Tales from the Picture Show

Thanks, BE. The debate their roundtable has about how Dazed ISN’T a Texas movie because it could be anywhere rings hollow for me. There are certainly universal themes but that has a 70s Texas high school feel as it was described to me by folks from that era.

Also, plenty of folks I’ve met from elsewhere say it doesn’t remind them of THEIR 70’s high school experience. Limited data set for sure.

Lastly,

Fandango The all-time greatest roadtrip movie!

ANNE RAPP is a screenwriter whose credits include Cookie’s Fortune and Dr. T and the Women. She grew up outside Estelline.

Not only should she not have been on the panel, she should be run out of the State.

Great list, BurntEndz

I’m with you in that the initial top 10 is too good to argue with. I saw Giant for the first time a month ago for the rolling roadshow’s Friday night deal on top of the whole foods downtown. I was blown away I hadn’t seen it being a Texan (in my parents defense, they are originally from California so I’m first gen). I resolved within about 15 minutes that it would be required viewing for my children.

I can remember hundreds of times sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on 635 and wishing that I too had a psychedelic Cessna in which to flow over N. Dallas traffic

That’s a good point, Truman.

Good stuff.
 
Hud should be required viewing for all Texans. Amazing dialogue and Paul Newman is at the peak of his powers.

Do y’all drink beer?

Why yes, on occasion.

Good list but they whiffed on Lone Star. If it were black and white it would be in.

Still think you have to include Slacker. Every t-sip knew people like that in Austin.

Tender Mercies is very much underappreciated. Gorgeous film and Duvall is one helluva Texan.

Last Picture Show is on Olympus. Funny you need a damn Yankee to absolutely nail the Texas thing. It will never be done better than that.

Some other honorable mentions:
Hellfighters
Sugarland Express
Urban Cowboy
Terms of Endearment
Tin Cup
Secondhand Lions

I actually had Sugarland Express and Terms of Endearment on my list.

Then I lost it. And I didn’t want to have to admit to having seen Terms of Endearment.

Aerosmith, 2 weeks. Don’t forget.

Some dude that looked like Wooderson was in my fraternity. He spent most of his time smoking bowls, chasing tail and playing bongos. Wonder whatever happened to him?

And I’m a little shocked that Man of the House has not even merited a mention yet.

Good list.

Will be interesting to see how “Tree of Life” is received. It’s filmed in Texas, and supposed to be set in Waco in the 50s.

The world is full o’ complainers. An’ the fact is, nothin’ comes with a guarantee. Now I don’t care if you’re the pope of Rome, President of the United States or Man of the Year; somethin’ can all go wrong. Now go on ahead, y’know, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help, ’n watch him fly.

Now, in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else… that’s the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, an’ down here… you’re on your own.

Coen Bro’s openers are like movie heroin for me.

What, no Office Space?! It should be in the top 5. I have to take down the list several notches because of this.

Wes Anderson will be pissed. Not sure how anyone can leave out Rushmore or even Bottle Rocket

Good for them including Chainsaw. Clearly the most influential flick on the list, and has performed a great service in persuading people from undesirable locations that you do not want to live in Texas. Seriously, California: We’re all just a bunch a leatherfaced Bushies down here. The real estate is cheap BECAUSE IT IS HAUNTED AND HAS SAUSAGE-BODIES IN THE BASEMENTS!*

For weirdness’s sake, you need to include Brewster McCloud and, of course, We’ve Never Been Licked

(* Does not apply to Houston. Substitute the mosquito-creatures from The Mist)

Never Been Licked was my last out.

Speaking of Duvall, add The Apostle to the list.

Since I’m 26 miles from Marfa, I’ll prolly make the Giant screening there, if the buggy can make it over Paisano Pass again…

Primer, too – can’t leave it off. Yeah, that’s right, tech shit.

does Lonesome Dove count, or disqualified because it was a mini series.

