Travel show spotlight

All cameras are on Dallas for PBS's Samantha Brown's Places to Love

Globe-trotting TV travel host Samantha Brown is as hard to track down for an interview as you'd imagine.

The Dallas native was set to chat on the phone about the upcoming "Dallas" episode of her Emmy Award-winning PBS show, Samantha Brown's Places to Love, when she rescheduled to catch a plane to get ahead of a snowstorm. Then the snowstorm caught up with her while driving through Quebec, and our phone interview became an email exchange sent through a PR agency.

Such is the catch-me-if-you-can life of the spunky Travel Channel alumna who has hosted such shows as Girl Meets Hawaii, Great Hotels, Green Getaways, and Samantha Brown's Asia.

Places to Love, which airs locally on Saturday mornings on KERA-Channel 13, takes viewers to both well-known and little-known spots around the globe, hitting on topics including food and drink, art and design, music, and culture and adventure.

For the episode airing Feburary 22, Brown comes home to Dallas. Without providing too many spoilers, she revealed that she spends time in Deep Ellum, Bishop Arts, and the Dallas Arts District. She stopped at Pecan Lodge for barbecue, Klyde Warren Park, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dude Sweet Chocolate, Purepecha at Revolver Taco Lounge, and Wild Detectives book store. She also had a custom cowboy hat made at Travis Austin Customs hat studio and took in some live music.

In this Q&A, she reveals more about filming the episode and tackles some hot travel topics.

CultureMap: You covered Houston and the Hill Country on Places to Love Season 1 (which CultureMap also wrote about). Why did you choose Dallas, and why now?

Samantha Brown: Dallas is a city that had changed more in five years than most do in ten. It’s time to reboot our knowledge about the city so we can love it for what it is now.

CM: You were born in Dallas but didn't live here long. Do you have any friends or family still in the area, and do you make it back often?

SB: Unfortunately, no.

CM: Do you personally have a say in which places you film for the show? Do you know, going in, what kind of story you want to tell about a place? What was that "story" you wanted to tell about Dallas?

SB: I have total say in the places we visit. We do a tremendous amount of research to give us an overall idea of what’s going on. Then, we whittle that down to about 15 ideas for segments, and then my producer goes a month before the shoot to meet those 15, which we then choose the 8 or 9 to be in the show.

I have a general idea of the theme, but we let the people speak for themselves. It is in post production of the edit that I discover the more authentic storyline. I never assume who people and places are.

CM: What kind of prep did you do, and how long did filming take?

SB: It takes five days to scout the grounds. This is a step few travel shows can afford to take, but one I feel is imperative to the integrity of the show. Filming is four days.

CM: Tell me about some of the places you visited, starting with Pecan Lodge. Do you like Texas barbecue, and would you stand in their notoriously long line for it? (I'm guessing they let you skip it with a camera crew.)

SB: Honestly, I don’t stand in line for food. But I do find ways, or ins, so that I’m going at a time or day when the line isn’t long. For Pecan Lodge, we featured that if you ordered 5 pounds of meat, you can skip the big line. So it’s good to come with a big group of people, or be prepared to make a friend, which in Dallas, isn’t that hard.

CM: What were your impressions of the Nasher Sculpture Center and Klyde Warren Park?

SB: I fell in love with Klyde Warren Park about 5 years ago when I stumbled upon it as I was walking around. To me, public spaces that invite everyone in and create places where there was none, is what a city has to have to be considered a real city.

CM: You got a custom made cowboy hat in the episode, inspired by your roots here. Tell me about that?

SB: It was at Travis Austin and we wanted to show that Dallas was all about the cowboy hat and yet because of the iconic hat, people in Dallas wear a lot of hats to define who they are. I was born in Dallas in 1970, so I made sure my hat had a yellow rose on it.

CM: And now for some general questions on hot topics ....

The Emmys: You won two last year for the show. Fingers crossed again? Got your gown picked out?

SB: I’m going to wear pants and more sensible shoes this year. You have to wait in a three-hour line to get on the red carpet and in high heels, it was brutal. And there was no BBQ at the end of that line.

CM: Regarding Coronavirus, what do you say to travelers who have future travel booked to China and other hard-hit areas, and what kind of long-term effect will this have on tourism in those places?

