Latest / Your Dark Companion Podcast / Inside the Dallas International Film Festival | James Faust | Ep 212

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Inside the Dallas International Film Festival | James Faust | Ep 212 · Your Dark Companion Podcast

• Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Ryder, sports talk? Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. With the big mic. Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah. Okay. Now I get it. We had a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window. Alright. Alright. Here's a tip for all these Americano League teams. Don't what? You said tip. Yeah. Tip. Okay. With a p. I would Keep jamming. The The ticket colon. Nothing but a big Gen X jerk off set. This is a cool night or what? I love somebody would hear that go, bullshit. I'm back. They just Well, this one over here. What about this one over here? That's a light. Yeah. I don't worry about that. It just seems like this one here is pointed in a different direction usually, but hell, what do I know? You're a radio guy. I'm not as tall. Where is it normally? I think the last time I had it, like, right here. It's not that big of a Why did you lower it? What what's the thinking here? You know what? I don't know. I'm just here, y'all. Just trust Ashley. She's the artiste. I do trust her. I trust her implicitly. Okay. Shoopy's just questioning the direction of you. Just wanna make sure we're getting stuff right. That's all. He's a tyrant like that. A perfectionist. Yeah. I'm a hard ass. Doesn't let things slide? Mhmm. I don't let things slide. I want to control everything. Oh, wow. You control just about everything, don't you? I do. You know what? I've been watching y'all do little fairies all day. So There's a lot going on, James. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Alright. This is Wednesday, April 8 and this is episode number which? Two twelve. Two twelve. Pretty good. Three times. Yes. Oh my god. We've got a a a long timer with us today and or an off timer, I guess I should say. Off time. O f t. Yeah. I gotcha. Off. Ah. I got it. And he is the great James Foust. We had him on last year because we wanted to find out what was shaking at the Dallas International Film Festival. Well, you know what? We've had one a couple weeks ago too. Yeah. We did have one a couple weeks ago. I can't remember why, but we did. Less official business. Just checking in and Just to hang? Yeah. Okay. That's cool. Talk Oscars. I mean, yeah, he's a he's a cool cat. A He's man of varied interests. Yeah. He he's a guy that can come over here and hang anytime he wants. Yeah. But we're extra focused on something today. Yes. And that is that Dallas International Film Festival because he is a fairly sizable muckety muck, d I f f. What is your title? I I don't mean to diminish it. I know it's serious. That's okay. Artistic director. That sounds like a BFD. Now if that is not a title held by somebody who is without question serious people, I don't know what is. Yeah. He is squared away and put together. He is squared away and put together. And look at him. He's handsome. I'm so Very. Hands old. I'm blushing because I'm purple. So so I appreciate this. Well, how you been, man? Been good. Been been slammed and busy, but getting ready for this thing. How have you been? Slammed and busy. 212 shows. I'm I'm I'm honored because that's a lot of shows. That is a lot of shows. Congratulations. And that's I have done much more in my life longer than that. Yes. You have. You've done quite a few things. Longer than that. Yeah. Well, a few. But as far as, you know, stuff like this, usually, I give it up after, I don't know, I don't know, five, six, somewhere around there. For hanging with us. The world needs it. I would like to think so. Me and Ashley need it at least. Facts. Well, you were here to talk about the Dallas International Film Festival last year. Here you are again, we're still doing this next year. You can count on it. Oh yeah. And if you're still there, and I hope you will be. Oh, I'll be there. I've got bills. Yes. Got Williams, don't you? I like that. I do too. I haven't heard that. So you've done enough of these by now. Do they all sort of run together for you or is making one different from the one the year before a big deal? It they did in the past, I'd say the past ten years, plus ten years has only been a couple of hiccups, you know, with the COVID years and things like that. But for the most part, it is sort of rinse and repeat. And the things that change are the filmmakers and every now and then, we'll throw in a special, block of films from a particular country. But this year's, been a lot different because it's our twentieth edition of the festival. So it's been and the math kinda messed me up because we started in our first festival was 2007, but our twentieth is 2026. So, yeah, deal with that seven day week. So, yeah, it's a lot Is this your twentieth? Yeah. You've been part of all of them? I've been part of all of them. Okay. I came on from the when we were the Deep Ellum Film Festival, and then I was part time there, and then I was still kind of part time at the original AFI Dallas back in 2007. And so, but then I got full on full time artistic director back in 2011, 2012. Yeah. And the world has been better off for it. Oh, well, I appreciate that. What is the Diff Dallas Star Award? Diff Dallas Star Award. So part of what we've done over the last twenty years is given acknowledgement to a a particular filmmaker, actor, film professional, anybody from Lauren Bacall, Sydney Pollock to Laura Linney, Gabriella Sidibe, and Kurt Russell. So that Kurt Russell, sorry. It was was it Kurt Russell? No. It wasn't Kurt Russell. It was the other guy that looks like Kurt Russell, but it's not Kurt Russell. Can't remember. Anyway, lots of people over the years. And so this year, the DIF Dallas Star Award, we're having a luncheon ever honoring the twentieth anniversary. And we're honoring, Lou Diamond Phillips with the the, Deaf Dallas Star Award this for the first