Festival News

Texas film festival in Garland will spotlight Western-ish classics

The Last Picture Show

Courtesy photo

A film festival dedicated entirely to Texas films is coming this fall: Called "It Came From Texas Film Festival," it'll go down in Garland at the Plaza Theatre, 521 W. State St., celebrating films made either wholly or in part within the Lone Star State.

The fest will run for a weekend, kicking off on Friday, September 13 and continuing through Sunday, September 15. This will be the second edition, and is sponsored by the City of Garland and Garland Cultural Arts.

Festival director Kelly Kitchens says in a statement that the 2024 version will focus on films that lean into the Western genre.

"There’s no better place than Texas to pay homage to one of the foundational genres of cinema, the Western and all the variations of the Western outside Cowboys and Indians," Kitchens says.

They're featuring three Oscar-winning Texas films that she dubs "Western-adjacent": Tender Mercies (1983), The Last Picture Show (1971), and Giant (1956).

Other cornerstones of the festival will include:

Garland High School IB Short Films: Short films made in Texas by students enrolled in Garland High School’s Reel Owl Cinema (ROC) film program, a unique four-year high school narrative International Baccalaureate (IB) film program, which has been producing films at Garland High School since 2005.

The Mocky Horror Picture Show: Interactive comedy troupe will close out the fest with a live skewering of Rock Baby – Rock It, a fun 1957 film showcasing Texas' versions (or the Dollar Store equivalents) of Elvis, the Everly Brothers, and more. Mocky Horror comedians Liz Barksdale, Danny Gallagher, and Albie Robles will riff in the theater for a live audience with jokes, special edits and effects, and sketches. Timed prompts appear on the screen with instructions for the audience to do or say things at the right time so you can mock the movie with them. The comedians also provide props for the audience to use during the screening.

Tickets are now on sale on prekindle. An all-access pass is currently $55, and will go up to $65 on August 1.

The schedule is as follows:

Friday, September 13

Horton Foote: The Road to Home. The 2020 documentary starring award-winning Texas writer Horton Foote, through his own eyes and voice at the end of his life. Director Anne Rapp will be in attendance.
Tender Mercies. The 1983 film — directed by Bruce Beresford, written by Horton Foote, and starring Robert Duvall as a middle-aged country singer who gets a new wife, reaches out to his long-lost daughter, and tries to put his life back together — was filmed in Palmer, Waxahachie, and Arlington.

Saturday, September 14

The Last Picture Show. Iconic 1971 film — directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd, about a group of high schoolers coming of age in a dying Texas town — was filmed in Archer City and Holliday, Texas.
Children of Giant. The 2015 documentary directed by Hector Galan and filmed in Marfa, unearths emotions stirred up before, during, and after the month-long production of George Stevens's 1956 feature film, Giant.
Student films from Garland High School’s ‘Reel Owl Cinema.’
Giant. Filmed in Marfa and Valentine, this epic 1956 film about a cattle rancher and his family starred James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson, and was directed by George Stevens, who won an Oscar for Best Director.

Sunday, September 15

Mocky Horror Picture Show, live riffing of Rock Baby - Rock It, a 1957 campy classic that follows Dallas teenagers as they resist attempts by underworld types to take over their rock 'n' roll club, directed by Murray Douglas Sporup and filmed in Dallas.
Student films from Garland High School’s ‘Reel Owl Cinema.’

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Movie Review

Michelle Pfeiffer is an unappreciated mom in Oh. What. Fun.

Photo courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

Michelle Pfeiffer in Oh. What. Fun.

Of all the formulaic movie genres, Christmas/holiday movies are among the most predictable. No matter what the problem is that arises between family members, friends, or potential romantic partners, the stories in holiday movies are designed to give viewers a feel-good ending even if the majority of the movie makes you feel pretty bad.

That’s certainly the case in Oh. What. Fun., in which Michelle Pfeiffer plays Claire, an underappreciated mom living in Houston with her inattentive husband, Nick (Denis Leary). As the film begins, her three children are arriving back home for Christmas: The high-strung Channing (Felicity Jones) is married to the milquetoast Doug (Jason Schwartzman); the aloof Taylor (Chloë Grace Moretz) brings home yet another new girlfriend; and the perpetual child Sammy (Dominic Sessa) has just broken up with his girlfriend.

Each of the family members seems to be oblivious to everything Claire does for them, especially when it comes to what she really wants: For them to nominate her to win a trip to see a talk show in L.A. hosted by Zazzy Tims (Eva Longoria). When she accidentally gets left behind on a planned outing to see a show, Claire reaches her breaking point and — in a kind of Home Alone in reverse — she decides to drive across the country to get to the show herself.

Written and directed by Michael Showalter (The Idea of You), and co-written by Chandler Baker (who wrote the short story on which the film is based), the movie never establishes any kind of enjoyable rhythm. Each of the characters, including competitive neighbor Jeanne (Joan Chen), is assigned a character trait that becomes their entire personality, with none of them allowed to evolve into something deeper.

The filmmakers lean hard into the idea that Claire is a person who always puts her family first and receives very little in return, but the evidence presented in the story is sketchy at best. Every situation shown in the film is so superficial that tension barely exists, and the (over)reactions by Claire give her family members few opportunities to make up for their failings.

The most interesting part of the movie comes when Claire actually makes it to the Zazzy Sims show. Even though what happens there is just as unbelievable as anything else presented in the story, Showalter and Baker concoct a scene that allows Claire and others to fully express the central theme of the film, and for a few minutes the movie actually lives up to its title.

Pfeiffer, given her first leading role since 2020’s French Exit, is a somewhat manic presence, and her thick Texas accent and unnecessary voiceover don’t do her any favors. It seems weird to have such a strong supporting cast with almost nothing of substance to do, but almost all of them are wasted, including Danielle Brooks in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo. The lone exception is Longoria, who is a blast in the few scenes she gets.

Oh. What. Fun. is far from the first movie to try and fail at becoming a new holiday classic, but the pedigree of Showalter and the cast make this dismal viewing experience extra disappointing. Ironically, overworked and underappreciated moms deserve a much better story than the one this movie delivers.

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Oh. What. Fun. is now streaming on Prime Video.

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