[PR person speaking on behalf of SB: This isn't something that she can speak to with any authority.]

CM: Between planes being grounded, weather, costs, security lines, a shortage of pilots, and other factors, travel can be tough these days. What is your best advice for navigating the "getting there" so people can experience more joy "being there?"

SB: Plan plenty of time to get to the airport. I base it on the boarding time of the flight, not the departure. Doing it that way gives me time to find a seat or have a nice meal, use the restroom, etc., so I’m more relaxed on the plane.

I think a good thing to remember is that travel is never supposed to be perfect. If that’s your expectation of it, you will always be disappointed. But simple rules that we learned in Kindergarten: be patient and be kind, go a long way.

I also always have food with me. Being patient and kind comes easier when you’re not hungry.

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Samantha Brown’s Places to Love: Dallas airs on KERA-Channel 13 at 11 am Saturday, February 22. It's also available for streaming now at pbs.org.

Samantha Brown got a custom hat made at Travis Austin's studio.

Photo courtesy of Samantha Brown

Samantha Brown got a custom hat made at Travis Austin's studio.

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Movie Review

Spanish film La Bola Negra showcases unique slice of gay history

Photo by Carla Oset/Netflix

Miguel Bernardeau and Guitarricadelafuente in La Bola Negra.

For a long time — too long — gay characters in movies tended to appear as either side characters with no real stories or as tragic figures who were usually unable to express their true selves for fear of what the world at large would think. That has changed in recent years, but the remnants of the past can still haunt, as the new film La Bola Negra demonstrates.

The film takes shape in storylines involving three different men: Carlos (Milo Quifes), a young man in Granada, Spain in 1932 who wants to join an exclusive casino (aka social club); Sebastián (Guitarricadelafuente), who unwillingly joins the military during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, only to have desires aroused in him when he’s asked to guard an enemy detainee; and Alberto (Carlos González), an out gay man in 2017 whose inheritance from his recently-deceased grandfather opens up a world he knew nothing about.

The film goes back and forth between each man, detailing how they handle their individual situations and the complications that arise in their individual lives. Along the way their stories are deepened through people they meet who either welcome them with open arms or shun them for various reasons. While tragedy bonds their stories, so too does hope, resistance, and love.

Co-director/co-writers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, along with co-writer Alberto Conejero, have expanded Conejero’s play, La Piedra Oscura, which was inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca’s unfinished play, La Bola Negra. Lorca, who was killed during the Spanish Civil War, had only finished four pages of the work, his first to feature an openly gay protagonist. It’s clear there’s a desire by the filmmakers to honor the legacy of Lorca as both a playwright and a gay man, and the seriousness of their pursuit is evident throughout the film’s 160 minutes.

Calvo and Ambrossi do little handholding to guide viewers through the three distinct stories, an approach that mostly works but occasionally leads to confusion, especially as more characters are added to the equation. None of the stories are overly complicated, but they take their time with each, making the long film feel even longer. Only Alberto’s story contains any kind of development that might be considered surprising, making it tough to fully engage with the other two.

Where the film does come alive is when it brings in two well-known actors for brief-but-fascinating stints. Penélope Cruz plays Nené Romero, a singer who entertains the troops and further expands Sebastián’s mind. Glenn Close pops up as Isabelle Durand, a scholar of Lorca who helps Alberto with a unique discovery he makes in his inheritance. Both actors bring up the level of the film significantly through their performances.

Quifes, Guitarricadelafuente (the stage name of Spanish singer Álvaro Lafuente Calvo, no relation to Javier), and González all put in good work in their roles, even if none are overly engaging. They are often overshadowed by supporting actors like Cruz and Close, as well as Miguel Bernardeau as Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, the captured soldier; Julio Torres as Alberto’s partner, and Alberto Cortés as Lorca, who brings a symmetry to the film as a whole.

La Bola Negra — which means “the black ball,” represented both literally and figuratively in the film — is an ambitious film that becomes a slight victim of its filmmakers’ aspirations. Although each of the three stories contain interesting elements, a strong emotional connection is lacking overall despite good-to-great performances.

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La Bola Negra is now playing in select theaters; it debuts on Netflix on December 2.

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