorts that share connective tissue with Lynch’s movies, such as Red Rock West and The Wizard of Oz. It’s rare for a retrospective of any artist’s work to cast such a wide net with its programming, but the Texas Theatre is providing the event the time and space needed to accomplish its ambitions.

The festival is the brainchild of projectionist Daniel Knox and the Dallas-based production company Talented Friends. Jason Reimer, co-owner of the Texas Theatre and co-founder of Talented Friends, said the goal was to make the event as immersive and extensive as possible, going beyond just hosting screenings.

“There’ll be lots of projections and…things going on in the theater. There’re little sneaky surprises that people will just have to wait and see,” he says.

An ongoing part of the program will be a series of special events that the team behind the retrospective is calling “The Black Lodge,” a reference to Twin Peaks. While details about Black Lodge events are still under wraps, Reimer says they will be “for the super hardcore people that want to get lunch and stick in for each day.” The Texas will open daily at 1 p.m. to host The Black Lodge, which will be free to attend.

The organizers have also worked to bring additional voices into the programming and execution of the event. Texas Theatre staples like Tuesday Night Trash and Dallas Ambient Music Nights will be coordinating with the venue to take part in the retrospective.

Scott Ryan, an author and the managing editor of Blue Rose Magazine, will moderate Q&As with guests. His magazine is dedicated to Lynch’s work and a testament to the director’s enduring appeal. While Ryan jokes about his decision to start a print magazine in the mid-2010s during a digital revolution, he and his team have since released 17 issues and attracted a global readership.

Working on Blue Rose and his books has allowed Ryan to build relationships with a number of Lynch’s collaborators, some of whom will make an appearance at the Texas. His intention is to keep the energy up and the vibe fun for attendees during the Q&A sessions. “I love being in front of a crowd or asking [guests] questions and making everyone laugh,” says Ryan. “People should expect a very interactive Q&A with me—this will not be boring.” 

The guests Ryan will be interviewing include actors and directors Lynch has worked with or who have been inspired by him in some way.

One attendee, George Griffith, whose directorial debut, From the Head, will screen during the retrospective, grew up in a house where he says “directors were talked about in…an exalted fashion.” Lynch was one such director, and Griffith and his brother spent their teenage years watching Lynch’s early films: Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, and Blue Velvet. Griffith says the latter “changed [his] perspective on everything.”

When Lynch’s seminal television series Twin Peaks was released, Griffith and his brother followed the director across mediums, taping episodes as they premiered. Decades later, Griffith played a role in the series revival, Twin Peaks: The Return. “I had admired [Lynch] since I was so young, and just to be a part of his world was exhilarating beyond words and…truly a dream come true,” says Griffith.

Being exposed to, and influenced by, Lynch’s work at a young age is not an experience unique to Griffith. Sherilyn Fenn, who appeared in Lynch’s Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, and Twin Peaks: The Return, and Natasha Gregson Wagner, who appeared in Lost Highway, were similarly struck by the auteur’s visionary filmmaking as young adults. Working alongside Lynch deepened their admiration for him as an artist. 

Gregson Wagner shared her assessment of Lynch’s process and what inspires him. “I think David is a real artist. I mean—the fact that he’s a painter, he makes coffee, he meditates, he’s so interested in dreams,” she says. “I think people resonate and react to his authenticity as an artist, that…he really is a storyteller… He pulls from every medium to create his stories.”

Fenn says Lynch subverted her expectations. “You think [David Lynch is] going to be weird,” she says. “But he’s not weird, he just finds beauty in everything, and probably more often in things that people don’t find beauty in.”

Fenn and Kimmy Robertson, who will also be attending the retrospective and worked with Lynch on Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return, both spoke about Lynch’s enduring appeal and why his work resonates so strongly with audiences.

“We live in a society where we’re taught not to go deep… [and] I think that some part of people’s soul is longing to be touched,” says Fenn. Robertson echoes her sentiments and thinks the reason Lynch’s work has remained so relevant is because, “…it touches part of us that…we don’t think about daily… I think our souls look at [his work] and go, ‘Oh, I recognize that.’”

