Deep Ellum Arts Festival

Deep Ellum Arts Festival responds to big changes in the neighborhood

Deep Ellum Arts Festival is back, with a new location.

Photo by Mark Thompson

The Deep Ellum Arts Festival is back, but with a shift to the right. For 2016, the multiday art and music extravaganza is moving three blocks east.

The location change is a reflection of the vitality of Deep Ellum, says festival founder Stephen Millard.

"When we first started this event, there wasn't one business open on Main Street," he says. "In the last several years, the area between Good Latimer and Malcolm X has exploded. We never want to block the entrance of a business, and as a result, we've lost a lot of real estate for our vendors.

"So we've been working with all of the businesses trying to find a solution. Moving it seemed like a natural resolution, to put it in area that's not competing."

The Deep Ellum Arts Festival first debuted in 1995 as a one-block street party and has since become a mega-event with visual and performing artists. Where it used to reside on Main between Good Latimer and Hall, now it will occupy six blocks between Malcolm X and Sons of Hermann Hall.

Millard is especially excited about a "village" area set up on the lot on the corner of Main and Malcolm X, with food vendors and artists making art onsite.

"It starts at Malcolm X, which becomes the gateway and allows us to use this giant parking lot that connects Elm and Main streets together as the Deep Ellum Village," he says. "In the evening, it'll be the main performing stage area. So instead of closing Malcolm X, we'll close Hall Street."

There'll be more than 100 performances, including bands and solo musicians representing a variety of genres, on four outdoor stages and two new indoor stages at the Sons of Hermann Hall.

Among the more than 130 bands already announced include Brave Combo, Rivethead, and Rebel Jazz Alliance.

Fitting into the April Fools' Day theme, entertainment will include street performers, jugglers, and other whimsical characters, plus a Poetry Slam open mic and a speakers corner, where registered speakers can wax a topic of their choice.

The festival opens on Friday, April 1, at 11 am, with a special lunchtime preview for downtown office workers. Sunday at noon sees the return of the annual Deep Ellum Pet Parade, which joined the festival in 2015. Registration begins at 11 am at the dog park on Trunk and Commerce.

"We hope to keeps the synergy going in Deep Ellum," Millard says. "Still bring in thousands of people. We're hoping that businesses will continue running special activities.

"The festival brings in thousands of people, who stay about three hours, then walk down to see the rest of Deep Ellum."

deep-ellum festivals

Movie Review

New biopic 'Jimmy' salutes Jimmy Stewart's service in World War II

Photo courtesy of Papaian Studios

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Actor Jimmy Stewart, thanks to movies such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Shop Around the Corner, and The Philadelphia Story, had the reputation early in his career as the everyman in Hollywood, someone to whom most audiences could relate. That became even more true when Stewart entered the military during World War II, a period that is explored in the new biopic, Jimmy.

The film was co-produced with Fort Worth-based Papaian Studios and received a red-carpet premiere as part of the Lone Star Film Festival on Wednesday, November 4. Stewart had several ties to Fort Worth, which were celebrated at the event.

Stewart (KJ Apa) was riding high in 1941, coming off his first (and only) Oscar win for The Philadelphia Story. As depicted in the film, his life is upended when he receives a military draft notice as the U.S. prepares for war. He’s determined to serve, but people like studio head Louis B. Mayer (Jason Alexander) try to talk him out of it. Already an experienced pilot, he eventually joins the war in Europe, flying the B-24 bomber.

Despite his celebrity status, Stewart requests to be treated the same as any other soldier, which means flying multiple missions over enemy territory. He moves up the ranks, becoming a leader tasked with, among other things, reporting the deaths of service members to their families. He also starts a friendship that develops into a romance with Lady Julia (Kara Killmer), giving him a distraction from the horrors of war.

Directed by Aaron Burns and written by Justin Strawhand, the film has the clear goal of being a hagiography for Stewart, showing all of his good qualities and few of his bad ones. In fact, the character of Stewart is harder on himself than the actual movie is, chastising himself over the deaths of fellow soldiers that he likely could not have prevented. The filmmakers go to great lengths to show how good and well-respected Stewart was, something that may well be true, but doesn’t make for great drama.

The bulk of the film features Stewart at war, following him and others as they fly multiple missions and commiserate over the price of combat. The sequences are fine, but the film’s budget does not appear to be high, and so the CGI needed to recreate the scenes is noticeably subpar. Because Burns and Strawhand usually keep to surface-level storytelling and don’t go deep on any character besides Stewart, his time at war is engaging but slight.

The film is bookended by Stewart and Frank Capra (Max Casella) making It’s a Wonderful Life, Stewart’s first film after coming back from war. It’s here where the movie becomes most interesting as Stewart, still affected by his war experience, struggles to bring the character of George Bailey to life. The behind-the-scenes look at the film-within-the-film and the recreations of its iconic scenes are catnip for anyone who knows/loves the Christmas classic.

Apa, best known for starring as Archie on the TV show Riverdale, does extremely well as Stewart. He nails Stewart’s quavering voice and the way he ambles about plays right into the actor’s established persona. Casella and Killmer get the most play in supporting roles, and each does solid work as characters trying to understand Stewart. Alexander, Sarah Drew as Hedda Hopper, and Rob Riggle as a colonel each go a little too big in their respective parts.

Jimmy is probably best watched as an approximation of the man Stewart was in the 1940s, not as something that’s completely true to life. The film elides or stretches the truth on multiple occasions, which is par for the course in biopics. It could have used some stronger storytelling to make Stewart feel like a real person, not merely a replica of the famous actor.

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Jimmy is now playing in theaters.

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