The Newton Boys was shot in and around Austin. I think most of the action was in Texas.

Dazed, set in Summer of 76, was almost exactly like high in school in Austin in 1985. Except Parker Posey did not attend my high school. Regrettably.

I thought your Lisa Loeb youtube was going to be a clip of Winona Ryder and those two bouncing out of the front of Williams/Transco tower in Reality Bites.

Seriously, if you haven’t…do yourself a treat.

Newton Boys was terrible.

Agree on Lone Star. John Sayles is usually great.

I really liked Eastwood’s A Perfect World.

Terms of Endearment was good. McMurtry is apparently a good writer or something.

What movie did that Reese Witherspoon picture come from

Reese Witherspoon?

Legally Blind.

There’s no Reese Witherspoon picture that I see on the thread.

Wait … is it the picture on the main site? Because that’s Cybill Shepherd.

Reese is a much better actress but Cyb is on another plane in a number of respects, especially in TLPS, and especially in the Fort Worth portion of that flick.

Agree with bob that “Lonesome Dove” deserves mention though as a mini-series it doesn’t fit the format. Films based on great books (Pulitzer for McMurtry, a great Texas writer) often disappoint but this production featured home runs on every casting choice except Robert Urich as Jake Spoon. Urich wasn’t bad but couldn’t compete with Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Rick Schoeder and Diane Lane. I am not a mini-series fan per se but this one was terrific.

Is “All Booked Up” still open in Archer City. It’s worth a day, imo, because of the great collection, and poor filing.

They should screen “Texasville” after LPS. Also, forgot to mention “Hands on a Hardbody” even though it’s a documentary. Need some more East TX representation.

I wanted to add Frailty to the list but the damned thing was apparently filmed in California. Unfortunate as it’s great work from Texan Bill Paxton and notable for being the other watchable Matthew McConaughey film.

Nice work here BurntEndz.

Friday Night Lights is a terrible movie made from a very, very good book. The television is much closer to the story of the book than that piece of crap movie and I am still surprised they somehow didn’t include the color teal in the Permian movies because the focus group they had to used to create that abortion of a film likes teal.

I would offer Spy Kids as a Texas movie with more creditbility than FNLs.

Also, I want to claim a bias against Tin Cup. Movie is based upon a UH alum, features an actor grad of the TCU theatre program proudly sporting a TCU t-shirt that looked like it had been used to wax cars for years, is set in a crap hole town in West Texas, and Kingwood is used to fill the scenes for the US Open.

I don’t recall the name of the movie, but the debate team from the Black College from East Texas that beat Harvard in a head to head debate. Movie had Forest Whittaker and Denzel Washington and I believe it is the Great Debaters.

Thanks for the props to the completely overlooked “Hands On A Hard Body”. Not really a top ten but great honorable mention. Looking at the multitude if references above, I don’t know how you can exclude “Fandango” from the top ten. (They’ve seen butts before.). Same for “Dazed”, (every year I get older and they just stay the same). I just don’t know what else you leave out.

What no Cloak and Dagger? Dabne, Riverwalk – case closed.
Wow. that pic of Cyb is hot. TLPS predates my existence by a few years so my mental image of her was formed by Moonlighting and that desparate late-career hailmary of a series from the 90’s (‘Suddenly Cybil’?)

Cant fault the exclusion of the Wes Anderson pics. Outside the filming locations they didn’t have any specifically Texas content. In the directors commentary for Rushmore, Anderson talks about how he was looking for locations out east and it was his mom that suggested the schools in Houston. The themes, soundtrack, cinematography all point to Ivy League-ish, art school flick. A great movie regardless.

I too am a big fan of things Texas and film, so Im a little embarassed at how few of these Ive seen.

Signing up for netflix now.

hardbody definitely deserves Hon. Men.

Gotta include two Willie classics: Honeysuckle Rose and Barbarosa. Texas honkey tonks and the Texas/Mexico border…great stuff. Honeysuckle Rose should make it for the sound track alone.