time. He's been a friend of the festival since the beginning since we're Deep Ellum back in the day. Mhmm. He's a friend with our founder, Michael Caine. And then I became friends with him back in the day and he's just a really great guy who actually answers my emails and which is amazing. He's like, hey, what's going on? And he's and he's working on something with Brian Cuban in town right now too. So I'm very That's right. I'm very happy that we're actually got have the chance to bring Lou out, and we're showing three films with him in it. None of them La Bamba though. Which ones? Which ones? We're showing, the North American premier of a film out of Oklahoma called Keep Quiet, where Lou Diamond Phillips plays a officer that patrols a, native reservation that is got a lot of crime and a mystery unfolds on the reservation. We're showing a documentary about the man who made the movie La Bamba and another movie called Zoot Zoot. His name is the movie is called American Pachuco, the Louis the Legend of Luis Valdez, and it's also about La Bamba and all these other things and losing it. And then there's a third movie that was shot in Dallas of all places that he stars in as a doctor and it's called One in a Million. He stars with Flavor Flav and Wayne and of Seinfeld fame. Yeah. Newman. Yeah. Always say Seinfeld and Jurassic Park depends on how you feel. And then, I forgot the other. There's a person from The Chosen in the movie. I think the name is Tabish. Allen Tabish or something. I don't watch The Chosen, but anyway, really cool thing. Oh, yeah. Ashley Green from Twilight is the star of the film as well. So it's a and it's a world premiere and they're all gonna be here. I was told Flavor Flav was coming yesterday, but I don't think that's the case. I wanna I'm not gonna I'm not gonna bet on that. I don't I don't know if there's any legal things that he can or cannot leave the state or wherever he's at. Always It's a possibility. Hasn't Has even been going to the to the Women's He's been like the Olympics and stuff like that. He's been trying to be trying to make good for some things that may have happened or not happened. I don't know. Aren't we all? So he's turned into a man of the world now. Oh, yeah. Completely. He's a nice guy. No clocks. So how long after one festival ends is it till you start cranking on next year's? We're starting to think about next year now. And but when we start working on it, I'd say we'll end for, like, April the festival's April. Mhmm. We'll start actually working on the festival June 1. And then we'll open submissions for the next festival in July 1. Mhmm. And then we'll close those submissions in February 2027. Do you ever get any solid downtime Summertime. Where you don't have to answer emails or return phone calls or anything like that? I'd say between mid May and July 15 ish, around that time. We we are in a my wife's like, you're around a lot. I know. We're going to when you're around? Yeah. When there's stuff to be done? Sounds about right. She's she's yeah. You know, it's cool because I there's a time when I'm not around a lot. And there's like, right now, I'm hardly at home and like, she won't see me for like twelve hours a day. And then I come home and I just wanna go to bed. Just tired. So yeah, it's cool to have that time with the family and just chill and play around. That's all I ever wanna do too. Yeah. Is just go to bed. Get to the end of the day and go in there and crash. You have a good bed? If I can. Yeah. Which sometimes I can, sometimes not. They've got pills for that. I know. Okay. I'm on it. CBD for that. CBD. That's true. That's right. Delta eight. There we go. So, like, when do you call for submissions or when when does the is the submission gate unlocked? I was thinking about it right now. We're gonna shoot for July 1 again, but I don't know if that's gonna stay for sure. I just I that's just I know that the powers that be like the July 1 deadline early because it's really early and we can get a lot of stuff done. And I'm like, yeah, that just means a lot more films for us to watch. Rather compress it and just do it that way. So how do you get word out there? Do you do you is do you just put a Do you get a plane and ride it up in the sky or something like that? Get your films in now for the diff or Shout on the streamers. Organization that you send emails to or how does it work? I'm very curious about this, James. Okay. I can tell. There's couple of ways. So we'll do all social channels. We'll put send something out in our newsreel, newsletter that says, hey, this is happening on this day. Submissions are open. And there's also the way that people submit to the festival for the most part is a system called filmfreeway.com. And it's a kind of a clearinghouse where everyone submits to they you join up on Film Freeway and you're a filmmaker and now, I'd say there are maybe 12 to 14,000 film festivals in this system. So instead of you going to each individual, your film is in one place and you just go, oh, I wanna play here. I wanna play here. I wanna submit here. And you just submit your film and pay the fee to the festival. We announced on Film Freeway and there's three, four hundred thousand filmmakers assigned on Film Freeway. That's usually the bulk of what we get to. These are that's where it is. Like, hey, you guys get it. Please submit when you can. Submit early because submitting late just only makes us angry. So if you submit to Film Freeway, then all those submissions go to you through them or No. So like, it's You kind of select. You select. Okay. As a filmmaker, you can select where you go. Gotcha. And that's the fun part. It's like, oh, I wanna do this. And then again, everybody like Sundance, everybody's on there except for South by Southwest. Like, Ken is on there. But not South by Southwest. South by Southwest is What's so special about them? A lot of things. Yeah, Shuby. Well, one two big things about South by Southwest versus most other festivals in the world. Their adherence to, you know, not joining a a platform like Foam