Another planned attendee for the retrospective, Alexandre O. Philippe, is an example of the impact Lynch’s filmography can have on those who haven’t worked with him directly. Philippe is a documentarian whose career has involved making movies about movies. He knew Lynch would be an excellent subject. 

Philippe ultimately decided to explore the relationship between Lynch’s work and The Wizard of Oz. “It [was] something [that had]…been floating around in culture for a long time,” he explains. His exploration eventually led to a feature-length documentary, Lynch/Oz, which will be shown during the retrospective.

Philippe thinks the reason audiences have been so enamored with Lynch’s work and driven to dig deeper into it is that, while it can be “cryptic,” the movies are also “extraordinarily entertaining.” He adds, “I think there’s always the sense that [Lynch] holds your hand throughout his films, even if you’re scratching your head, [or] you don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

Each of these guests will make appearances at screenings and Q&As during the festival to help celebrate Lynch’s artistry and its impact on them personally and the broader film landscape. While the programmers want to avoid making the event feel like a fan convention, they believe that having these guests (and others) onsite will enhance the overall experience for attendees.

“People…may have seen Lost Highway, but have they seen it with people that are involved with the film?” asks Jason Reimer. 

Along with the guests, Reimer says the format films will be shown in will also set this retrospective apart from typical screenings. “People may know David Lynch did The Straight Story, for instance, but…they may not realize how hard it is to get a 35-millimeter print of that,” he says. “We have The Straight Story with a 35-millimeter print.” 

“[You] definitely need to see more than one thing, because [you] can’t get a grasp of David Lynch with just one movie, or one commercial, or one cartoon, or one Calvin Klein ad,” says actress Kimmy Robertson.

Griffith, the director, perhaps best sums up the appeal of the event for local moviegoers, saying the David Lynch Retrospective, “…will be like a living museum of cinema and [Lynch’s] work.”

Tickets for screenings are available for purchase from the Texas Theatre. Badges for the entire event are also available for purchase here.

The post David Lynch’s Collaborators and Admirers Prepare to Celebrate His Work at the Texas Theatre appeared first on D Magazine.

Then we go hard on a cool film festival upcoming at the Violet Crown (formerly Magnolia). Literary agent to the stars David Hale Smith joins us to talk about, in no particular order: how much he earns every year, how a class project in DISD’s K.B. Polk Elementary led him to his career, when he stopped taking drugs, hamburgers, and, finally, the film festival he helped launch, along with Steve Stodghill and Paul Coggins. The Dallas Noir Fest runs May 17–19 at the Violet Crown (formerly the Magnolia). It opens with the great Hell or High Water.

Use your favorite podcatcher, or listen with this:

The post Podcast: Dallas Noir Film Fest appeared first on D Magazine.

The low-budget film deals with familiar themes about masculinity, peer pressure, and arrested development as friends grow up and grow apart over the years, but with a distinctly Dallas flavor. The backdrops include local landmarks, particularly from the Lakewood neighborhood.

“There’s something about filming in a place I already knew so well,” Nussenzveig said. “It is a love letter to the city. Dallas is this inspirational place that I remember fondly. It always begs you to come back and reassess it. There’s a great vibe.”

With attitude to spare, Nussenzveig’s screenplay takes place over the course of a few years, revolving around a tight-knit trio of friends who gather to indulge in mischief and substances. But as they mature, one of them decides to break the cycle and risk the relationship.

“There’s some real tragic aspects to that kind of lifestyle,” he said. “A lot of times it’s a coping mechanism, where people can take out their anxiety and stress through drugs and alcohol. That follows them through the years.”

Nussenzveig’s original idea, when he was in film school, was to launch a web series about the party scene in Dallas. But that never materialized.

“My friends were more partiers than I was. I would interview them about different things that happened to them, and I collected these interviews over time,” he said. “As I grew older, I still had this idea in the back of my mind and didn’t know what to do with it.”

The Doldrums was filmed during the summer of 2019 and finished about a year later. It’s been shown online as part of a few festivals since then, but the DIFF screening will be the first in a theater.

“Authenticity was the main driving force. A lot of the locations is where stuff actually took place,” Nussenzveig said. “Having a memory or a story associated with those places, you can sort of retrace the steps from reality.”