I haven’t seen a single Varsity Blues mention. Weak effort people.

“ANNE RAPP is a screenwriter whose credits include Cookie’s Fortune and Dr. T and the Women. She grew up outside Estelline.

Not only should she not have been on the panel, she should be run out of the State."

I couldn’t agree more. My wife rented this movie, and I suffered through every minute. If someone were to ask what the worst movie I have ever seen was, I would quickly tell them “Dr. T and the Women.” It would take me a while to name number 2.

I concur with most of you that Fandango and Dazed should be added to the list. I still watch Dazed anytime I see it is on. “All I’m saying is if I start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself.”

“I haven’t seen a single Varsity Blues mention. Weak effort people.”

A Texas accent just doesn’t get any more authentic than when James VanderBeek declares, “I don’t want your life!”

Robo. Cop. 2.

One of Trips Right’s favorite party tricks is quoting Urban Cowboy from start to finish.

Love Fandango.

You have a “top 50” most emabarrasing moments at DKR? I wanna party with you, man. I might have 50, but unfortunately, I can only recall 2-3.

To echo Castle, I think the idea of quintessential Texas movies is that they weren’t just filmed in Texas. Office Space could have taken place in Any City, America.
 
Unless there is some degree of Texan-ness conveyed, it’s not a Texas film for this lists purposes.

I just want to point out that my post about their story has currently got 44 comments.

Texas Monthly’s actual story on their webpage has 4.

They also have a piece from the moderator of the panel who says Office Space is the sequel to Giant as Texans went from an oil economy to soulless technology office parks.

But since CLEARLY no one has read that piece on their site, I can claim that thought as my own.

I hope that is the first and last time I hear Giant and Office Space used in the same conversation. While we are on comparisons. Cybil Shepherd or Reese Witherspoon? Somebody must be young, blind or disoriented in a bad way.

Scipio,

Based upon your guideline than I think Bullzak hit the nail on the head with Lonestar.

Applying that same standard there has never been football movie that truly is worthy of being on a top 10 list. They all include warped Hollywood perceptions of Texas , small-town Texas, and football that aren’t real, aren’t accurate, and cover-up what are truly great stories.

I would love someone to give me a movie that gives an accurate portrayal of Texas football. No overly embelishied, no made up side stories, the honest to good truth, but the simple truth.

how about a movie on the book “the 12 mighty orphans” based on the 1930’s Ft Worth Mason’s school team.

Working Title: Mighty Mites

One of my uncles (mom’s sister’s husband) and his brother were a couple of mainstays on that team, along with the original Bootlegger’s Boy, Hardy Brown, a truly bad-ass sumbitch. Uncle Ray and his brother DeWitt were known as Long Tex and Big Tex – you can probably guess the origin of my favorite handle.

Most of the kids were at Masonic Home because their parents could not afford to feed them in the Great Depression, although some, like Hardy, were “real” orphans. Imagine not being able to feed your children…

Seriously, this story should put Friday Night Lights to shame.

bob the knob,

Great suggestion for a story, but I shudder to think what Disney would do with the screenplay. I can picture the Masonic Home being some how changed to an internment cap and the 12 mighty orphans would morph into 12 Asian children who have never even seen a football, but motivated by the cruelty of the guards-the overt injustice of their families homes and businesses being taken from them- plus the help of a kind and somewhat socially akward teacher they beat the defending state champions comprised of the kids of klansmen.

Too cynical huh?

Tex Long,

I agree most of us can’t relate to that story, my Dad and my Aunt were sent to live with an uncle while my Grandparents went upstate to work. My Dad will tell you that one of the lowest moments in his life was seeing my Grandfather hops trains as he could not afford to get a bus tickets and still have money to send back to his brother to help feed his kids.