Freeway and they're a for profit film festival. They're they're a company that unlike, let's say, Sundance, Def, Terami, everybody else, most festivals are nonprofit organizations. And so, but they're owned by Penske and Pretty big. Yeah. Pretty big. They they own everything by the way. Like everything. They own Hollywood Reporter, Deadline That's big. Variety, IndieWire, Sun they are majority owners of South by Southwest, and they also are, I think, majority owners of the Heartland Film Festival, believe, as well. So, not a monopoly at all. Well, you know, Variety says Baffo. Oh my God, you just Bafo. No one said Bafo in forever. I do. Oh, man, people make fun of me for saying that. What is Bafo? What are you saying? Like, you know what that means? Bring it back for the diff. I might. Yeah, let them know you got a partner at BOFO. I appreciate that. My Diff O says BOFO. People used to make fun of me for that. That's so good to hear. Thank you for that. So last year, what was the film that maybe nobody's really talked too much about that really stood out for you, or was there one? At last year's festival? I last year's film? I'm trying to think. What was, oh, 40 Acres. It was a post apocalyptic action film that just took everybody by surprise because it's like this sort of really diverse a bunch of these people, it's this family, Native American guy, this black woman had a family, but everybody else that survived this apocalypse end up living on their farm and they became these sort of militia to protect themselves from the hoards of, you know, cannibals and other people that are trying to take their crops and it's just really fun, cool action film that was just shocking. Ended up winning our audience award, got picked up by Magnolia Pictures and was, you know, released and really, this is really cool. And it was neat seeing the trailer where the where the thing would come up because it played the Toronto Film Festival because the filmmaker was from there and you see selected at the Toronto Film Festival then audience winner at the Dallas International Film Festival on the so it was pretty cool to see that. So what happens to a film like that? I mean, where once it it makes the film festival circuit and maybe wins some accolades such as this Mhmm. What happens to it? Well, it does it's usually hopefully, it gets picked up like this one and it gets up hunting. Otherwise, I mean, some of these things just this might be the only time you get to see it. It sometimes Yeah. It just doesn't go anywhere else other than playing at different film festivals around the world and it ends up becoming sort of a calling card for that filmmaker. Now, with today's streaming access and other distribution models, most films end up somewhere. Hurry ever. The reason I asked that is because I read these recaps of the films like this that you've sent out for this year's Mhmm. And I go down them and I read them and I think, man, that sounds good. Read the next one. Man, that sounds really good. Man, I'd like to see that. And it just goes on and on and yet not being immersed in that world to me, it seems like it just kind of fades off into the netherworld. And I hope it, I mean, if if they're gonna make if the film is really as good as it sounds Mhmm. I hope that doesn't happen for them. I hope something comes of it. That's what we hope too because when we bring the the film festival is not just about bringing filmmakers and films to Dallas, it's also about bringing people that buy films. So I know there'll be a couple of distributors that'll be hanging out at the festival that are looking at this and getting a word-of-mouth about the film that it gets back to a distributor or, we have some managers and agents that are coming as well that they go, oh, I just saw this movie and they might wanna represent that filmmaker to help them get a sale. So, yeah. It's a it's a lot and I I feel bad when films that get a lot of notoriety it happens at every festival. Largest festival, from Cannes, Toronto, to Sundance, AFI, South By. Great films get a lot of press and a lot of notoriety, and then sort of just disappear. Yeah. It's just That's what I'm talking about. How how many do you think get distributed after that? Like, or bought up by a distributor? Depends. I I would say quite a few. I mean, we're talk a good percentage, but it's it's the level of distribution you're looking for. Like large distributors don't typically buy out of film festivals outside of the big three. And by the big three, I mean like, to me is Cannes, Toronto, and Sundance. Those are where you're gonna see your big sales for somebody out of those three festivals. Otherwise, you've got a lot of lower level distributors that you might not know of, they're putting up movies in theaters, but the deal for the filmmaker might not be as good. It might be a, you know, like, oh, they didn't get a lot of money off of this deal. They didn't get a lot of money. They they they didn't get the amount of distribution because the other thing is you wanna be say you move in a movie theater. Yeah. But these people like, look, that's cool, but it costs a lot of money to put your movie in a theater and market it. So what we'll do is we'll give you your Oscar run, is seven days in some theater in a city that has that or or in a couple theaters, we'll give you you know, we'll maybe put you on 40 screens across the nation, which is not a lot for a small film. And then we wanna get you to online as fast as possible. We wanna get you in and people paying for your movie in in, pay per view, like, you know, SVOD, pVOD. We want your movie to be sold. Somebody pays $15 or $8 for your movie. That's where you're gonna make your money. Yeah. How much how much emphasis is there on theater versus streaming at this point? Depends on honestly, it depends on who's in your movie. Alright? This is my opinion. I the the movies that I see that get a decent theatrical usually have some semblance of a celebrity quotient. And that's how you get your movie and there's, oh, look, there's somebody decided