Some of his former classmates might recognize versions of themselves on screen. However, Nussenzveig hopes the characters resonate across geographical boundaries.

“Everyone has their own speed. For some people, growing up takes time,” he said. “It’s important to start these new chapters in life. There’s always time for a rebirth in your life. They will figure it out.”

The Doldrums plays on Tuesday at 7 p.m. and Wednesday at 10:15 p.m. DIFF runs through May 5, with most of the screenings at the Violet Crown in West Village.

The post Locally Shot DIFF Drama Explores the Fragile Bonds of Brotherhood appeared first on D Magazine.

“They are our actors, the story originators, the lyricists; all the ideas are born from them,” says Stephanie Newland, the director of Belong Disability Ministry.

After the first several years, Belong Disability Ministry found that demand had far surpassed availability. They couldn’t accommodate all the people who wanted to participate. “We had a bunch of people who were very interested [in the musical theater program] and on a waiting list,” says Newland. “Which wasn’t right.”

Newland and her team decided to expand Spotlight several years ago. Today, in addition to musical theater, Spotlight includes a short film program and a rock music program. Each year around 70 people sign up to participate in one of the three.

But the church saw the potential to spread its mission to people far beyond Dallas. Newland reached out to local producer and SMU alum Ricky Townsend to see their options. Out of that discussion came Into the Spotlight, a documentary that will premiere this weekend at the Dallas International Film Festival.

“My main experience with seeing and learning about the disabilities community was largely through things like 60 Minutes,” says Thaddeus D. Matula, the director of Into the Spotlight. “And anytime you would see a documentary or a news magazine piece on the disabilities community…we would always hear from the doctors and from the parents, editorializing the experience of these individuals.”

It presents the production from the perspective of the participants, freeing them to tell their own stories. Those include Christi, a recently widowed veteran of the Spotlight program; Andrea, a transgender woman with autism; Daniel, a Black man with autism who speaks about his experience with discrimination (and delivers a wicked drum solo); and many more. 

“I [thought] the most powerful thing we [could] do here is let these individuals speak for themselves and not have anyone tell the audience what they’re thinking or how they’re feeling,” Matula says.

Townsend brought Matula onboard as director, and during COVID the team worked together to build out the film. When they were ready to begin production in 2021, Newland says, “We had our system, and we had documentary film crews … filming at every rehearsal, and [following] the protagonists in the documentary in their daily life.”

While the cameras took some getting used to, Newland says everyone eventually acclimated to the production process. “There was the feeling of [actually] being in the spotlight,” Newland says, “and having a camera follow you around and being mic’d up is a really novel and fun thing.

 “There were a lot of nuances there because this is…not a group of professional film actors, [and they] have an additional set of daily challenges being individuals with disabilities and so I would say, overall, [the response to filming] was excitement and awe and then nerves—at least in the beginning.” 

Newland says she hopes Into the Spotlight lets people know about the work Belong Disability Ministry is doing. “I would love to see our Spotlight program grow,” she says. “I would love for us to be able to mentor [or] resource other churches, community centers, or schools…with the tools they need to be able to do something like this in their community.”

For his part, Matula says, “I’m immensely proud of the film, and…we’re proud of the work we’ve done.” He says that the finished product owes a great deal to the team he worked alongside, including director of photography Logan Fulton and editors Miles Hargrove and Meagan Forsythe, who turned raw footage into a film.

Matula says he hopes the people who see it will ultimately decide for themselves what the movie says. But if he had to guess its message: “To not let yourself be defined by your abilities or disabilities… You are only defined by your limits if you let yourself be defined by them, and so be limitless.”

It seems appropriate to give one of Spotlight’s participants the final word. Early in the film comes a line that describes the documentary as well as the Spotlight program itself. Jacob, an actor in the 2022 production, says, “Spotlight is one of those ideas that just works. It’s inspiring, it’s fun, it’s…theater!”

Audiences will have the opportunity to attend screenings of Into the Spotlight as part of the 2023 Dallas International Film Festival April 29 and May 1. You can also find additional information about the film here.

The post <i>Into the Spotlight</i> Tells a Dallas Institution’s Heartwarming Story of Creativity and Inclusion appeared first on D Magazine.