FNL’s is a great book and they didn’t need to make up things or deviate from the story or that last game to make it a better movie. The game versus Carter in Memorial Stadium is one of the best games I have ever seen in person. Not much scoring and I can promise you that Permian was not intimidated from the start of the game. The book was blunt, brutal to some, but it was accurate in its portrayal of the people, the school, and the enviroment.

I would love someone to give me a movie that gives an accurate portrayal of Texas football. No overly embelishied, no made up side stories, the honest to good truth, but the simple truth.
 
Name a truly good football picture, period.
 
The Longest Yard, maybe. But it’s as much a prison flick as a football movie.

Hands on a Hard Body is one of the best documentaries ever made. Although Longview comes out looking like rural Alabama. Maybe there isn’t much of a difference.

Horse Feathers

Scipio,

I would offer to you Brian’s Song and I don’t mean that crappy re-make. Thought it did a great job of portraying a small glimpse of inside the Bear’s team in the 60’s.

Thinking now I would also offer Paper Lion based upon George Plimpton’s book of the same name.

 For a quick glimpse of the pains of rebuilding a destroyed program We Are Marshall was incredibly sappy, but not bad.

In terms of what is actually involved with playing the game I am not sure anyone that has, but I don’t think it is possible to truly encapsulate a game that has so many moving parts.

Vasherized,

Everyone knows that East Texas is nothing more than Northwest Louisiana.

Nice job filling in the gaps. Some really outstanding movies. I am also a big fan of Fandango and Lone Star. I especially like the scene with Frances McDormand when she’s talking Cowboy and Texas football. Brilliant! The one movie no one has mentioned that I would include in this conversation is A Trip to Bountiful with Geraldine Paige. An Oscar worthy performance.

Boys Don’t Cry (Waxahachie, I think)…won a couple of Academy Awards

The Hotspot (Dennis Hopper, Jennifer Connelly topless…yes please)

What was that Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan movie where he’s a dying professor? Lot’s of Sixth Street in that one

A Perfect World (Georgetown, I think)

The Apostle (Robert Duvall at his finest)…perhaps the quintessential East Texas movie

Outlaw Josey Wales (okay, okay, only the last third of the movie or so)

Stars Fell on Henrietta (Clint Eastwood producing, Robert Duvall acting…yum…). Wichita fallas area and all about oil – good Texas topic.

The Man who Broke 10,000 Chains (Val Kilmer version….filmed in Marshall, Texas)

Davey, cynical but probably very close to the mark.
Glass Joe. the Quaid film was remake of DOA and was filmed primarily at St. Eds. I lived down the street during the filming. At one point in the movie a basset hound runs across the screen and I could have sworn my Lucy Belle had gotten loose.

What about Crazy Heart? Drunkenly drifting through Texas has to resonate with more than a few of you.

North Dallas Forty, with Nick Nolte in decrepit glory? It’s my favorite Texas football movie. Lone Star should be on there. Dazed and Confused too. For me, Rushmore — it has Dan and Dave’s barbershop on 11th Street featured prominently, for God’s sake.

Crazy Heart gets stricken for not filming the Houston scenes anyplace that looks even vaguely like Houston.

Oh, I’d also like an honorable mention for “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.”

Like you don’t eat/sleep/breathe The Aquarium.

If I am not mistaken this true gem was shot in the Austin area

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0484207/

Wait, no “Lonesome Dove”?? Seriously?

Because my girl Mayra Leal was the chick from Machete that pulled the cell phone out of her…….self, I’ll have to shout her out.

Flesh and Bone, shot outside of Austin. James Caan, Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, and a young Gwyneth Paltrow. An underrated film from where I sit.

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape—filmed in Manor

No mention of “Heartbreak Hotel?” I watched a scene being filmed at the Driskill after a got off work on Sixth Street. I also saw David Keith having dinner and drinks and taking in the sunset at the Oasis when he was in town filming. Cool guy despite being a Sooner…

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095288/

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