they, you know, Tom Hanks did an indie. Did he? Or or the actually, we have one film at our festival, which I think is funny. It's a really great film called Tuner. I don't know if that's on your list or not, but it's a Dustin Hoffman is in it. Small film. The other two actors are are sort of known, but it's Dustin Hoffman is getting all the credit because but he's barely in the movie and it's that thing that I'm positive that I'm looking at the distributor and I'm pretty sure that that not only is it a great film, but Dustin Hoffman makes it sell. Why would Dustin Hoffman do something like that? Just because he wants to? Because he can? Because he he he could like the script. It's a really, really great script, but he's barely in it. But also his parts are really it's one of those movies where he's in it enough that he could if it was a TV show, he would get a an Emmy Award nomination for best guest actor. Like, it's that it's that stronger performance in the little time that he's in the film. But they do sometimes they do it for a paycheck to get something else or I was just watching something with Corbin Burnson today because he's in a friend of mine's film and they asked him the same question like, why did you do this little indie film? You're on all these TV shows. You got all this stuff. You're in your friends and neighbors. You got things going on. He said, I like I wanna support that artistic side of my soul because I do all these larger things that are for a bigger paycheck to keep me alive, but I need to keep that other part of me alive. I need to keep that soul of acting. Need to, I want to tell these stories. And so that Yeah, might be of like me with this. What? It's a pretty good comparison, actually. Oh my gosh. You're the Corbin Burnson of podcasts. I'll take that. You can do worse. Is a good looking guy. Damn right. So are you, Shoopy. Yeah. We'll get you in Major League six. So I would imagine that the week of the film festival is just a room working madhouse for you. No. You no? Oh, by room working, you mean like just pressing the flesh and Yeah. Yeah. Just whirling everybody trying to get your god. Yes. That's today is kind of a precursor to that. But yes, that is from about yes. Seven days from the festival. So seven days from tomorrow. It'll be no, I guess fourteen days. So yeah, because there's fourteen days tomorrow. So seven days from that. Too much math. Yeah. Seven days from tomorrow, I will be nonstop this. Nonstop talk, nonstop, the weekend doesn't matter, interviews. I just questioning going to I'm speaking at the Dallas Screamwriters Association on Monday. I'm speaking at so I spoke at junior league this this past week. I will have a speaking engagement, four speaking engagements that week of the festival and yeah. And then I have to bone the things juxtapose that with, are we doing q and a's and interviews during the festival? So I have to bone up on all the stuff during the that I have for the festival. So daytime, talking, early evening talking, nighttime. Hey, babe. How you doing? Got a kiss. Can I I'm eating in the other room because I gotta watch this movie that you don't wanna watch? Yeah. How many movies does she watch with you compared to by yourself? She used to watch a lot. She used to be on our documentary screening committee. And then she got really sad about how hard that was. The hard part is you see, should be a thousands of movies. The not it's not thousands of bad movies. It's it's like, you know, thousands of pretty good movies. Yeah. And then it's up by, you know, a few 100 great films. And then there's a few 100 and really playing a 112. And so you start going, oh, how do we separate this? And it was all it's hard. So she's She got tired of crushing dreams. She did. She's she wanted it. It came down to a documentary on lead poisoning. I'll never forget it. And she's like, it's really good. It's not that good. You just like the story and it's an important story. But I don't know how great it is. And she's and so she's like, are you right? It's not good, but it's important. It is. It totally is. I totally get it. But she's really good at sports documentaries, I'll have her watch those with me. Okay. Yeah. She's she's all about those. She's, yeah, she's all, my wife's a sporto. Nice. Yeah. We like sports. Yeah. Oh, damn. Swear. A little bit. Yeah. Little bit? We do. We do. Do. Do. Could say that. Okay. I've been around it. He dabbles. Yeah, dabble. Should've tried some radio sometime in the last fifty years. The thought crossed my mind, but we'll see. He's trying to stay the Corbin Burnson. Yeah. Yeah. The Corbin Burnson of Dallas, Mike Wright. You know, I look at all of these this stuff that I have here about the film festival. Sure. And all of this list of the feature films Mhmm. And all of the brief recaps of the feature films. Man, they all seem great. They are. I mean, I look at them and I think this is something I would be interested in seeing. Yeah. Because, you know, I like kind of, you know, off the beaten path stuff. Yeah. Okay. You know? I'm not opposed to the indie film or anything like that. No? You like to you like to eat your hands dirty? But yeah. Yeah. I do. I do. I mean, how how do you how does somebody like you differentiate? I just I it's it's hard. It's super hard. I'm not I'm not even gonna kid you that it's hard to decide. As groups said, it's like crushing somebody's dreams versus somebody else's dreams when the dreams are so closely aligned. It's like, what's the difference? And sometimes it comes down to we have committee. It's not just me. There's I have a director of programming. I have international a Latino programmer. We have programming coordinator, and we have about another 15 people, watching films that we, and all discuss. And there's voting scales and we all look at things and things rise to the top and we kind of and and when things get close, we discuss them. And the short films, they have major discussions because there's way too many of those. The feature films ends up being about three or four of us