Anyone who’s ever been to a film festival, even SXSW, knows that the parties can be as much fun as the screenings. Wait. Who am I kidding. The parties are always way more fun than the screenings.
Earlier this month, Fort Worth’s Lone Star Film Society held a press conference and announced plans to launch an annual international film festival next year. (I think it’ll fall somewhere between Aledo’s and White Settlement’s.) On hand to lend some star power to the news were famous actresses Janine Turner and Phylicia Rashad.
Janine Turner.
Phylicia Rashad.
Sigh. I can see the 2007 soirée now: ball gowns, champagne, black tuxedos, diamonds, and enough Botox and silicone to float a battleship.
What the Lone Star Film Society needs is a guy like Todd Camp. Founder of Q Cinema, Fort Worth’s gay international film festival, and Star-Telegram employee, Camp knows how to par-tay. Every year for the past 14, he’s been throwing a mondo bash to raise money for his labor of love. His most recent get-together, called “Nightmare a Go-Go,” took place this past Saturday at his Southside joint. By appearances, every cent of his hefty Star-T paycheck went into the bacchanal. Clouds of silky parachute material hung from the trees, making the outdoor party areas feel like gazebos. There were also upside-down Christmas trees, and just about everyone was dressed like an extra on the set of Laugh-In.
I don’t know how much money was raised, but based on the number of smiling, tipsy revelers, you can bet Q Cinema’s locked and loaded for another year, if not a dozen more.
As any film festival rat will tell you: The best fests are the oldest ones, and the oldest ones are the most fun. Lone Star should take note.
Embar-gay?
There’s a new gay bar in town, and it’s Latin-themed. So you know, even before I walked through the door last weekend, I’d already heard the joke, like, a million times: people referring to Copa Cabana as “Embar-gay,” after the hot, new, straight Cuban-themed nightclub downtown, Embargo. Droll. Very droll.
The play on words wouldn’t be so bad if the Copa didn’t have its own vibe. Everything’s black-lit, and the tempo, though charged, never rises above relaxed enthusiasm.
Oh, yeah. There were also buff, male, Hispanic go-go dancers on tables. You’re not gonna see that at Embargo. Or any place else in town, for that matter.
What’s in a Name?
Some movers and shakers in town have taken a New Yawker’s approach to naming certain areas or neighborhoods. As I indicated in last week’s column, we now have the Upper West Side, So7, and now possibly SoDo, a name proposed by Jarritt Joslin (Bar Nine, Bent) for the area below Sundance Square.
At the end of the column, I asked readers what they thought, and most of them are against doling out arbitrary names, especially Yankee-sounding ones. One reader, “Scenester Steve,” suggests that we leave the labeling process to the wannabes. “Part of Dallas’ problem is in its lamentable attempts to simultaneously approximate New York and L.A.,” Steve writes. “If Fort Worth attempts this sort of crap,” he said, then one of Cowtown’s nightlife moguls should “prepare to be interviewed by a Daily Show correspondent.”
My SoSun (South of Sundance) idea, in Steve’s humble opinion, is “marginally better” than SoDo. But he promises that he’ll refer to any new neighborhood name as NoRi, “because it’s the sort of stupid, nouveau riche idea that will make downtown seem retarded.”
Contact Last Call at lastcall@fwweekly.com.