Schmidt, now an elementary school music teacher in Denton, remembers being entranced as a teenager by the posthumous 1989 made-for-television movie The Karen Carpenter Story.

“I fell in love with Karen’s voice and her story, all in that two-hour broadcast,” he said. “It was really eye-opening.”

Schmidt has since become one of the foremost authorities on the late singer, authoring an acclaimed 2010 biography and helping to spearhead the new documentary Karen Carpenter: Starving for Perfection, which chronicles her life and career. The film will screen twice this weekend as part of the annual Dallas International Film Festival, which starts on Friday primarily at the new Violet Crown Dallas theater in the West Village.

The project comes from Dallas-based AMS Pictures, whose founder Andy Streitfeld met Schmidt about six years ago. It turns out he was a Carpenters fan, too, and even shared an elevator briefly with the sibling duo as a tongue-tied college student.

“Randy and I have so much love and passion for Karen that we really wanted to do it right,” Streitfeld said. “There’s a whole generation of fans that has not heard the whole story.”

Directed by AMS showrunner Randy Martin, the film focuses on the rise, fall, and enduring popularity of Carpenter, who topped the charts with a series of iconic hits alongside brother Richard before dying from complications of anorexia in 1983.

The filmmakers wrapped up interviews with Carol Burnett, Suzanne Somers, the late Olivia Newton-John, and more just prior to the pandemic, then spent two years editing while securing archival footage and music rights. They unearthed hours of interview footage with Carpenter, much of it unaired, essentially enabling her to tell her own story.

“People had an incredible love for her, and they’ve had no way to connect with her since then. All of a sudden, all of that emotion comes back to them,” Streitfeld said. “The songs and the memories associated with them are so meaningful to people. They kind of provided the soundtrack to the 70s in a lot of ways.”

Still, Schmidt hopes the documentary’s appeal can extend beyond nostalgia and prompt a new generation of fans to grow Carpenter’s legacy.

“The music has such a timeless quality to it that can appeal to just about any age and every generation,” Schmidt said. After debuting at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in February, he hopes the film will find a distribution deal with a streaming service once its festival run concludes.

Meanwhile, the eight-day festival runs through May 5, with all screenings at the Violet Crown or at the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff. The robust lineup includes several features and short-film compilations with North Texas ties, including:

• Breaking the Code — This short documentary traces the life and career of the late Fort Worth painter Vernon Fisher, who gained prominence during the 1980s exhibiting alongside Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. (5:30 p.m. Saturday)
• A Disturbance in the Force — Directed by Richardson native and Napoleon Dynamite producer Jeremy Coon, this in-depth documentary revisits the cheesy and ill-fated 1978 “Star Wars Holiday Special” variety show. (10 p.m. Wednesday and 7 p.m. Thursday)
• Gibson Icons: Rex Brown of Pantera — Here’s another documentary, this one about the bassist for the venerable Arlington rock band, produced as part of a web series for Gibson Guitars. It examines Brown’s influence and legacy. (7 p.m. Saturday)
• Into the Spotlight — A world premiere, this documentary follows a church-based Highland Park theater troupe comprised entirely of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities leading up to a production. (4 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Monday)
• The Wild Man — The latest offbeat genre film from Denton filmmaker Riley Cusick, shot in the Dallas area, follows a man taking care of his father with a deteriorating mental condition who believes he’s a wild animal. (7 p.m. Wednesday and 4:30 p.m. Thursday)

The post DIFF Preview: Two North Texans Hope Their Documentary Keeps Karen Carpenter’s Voice Alive appeared first on D Magazine.

From May 24 to June 4, creative agency Talented Friends will be hosting David Lynch: A Complete Retrospective, a celebration of the Oscar-winning surrealist’s work, at the Texas Theatre.

“If he picked up a camera, if he wrote it, if he directed it, it’s in,” Knox says. “I think that people are going to remember seeing things on the big screen that they … never thought they would have a chance to. But also, there’s going to be things on the big screen that you wouldn’t necessarily think to put on the big screen.” 