talking. Okay. This is really this. This is that. We all have our sections and we just go for higher numbers and what we feel that we want to show right now that maybe speaks to a certain zeitgeist that may be happening or or something that is like, oh, yeah. Like two years ago or last year, we did it was a Ukraine documentary that we really wanted to get out there about what was going on was on the ground dealing with people that were artists in Ukraine. See, I would love that. Yeah. Well, here's funny. We have a new Ukrainian documentary this year. Fresh footage. But completely different type of artists. These are two artists from LA that come to Ukraine to help people and they're mainly graffiti artists and are tagging buildings that are about to be blown up and getting their word out there. And it's directed by this music video director from The Ukraine. And I mean, it's it's it's kind of kick ass. It's kinda like a rock and roll art doc, if you will, that just sort of the I mean, they're running from, you know, people are getting shelled and they're dragging their paint cans with them, you know, they're around. It's like this. So, yeah, that's a pretty cool one. What's it called? My god. I can barely pronounce Palatznia. Palatznia. It's an it's a Ukrainian word. Okay. Fair enough. It's real hard. My Ukrainian is not as good as my Russian. I feel like that would be very un you know, uncouth of me to speak Russian. So with the voting commissions and stuff, how difficult is it for everyone to vote? And, you know, how much do you all let your personal opinions shape it versus it might not be your thing, but you know that it's got the artistic merit? It's all personal, but that last part, it might not be your thing, is something that I've been preaching since day one when I wasn't when I wasn't the artistic director and I was senior programmer, I said, look, I don't like x. That's why there's somebody else to do x. But in this case, I I very specific example, in the very first festival, the second festival, there was a documentary about shark preservation. And I said, that's the stupidest shit I've ever heard. I was so upset about that movie and I wouldn't I didn't even wanna watch it. And then I watched it and go, okay, I kinda get it. Then it sort of gave me a turn. It still wasn't my movie, but I felt that this is an important subject matter. And because of Jaws, and there's a whole documentary about how Jaws just messed everybody up on freaking sharks, including me, I had I had this bias thing going, and watching that movie was a turnaround, and I'm like, oh man, and it's it was so I always preach. Yeah, it might not be your thing, think about somebody else. It's not all about you because you like some weird crap. I've seen the movies you go to see and that's just weird. Might not be as weird as Reiner because you hardly ever see movies, but when you do, it's cool. But Star Wars, we're not gonna do that. Never did. Never did. Never did. Never did. Because he's watching all the weird movies. Yeah. He's Yeah. That's right. He ain't got time for Wookiees. No. Hayanitsu. He did it. Oh, yeah. There he goes. Yeah. I found it. Paionizia. Oh, wow. Oh, look at that. Okay. He found it. That's amazing. You know, you get crazy. Yeah. So we, you know, we we do what we can and get the movies to the people that know the subject matter and then we hopefully everybody will find a good place. And you're right. Everything this year above all, we made a point that we have a little less films than usual, which kind of, I think my CEO is gonna, you should have more I have this number. I know we have that number, but I wanna have a bunch of good things. I want I wanna be able to go to every film, even if it isn't my thing, it's my thing. And I think that's what this year is about. I mean, even there's a there's a faith based movie, the one that with Lou Diamond and Ashley Green, that one one in a million. That faith based movie, I thought might be a little controversial, but it's also just it's just really a well done family thing. You could take everybody to and have a good cry. And that's also sometimes you wanna be moved in certain ways. You're gonna cry, you wanna scream, you wanna laugh. I got all that. And it all takes place at the Dallas International Film Festival. Yes, sir. April. Alright. This is the great James Foust. He is the artistic director of same. Mhmm. And you can relax a little bit because I gotta get this out of the way here. Because as you know, out there in podcast land, that can mean one thing and one thing only. That being that it's time for the dreaded and feared mid show read. Alright. What have we here today, Shoopee? I believe CBD House of Healing, Shoopee. Just that. Just that? Yeah. Square. Yeah. Alright. Let me hold this up for the world to see. This came from the CBD House of Healing. I used it once, and it did a lot of good for me because I was in pain. I was hurting. And I used it, and it really did help. And you know what? Today, I am in pain once again. I am playing hurt today. And I'm going to use this again, and I'll bet you it will help out again. We're gonna see anyway. Maybe James will apply it. Yeah. Maybe maybe so. What I'm saying to you, though, is that if you are walking around this world in pain, there is no reason for this. This is the full spectrum salve stick from the CBD House of Healing, but that's not all they've got over there. They got a bunch of different stuff. And if you're walking around in pain, there's no reason for that, man. You need to go over there and talk to them. Chances are they can help you out. They helped me out. If they can help me out, I bet they will be able to help you out too. Because they approach it from a medicinal standpoint. I know you're thinking that it's CBD, man. No. That's not how it works over there. They approach it from a medicinal standpoint. The owner is a registered nurse. And if you go over there and talk to them, chances are they've got something that will make you feel better. I don't know if it'll make it go away, but