Giant, the movie.

Film & TV

Incisive criticism, features, and news related to Texans on the screen—and behind the camera

Film & TV |
January 20, 2013

Big State, Small Screen

Is Friday Night Lights the best TV show ever made about Texas? Or just the first one (sorry, J.R.! Sorry, Hank!) that’s tried so hard to get the details right?

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A never-before-seen photograph of Woodrow Call (Tommy Lee Jones) and Augustus McCrae (Robert Duvall) tracking horse thieves in what is supposed to be Montana (actually it’s New Mexico).
Books |
January 20, 2013

True West

Twenty-five years ago, Larry McMurtry published a novel called Lonesome Dove—and Texas hasn’t looked the same since. Listen in as more than thirty writers, critics, producers, and actors, from Peter Bogdonavich and Dave Hickey to Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Duvall, and Anjelica Huston, tell the stories behind the book (and

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Film & TV |
January 20, 2013

Barry Corbin

Barry CorbinGrowing up in Lubbock, I didn’t want to be a real cowboy, because I knew a bunch of them and they didn’t get paid anything and they were hurt all the time. But I wanted to play one in the movies. My favorite early on was Bill Elliott, and

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Film & TV |
January 20, 2013

Picture Perfect

Why Peter Bogdanovich filmed in black and white, who discovered Cybill Shepherd, which onetime soap opera diva read for the role of Jacy, and other secrets of the making of ‘The Last Picture Show.’ Plus: A few words from the late Ben Johnson.

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Film & TV |
June 30, 2012

Meat, My Maker

When Dallas’s very own Marvin Lee Aday—that’s Meat Loaf to you—optioned one of my screenplays, he didn’t just offer me a glimpse of paradise by the dashboard lights. He also helped me write a novel.

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Film & TV |
September 30, 2008

Dude!

Yes, yes, new baby and new movie— but what Matthew McConaughey really wants to talk about is the cushion of the flip-flop, the skooching of hoodie sleeves, the proper thickness of koozies, and his coming career as the arbiter of redneck-Buddha chic.

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Film & TV |
December 1, 2006

Forest Whitaker

“What does it say about us as humans beings when we listen to leaders who lie to us and, as a result, thousands of people are killed?”

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Film & TV |
August 31, 2006

Betty Buckley

“I’m a good ol’ girl from Texas, and sometimes people misinterpret that Texas thing. I’ve learned to tone it down, but it’s been a drag. It’s the unfortunate aftermath of having gone to the mat with the wrong guys in Hollywood.’

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Film & TV |
November 1, 2004

They Came. They Sawed.

And they most definitely conquered. The inside story of how a ragtag bunch of hippies made the wildest Texas movie ever (and spilled no more fake blood than was absolutely necessary).

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Film & TV |
September 30, 2004

Mike Judge

“You can’t make all of TV and movies kid-safe. If you do, we’re all going to be watching the Care Bears. I think there should be things that are just for adults.”

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Film & TV |
December 1, 2003

Alamo Heights

So much is at stake that we almost—almost—believe the release date of Disney's epic-to-be was delayed from Christmas Day to April for the reasons the studio claims. But given the way historical movies usually turn out, can you blame us for smirking?

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Film & TV |
August 31, 2003

Love Thy Self-Help

America's notoriously needy readers certainly do—and for the robust health of this publishing genre, they have Dallas in general and Phil McGraw's agent in particular to thank.

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Film & TV |
May 31, 2003

The Story of O

Never mind that he got kicked out of St. Mark’s and dropped out of UT, or that his line readings seem a little . . . off. Somehow, Owen Wilson is the kind of guy who gets movies made. And he gets $10 million a pop, dude.

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Texas History |
February 1, 2001

The Whole Shootin’ Match

The most famous bank-robbing lovers of all time weren't nearly as glamorous as Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Although the fragile, pretty Bonnie Parker had her good points, Clyde Barrow was a scrawny, two-timing psychopath. They were straight out of a country and western ballad. And when they died in

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Media |
May 31, 1999

Lynch Mob

Like the coffee and pie in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, the Arlington-based fanzine Wrapped in Plastic is damn fine.

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Feature |
April 1, 1998

Full Nelson

Ain’t it funny how time slips away? Before you know it, you’ve made two hundred albums, thirty movies, and had one amazing career. What follows is the Compleat Willie: a discography—including every U.S. album release as well as his early 45 rpm singles (before he signed with RCA in

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Film & TV |
March 1, 1998

Joan Crawford

All her life, Joan Crawford raised other people’s eyebrows as often as she reapplied her own. From the time she arrived in Hollywood, the temperamental Texan provoked hostility and gossip, and her wide-eyed flapper persona soon hardened into that of a sleek, steely sophisticate. But the arrogance accompanied a massive talent;

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Film & TV |
March 1, 1997

A Star Is Reborn

A year after Kris Kristofferson’s standout role in Lone Star, Hollywood is still marveling over his comeback. He is too. by Gary Cartwright

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Film & TV |
February 1, 1997

Ink Big

Drawn by the success of The Simpsons and Beavis and Butt-head, three of Texas’ top cartoonists are going Hollywood. Houston’s Michael Fry, for instance, has sold the television rights to two of his comic strips—Committed and When I Was Short—to production companies in Toronto and Los Angeles, respectively, and both

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Film & TV |
February 1, 1997

Tex Rated

summary: What’s the best hotel in Texas? (Hint: It’s not the Mansion on Turtle Creek).

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Film & TV |
January 1, 1997

Stephen Herek

I went to the University of Texas at Austin to play baseball. In high school I wanted to be a pro baseball player, and I never really thought about movies outside of taking dates to them and stuff like that. And when I tried to walk on to the UT

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Film & TV |
December 1, 1996

Viz Kids

Texas A&M is churning out a new crop of students who aren't farmers or vets. They're the computer aces of the Visualization Lab, and they're Hollywood's new masters of special effects.

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Film & TV |
September 30, 1996

Peri, Trouper

Waco, Houston, Dallas, Austin, London, New York, Hollywood: Peri Gilpin was all over the map before finding stardom on NBC�s hit sitcom Frasier.

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Film & TV |
September 30, 1996

Next of Kinski

When she works in Texas, Berlin-born Nastassja Kinski brings a link to her native Europe. When she made Paris, Texas in 1984, her comrade was German director Wim Wenders; this time, it was Italian director Antonio Tibaldi. In August and September Kinski was in Austin shooting Little Boy Blue, the

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Film & TV |
July 31, 1996

Shooting on the Border

THERE IS AN OBLIGATORY SCENE in every movie about the border between Texas and Mexico: A man draws a line in the dirt with his boot. The line means something different in each movie, and yet, there it is, a narrow little rut in the ground that the characters gesture

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Film & TV |
July 31, 1996

His Time to Kill

He shone in Lone Star; now he’s thrilling ’em in A Time to Kill. How talent and timing made native Texan Matthew McConaughey Hollywood’s hottest leading man.

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Film & TV |
June 30, 1996

Her Little Secret

Those whispers about Melissa Etheridge are true: She will play Port Arthur–born Janis Joplin in a forthcoming feature film. Director Mark Rocco (Murder in the First) has secured the rights to Myra Friedman’s 1973 Joplin bio, Buried Alive, and the rights to Joplin’s songs, and he’s talking to Etheridge’s label,

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