New Director for Lone Star Film Festival
Late yesterday, the Lone Star Film Society announced the hiring of Chad Mathews as its interim director. Besides being a TCU graduate, Mathews has also been working as the director of the Hill Country Film Festival down in Fredericksburg. Previously, the festival has screened such films as Matthew Weiner’s You Are Here, Michael Radford’s Elsa & Fred, and Andrew Disney’s Intramural (a.k.a. Balls Out) and Searching for Sonny. Not exactly Oscar bait, this lineup, but let’s see what he does on the bigger stage here.
Emmitt Smith Joins Crowd Leaving Miss USA
Donald Trump’s empire continues to hemorrhage following the Donald’s nasty and racist remarks about Mexican immigrants. Emmitt Smith was supposed to be one of the judges at Trump’s Miss USA pageant, but now the NFL great has pulled out, citing the presidential candidate’s statements as the reason. Smith joins scheduled co-hosts Cheryl Burke and Thomas Roberts and musical guests Flo Rida, Craig Wayne Boyd, and Natalie La Rose in the line for the exit. At this rate, the contestants may just have to battle it out Hunger Games-style for that crown when the pageant takes place in Baton Rouge on July 12.
New Life for Fossil
If you’ve visited the UA Fossil Creek movie theater, you may have noticed several of its auditoriums closed down for renovations. Yesterday, Southlake-based United Development Co. purchased the property off I-35 as part of a deal to buy 11 movie theaters ranging from Colorado to New York. Seven of the sold theaters (like the UA Grand Prairie) will be converted into other businesses, but the Fossil Creek facility will stay a theater. The work should be completed in November.
Bitch, Peas!
The New York Times is now catching all sorts of flak for tweeting a recipe for guacamole that contains peas. Granted, I’m no guac connoisseur, but that does sound a bit weird. Has anybody tried this? Would that actually work? I’m not sure why the thing is catching on now, since the original recipe was printed two years ago, but it’s a thing that even President Obama and Jeb Bush have now weighed in on. Home cooks, please let us know how this has turned out.
And Finally…
Today is the exact midpoint of the year. On this day 115 years ago, the composer Jean Sibelius premiered Finlandia, a tone poem for his native country (and not for the brand of vodka). At the time, Finland was controlled by the Russian empire, so the piece had to be performed under other names to prevent censorship by the authorities. Here’s a version of the piece with an English translation of the Finnish lyrics. Hyvä Suomi!