it'll make you feel better. And if you're hurting, believe me, you will settle for that gladly. The CBD House of Healing is located at the intersection of Northwest Highway and Plano Road in the northeast quadrant of that burgeoning intersection. Drop by. Do tell them you heard about it from us here at YDC and get your healing journey started at the CBD House of Healing. You'll be glad you did. There we go. Was that it? Yep. Hell yeah. That's great. Good job. And now I wanna try this. See? You should. I don't know if you're in any any kind of pain, but it does work. It does help. I'm of an age that pain is part of my life. So yes. I'm gonna be sore from shaking all those hands and stuff too. And talking. And I'm working with the rules. Can I put that on my jaw? Yeah, you can't. I think they have other products that might be better for Okay. Oral use Okay. So to speak. Oh my god. This is dark. This is dark. So go some of these and tell us what you're looking forward to seeing this year. Oh. I mean are you high on anything this year or? Oh yeah. Two really cool. Film wise that is. I'm high on the Sav. No. Is Sav, by the way. I oh, man. There's a lot. Opening night is a kind of a a big deal for us. It's the premier of this film. I was sort of alluding to earlier, I think I may have alluded to it when I was here way back in January or wherever. It's a premier of a film called Last Shot. It's a basketball film. Oh, sports. Yeah. About a little kid who's kind of a really great kid and like he like he's end up in AAU teams when he gets a little older, he's like 12 years old and his parents are separated. One lives in Nashville, one lives with him, his dad he lives with his dad and tragedy happens and he's forced to go live with his mom who's played by Jenna Press Jamie Pressley and he goes to live with her out in Nashville and she's a big music producer and he doesn't wanna be there because he didn't know his mom very well and he ends up being on the basketball team out out in Nashville and he's kind of a hot head and he just has to learn how to deal with it and mom and him have to learn how to be together and it's a really great film. In the movie, his his head is his dad's played by Michael Rapaport. His mom is Jamie Press, like I said. His mom's boy toy boyfriend is is Johnny Simmons, best known for Scott Pilgrim and partially being a wallflower and more recently, he dated Hermione, Emma from from the Harry Potter movies. He's also from Dallas. So he'll be here. Jamie will be here. The director and producers are all gonna be here. And the coach in the film, Baron Davis, will also be here. Nice. And I and I already told the producers, you know how much I hate that dude as a Mavericks fan? You have no idea. And his b beard? Yeah. Boy, me too. I just, I guess, so he goes, there he goes. Yeah, that happens a lot with him. So, but he's really, he's so far he's been really cool and he's talking about the film. That's a really good one. And then on the flip side, on the other side, the closing night film is was one of the first films. These are two of the first films I booked for the festival. So I'm so excited. It's The US premiere of the Kenny of Kenny Loggins documentary. Oh, Yeah. And it's yeah, it's premiering in World Premiere is gonna be Toronto on ironically on the twenty third. Then seven days later, we're getting The US, premiere of the film. And it's about the life and times of Kenny Loggins. And he's really, we're trying to make sure he gets in. He's missing both of these film screenings because apparently he's got a concert. Sorry, I don't know why this, I thought that was off, I apologize, that's Maybe bad it's Kenny Loggins. No, is not. Okay. His name is Spam. That's his alias, Spam Loggins. But the Kenny Loggins doc is amazing A victim of the heart. Yeah, thank you. That's a great title. Yeah. Did you know, apparently he had four number one hits from four number one movies and I could only name three of the movies and three of the songs. Can you name three Kenny Loggins songs that may have been you're gonna he's cheating. But Danger Zone would be one. That's right. Top Gun. A Footloose. That is two. He was also nominated for an an Oscar, I believe. Let's see. The other one's a sports movie. I'll make that easy for you. Golf. What is it? I'm Alright from Caddyshack. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Caddyshack. The Seeing some other ones from him, but Yeah. The fourth one I always forget and it's I forgot I gotta rewatch the movie because it's in the movie. I'm like, that's insane. I forgot. And I think it was a Loggins Messina, thing, not just Kenny. So that's pretty cool. So that Well, I was a big Loggins and Messina fan and I'm still to this day a fan of Kenny Loggins and I don't want to hear a word about it. No. You guy he's so he's a lovely man. He's an absolute He seems like he would be. He's one of those guys that seems like he would be just terrific. He's such a great guy. And then there's another really film in the middle that's directed by a famous former child actress. It's called, The Werewolf and the Waves directed by Saleel Moonfry, formerly known as Punky Brewster. And so it's about her relationship with the lead singer of the band Crazy Town. And they had that they had that song Butterfly? Hell yeah. And so, it's it's about his struggle with one hit wonderness and and drug addiction. And she they were friends and they became partners and it's this really oh, I can't believe you got the song. Yeah. Oh, that that's the magic of Shoopy. Yep. Doesn't hurt that it's sample of a Chili Pepper song. It's like Rest of the shifty shell shock. Yes. That's who it's about. Yeah. That's sad. It's a it's a great she's been wonderful to talk to and we're gonna actually have a conversation about how we get her into the festival for this movie. And it's, yeah. That one is it's one of those movies that, if anybody's watching the Lamar Odom doc on it, I think it's on Hulu or when get really into this the life and you're really intimate, it's that. And you get to really realize