That means Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet, yes, but also his music videos and short films like Darkened Room and The Amputee. Knox cites DumbLand, which was a “clunky, low-res” series of shorts made with Flash animation in 2002 that is rarely shown theatrically. 

“When you see it blown up on the big screen with an audience of people, it’s a totally different experience,” Knox says. “It’s something that you wouldn’t ordinarily have.”

Knox became enamored with Lynch’s work in the 1990s after hearing late composter and frequent Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti’s soundtrack for 1992’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. “That brought me into everything,” says Knox. “That’s the genesis of it … I walked into it and never left.”

While working at the Music Box, Knox would cut together pre-shows for the venue’s midnight programs. “I would always … cut things together that were relevant to the screening,” says Knox. “We did a Ninja Turtles movie [and] I showed a bunch of action figure commercials, music videos, and things that were…relevant to that time period.”

Knox especially enjoyed building out pre-shows for Lynch’s films. The Music Box took note and asked him to put together a proposal to showcase the director’s work in a new way. Knox first proposed what would have taken a then-unwieldy two weeks to host. He consolidated it into a jam-packed, five-day retrospective in 2017, breaking the record for the amount of Lynch’s work screened in one place at one time.

Last year, Knox and the Music Box followed up with another retrospective, this one lasting eight days. It included everything time allowed from Lynch’s filmography. This piqued the interest of Jason Reimer, the co-owner and creative director of the Texas Theatre, as well as the co-founder of Talented Friends. After meeting Knox, Reimer encouraged him to take it even further.

“What is your dream version of this?” Reimer asked Knox, unofficially kicking off the planning process for their upcoming event. Their goal is to go beyond the films of David Lynch and interweave his other projects—music videos, commercials, and side projects—into the programming concurrently.

The engagement will also serve as a showcase for everything that makes the Texas Theatre stand out. Reimer says that the Music Box’s curated installations have been an inspiration for him since he first got involved with the Texas. 

“You could have this old moviehouse and…with lighting and installations…you can just take it over. So the movie is part of the experience, but not the only experience,” says Reimer. “We’re going to completely take over all the different aspects of the theater.” 

This will involve integrating Lynchian installations into the various “nooks and crannies” of the venue—such as the Safe Room art gallery upstairs and the Behind the Screen showroom—while also using projectors in common areas of the theater to set the overall tone.

“The key thing is immersion and having it feel like you are as in Lynch’s world as possible,” says Knox. “That’s a key point of having it in one space and transforming that space.”

Each film will feature a pre-show that will begin 20 minutes prior to posted showtimes. It’s as much a part of the festival as the full-length features.

“It’s not just about entertainment,” says Knox. “It’s things that were on television at the time. So if Kyle McLachlan went on Jay Leno, we have that in there. If David Lynch made a short film at that time or appeared somewhere, that’s in there; [plus]…some of the Laserdisc stuff from Twin Peaks that is truly out there … but contextually important. And if you are a completist, you will love it. If you are new to it, it will be something that you’ll always remember.”

Reimer and Knox both make it clear that this is intended to be a celebration and exploration of Lynch’s work, not a fan convention. “The focus is in the theater. We’re there to be gathered around the screen and not waiting in line,” says Knox. 

There will be cast members from across Lynch’s filmography in attendance, and author Scott Ryan will moderate Q&As. Reimer says that their goal is to have attendees “relax about the autographs and … fall into the world and let it drown you for a couple of weeks.”

Passes for the full retrospective are available for purchase here. Once the schedule for the event has been finalized (sometime in April), tickets for individual screenings will also be available for purchase through the Texas Theatre. 

”If you do get the pass,” says Knox. “This is your (potentially) once in a lifetime opportunity to see everything that David Lynch has ever done in one place. If you really want to see everything by David Lynch on the big screen, take the time off of work, get the pass, and commit and live in that world.”

The post The Ultimate David Lynch Retrospective is Coming to the Texas Theatre appeared first on D Magazine.

Spinning Gold, which releases in theaters on March 31, tells the story of Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart and how his indie label’s roster of legendary artists—including KISS, Bill Withers, and the “Queen of Disco” herself—ruled the 70s music scene.

“Playing somebody who is an icon that people know and love, it was definitely a big challenge to take on,” says Parx.