how these people are living with addiction and that, you know, no one really cares because we're all about this song. We're about we want that life. So it's it's a fascinating piece and it's been wonderful to deal with that. I saw that Lamar Odom doc for the first time or I I saw that it's on there. Mhmm. I didn't look at it, but I saw that it's on there for the first time last night, and I'm very intrigued. It's tough. It's it's hard to watch what what's going on behind the scenes and to make sure it I did the the biggest trick that movie ever does is make me like a Kardashian. Because it was Khloe that used to date. Right? Yeah. I'm like, oh, wow. Were married. They were. Oh, I'm sorry. They were. I'm sorry, Khloe. Yeah. And this makes you like a Kardashian. Yeah. I'm like, what she what she went through, I'm like, okay. Yeah. Good on you. So Yeah. It's worth it. I'm trying to think anything else that that there's there's so many there's so many dang films that are just so good in the film. There's I mean, if you guys know Charlie Crockett, if you're with him, he's got there's a film about him growing up in Dallas. I'm guessing that's the one Skin is into? No. Skin was into the the opening night thing. He liked the last shot thing. Oh, okay. I hadn't even told him about Charlie Crockett yet. Oh, man. He'll freak about that. Christopher. He was phenomenal. Oh, that's right. Jared Christopher. He's awesome. Yeah. I've talking with Jared since we were gonna play it last year, but they had to pull out Yeah. For some reason. And now we and it so we brought it back around and hopefully Charlie's gonna be there and Joshua Ray Walker's gonna there's a film before that, a short film about his life and dealing with cancer and everything and so we're gonna be this is cool. Those those two are at the Texas Theater, but a lot of music films. Oh, this might be I might be ages here. Sorry about this, Ryan. But are you are you a fan of Jimmy Buffett? I'm That's no. I I respect him. Okay. There's a Jimmy Buffett documentary about his band called Occupational Hazard. Okay. Well, I would watch a Jimmy Buffett documentary. Yeah. There there seems to be the filmmakers and I think some of the band members are gonna be here for that. Nice. Which is gonna be great. I didn't know that until the the other day. I'm like, oh crap. Like, there's gonna be we don't have a theater big enough for a bunch of parrot heads running around in there. But it's really cool. I think the music stuff this year is really great. And then, there's I'm trying to think there's a bunch of really great things in the Texas category. There's a horror film called Mantis. If you're into scary things, made in Fort Worth. Mhmm. It's about a justice Hardy directed it. When you die, somebody has figured out that when you die, your energy is still around. So if you have if you're a victim of a homicide and you don't know who you don't know who's killed you, these these cops and scientists have come up with a way to reanimate your ghost, if you will, and talk to you and try to figure out who killed you because you're the one that saw them most likely. And they give and you only get like twenty minutes or so of life left and they make a big point of not letting you see your own body because apparently, you're like this energy portion of it still alive. And so it's kind of a it's a creepy little story that, they were the world premiere of the film. So we're excited about that. Well, see, I would watch that. Sounds awesome. That sounds that sounds like something I would wanna see. Yeah. Saturday night at the Texas Theater. It's gonna be it's gonna be a jam. Anything else flipping your switch this year? Yeah. I'm just I think with the there's so many I think there's a that documentary is cool. There's a movie called Misper, but this British film, filmmakers about a missing person. So Misper is the code for missing persons in The UK and, working at this, hotel in out in I guess somewhere in The UK and out very famous hotel. The somebody is is quitting and she decides just to I'm quitting but she disappears and like we're supposed to have a party for her and so the rest of the movie is finding out where she went or she's been kidnapped. So it becomes this national story like, then where is this person? Is she is she alive? Is she dead? And then you start looking at the characters in in the movie that you like and you think, wait a minute, did somebody do something to her? Which one of these people did? And they really cast the shadow of doubt on everyone in the film. So it's just like eighty minute mystery that's really fast, really great. And if you watched, the TV show Alien Earth, which I don't if anybody did, one of the main characters of Alien Earth is the main character of this film and it's I didn't know it was British until I saw this. I hate those actors accents. He it's just fantastic. And it's a real good mystery. It's kind of like a combination of like a a really long lot a not even long. It's only eighty minutes. A Law and Order episode meets a Hitchcock mystery. Yeah. And so it's so that one's really good and then there's a oh, this one is mind blowing stupid. I can't believe we're even getting this film. It's called Revolution's Daughter. It's a documentary on Fidel Castro's daughter and her escape from Cuba. And Oh, it's by Thaddeus Matula. Thaddeus Matula. Nice. Good buddy Thad went to SMU. Hell, I talked that kid into SMU. You owe me you owe me Thad. You know it. Yeah, Thad. Yes. The yeah. So that movie so it's about that and it has Gloria Estefan and a couple other Pulitzer Prize winning Cuban American artists in it. And it's about her leaving Cuba and getting away, know, like, one to have her kid, two just to get away from the regime and she's coming. So Alina is her name. I don't think her name is Castro anymore, but Alina, it will be here for the festival along with Thaddeus and her daughter who she left to have in this country. So, yeah, they'll all be at the the at the Texas Theater. It's gonna be pretty fantastic. Now as one who was