Well, challenge accepted. We caught up with the “Flowers” singer to talk about her star-making film role and why she’ll always feel love for her hometown. The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

Artists portraying artists in the film—like Wiz Khalifa as George Clinton, Jason Derulo as Ron Isley, and Ledisi as Gladys Knight—was that part of what attracted you to Spinning Gold?

Absolutely. Sometimes I think when you’re casting a biopic, people are so focused on, “Do the people look like them?” versus, “Can they capture the essence?” But I think there was a middle ground and an intentional aspect [with Spinning Gold] to make sure that musicians are playing musicians. There’s a respect. And there’s a carefulness that goes toward that—because as a musician you knowhow specific that responsibility can be. Looking to my left and right and seeing so many incredibly talented musicians not only being themselves, but also transforming themselves, I love that.

Donna Summer’s vocals are unique, as are yours. How did you meet the challenge of bringing her sound into your singing style?

The way I’m singing as Donna is very different. It’s completely opposite of how I sound as an artist. I usually don’t sing from that same place in my voice. So that was really, really fun. I’ve also been doing voice-over acting for the past few years. And, as a songwriter, I’m able to manipulate my voice to sound like whatever artist that I’m writing for at the time. It wasn’t my first time at the rodeo. However, you also want to make sure it doesn’t become a caricature of the person. That was something I wanted to stay far away from. I was focusing on the essenceof it, while also doing my job as an actor embodying this person.

What was it like for you to slip into the glamourous image of the iconic Disco Queen? 

You know, as a queer woman who is very fluid with my outfits and my sexuality, when it comes to feminism and my idea toward what is feminine, I felt very different. It was interesting to be able to be like, ‘OK, I’m stepping into this version of my feminine, this version of my idea of sexy.’ I was very excited because my fans know that this is a huge step out of what they usually see me as. But also, I’m such a believer in the fact that femininity and all of those things canbe just that fluid. My mom saw me in these outfits and she was like, ‘Whoa, I feel like I am back in those times to see my daughter like that!’

Speaking of family, you consider Dallas your hometown. Do you still have relatives there?

Yes, I still have family in Dallas. When I was young, my parents picked up their entire lives for me and they moved. Even though I’ve been gone since I was 9 or 10, anybody that knows me can tell there’s a little sumthin’ else going on. You can take the Texan out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas part of me.

How has Dallas had an influence on your creativity?

The sets that were playing on the radio back then, the cadences that I have as a songwriter, are because of the music that I was listening to in the South. I was born in ’93. If you go back even in the 90s. The East Coast and the West Coast really had their sound. And later on, we understood what the South brought to the table. For me, understanding what the South brought to music made total sense. That is a part of why I stand out, in my own way, as a singer and as a songwriter.

Do you have a favorite memory from your time in Dallas?

I’ve been working for so long. I’ve been working my whole life now. Dallas reminds me of when I was, literally, just a kid, singing and having fake interviews with Oprah in my bedroom. That’s what Dallas is for me. It’s a reminder of little T.P. I have a tattoo on my arm of my hand holding a bluebonnet. And the bluebonnet is growing through the hand. I wouldn’t be who I am if I wasn’t born in Texas.

Why do you feel the dreaming big theme in Spinning Gold embodies your personal philosophy?

They say everything is bigger in Texas and I feel that philosophy of ‘no matter what you do, be great at it.’ Be great at your version of great. At that time, Casablanca Records was an indie label playing in a big boy’s game. They were kind of small fry, doing something different. But they said, ‘No matter what, even if we’re an indie label, we’re going to approach this like we’re a major label.’ Seeing the amount of perseverance it took for all of those artists in Spinning Gold—and to end up us having a conversation about them decades later—it happened because they were able to do something big, right?

My parents always instilled in me: If you’re prepared to do anything, no matter what you want to do in life, and you can be a student of your craft—you’ll be OK. Everybody is always saying [about dreams], “It’s a one in a million.” But I was always crazy enough to believe that “one in a million” could be me.Spinning Gold releases in theaters March 31

The post The Latest Challenge for Dallas Native Tayla Parx: Bringing Donna Summer to Life appeared first on D Magazine.