around for all that Yeah. That would interest me. Yeah. Anything having to do with Castro and Cuba, I remember it. I'm in for it. Yeah. I know. It it's gonna be it's gonna be great. It's gonna be something special. And if you like old movies, we are showing an anniversary screening to honor the late great, wow. My god. I can't think of his name right now. We're doing Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. So, Robert Redford. Yes. So we're doing Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid for just, know, we always wanna celebrate something and this year that Steve Stodgehill and his wife do a classic Stodgehill movie night every year and this is the nineteenth Stodgehill movie night and we were talking and let's do something Redford. We we it was either gonna be this or all the president's men, I thought this is a little even though it's the way it ends, I don't know if you've ever seen it, it ends partially. But No. I haven't. Okay. Did you ever see Thelma and Louise? Yeah. That I've seen. Same thing. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Well, you know what's coming up on forty five years next year? What's that? Diner. Oh. Shoopy. Forty five years of Diner? Apparently, came out in 1982. Does that sound right? Yeah. It does sound right. Oh, man. I'm just saying, if you wanna make sure that he shows up I'd be kind of Paul Reiser is an easy get too. Oh, okay. He's not doing Stranger Things anymore. He's not he's got nothing and there's no there's no reboots of Mad About You. So, yeah, I like that. I like that idea. I will take a 5% cut if you show it. Okay. Done. One time I was at some sort of event that I think my then wife was stringing together And it was fairly high toned. And Paul Reiser was there doing stand up. And man, he was sensational. Oh, that's good. Baffo? Baffo. Baffo, right? He says Baffo. Baffo at the box office. So he did a comedy set. Yeah. Forgive me for not knowing, was he a stand up comedian at any point or he just I don't know. I don't know enough about the guy's game on no phone, he said, what he was. But but, yeah, he can sure get up get up in front of a room and be funny. He gave you a tight five? Oh, yeah. Nice. That's awesome. I would I would love I would pay for that. It's always good when you see people that you've seen as TV actors and grown up with and Ray Romano was that for me. I never knew that dude was a was good at stand up and he's the foul mouthiest stand up I've ever heard. Really? Yeah. That ain't Ray's tough. That's awesome. It's really fun. It's really fun. You know, I I guess there's a pretty good number of them that are when you put them in that environment. Yeah. Put them in that situation. I know they said Bob Sagan, you know, obviously, there's video of them, but Mhmm. You know, he played Danny Tanner on Full House and looked like the most wholesome TV dad ever, and then he tell told the dirtiest jokes as a stand up, like, ever. Yeah. It's great. He is. He was the same guy. Yeah. It's like, why is Bob Saget this way? Yeah. It's like, that's who he was before. Yeah. He just cleaned it up for TV. Yeah. So that's good stuff. Yeah. Anything else you need to Oh, yeah. Tout about the the the festival? Something we're doing that's really, really cool this year as a part of the twentieth is beyond honoring Lou Diamond at the luncheon that we're gonna have and beyond. There's two big things that we're doing. One Does he make you call him Lou Diamond? No. Well, Lou is what we call him. LDP or Lou. LDP or Lou. Okay. So there's a We're doing an industry conference. We're gonna add some panels and things and conversations and we're gonna have a conversation versus agency. Like if you're a manager, you need an agent. We're gonna have a conversation about certain movies that really hit a breakdown of us all digital movie called Iron Lung that was a huge success and the filmmaking team behind that actually are from Dallas. And so they're gonna talk about how they made that film. But the big thing we have, one of the big things in this conference, well, two. One is a friend of mine, Amy Talkington, who's from Dallas. She's grew up in Swiss Avenue. Her first film played at the very first Dallas International Film Festival. Now she rebooted Valley Girl for Prime and she's was writing in Reese Witherspoon's group in the on the show Little Fires Everywhere, producer. She's coming to talk about Writing Room. But we have the head of Warner Brothers, co chair of Warner Brothers Studios, Michael DeLuca, will be here to kick off the whole thing as a conversation on one, what the hell happened with Warner Brothers Paramount? What's gonna be going happen? And two, what the state of the film and the dude so if you don't know Michael DeLuca, if you watch the Oscars or the Grammys, anytime anybody from Sinners or one battle out to another one up there, they thanked Mike and Pam, this is the Mike. And because he's the one that green he's the one that said, yeah, let's go. He's a chairman and he has a lot of Texas ties and one of our board members knows him and we ask him, hey, would you like to be the keynote launch of our first ever diff industry? And he will be launching it on Friday the twenty fourth in the afternoon, 05:00PM at the Sinopolis Theater. So we're jamming, jamming, jamming with that. And the next thing is Germane to Dallas. Love this. We got our starts in the Deep Ellum Film Festival. Our founder, Michael Caine, started that, festival, also helped start this with Lanier Timberland, started diff. We're doing a founder's night in celebration of Michael and all things beginning of diff on Friday, the twenty fourth that evening after the DeLuca thing at the Texas Theater, we're world premiering a documentary called round pegs in square holes square pegs in round holes, from Russell Hobbs and Michael Dunaway. And it has pretty much everybody in Dallas in the movie about the history of Deep Ellum. I mean, polyphonic spree. I mean, Tenderlauter, it's narrated by Rev Horton Heath. He and he walks around Deep Ellum telling people Mark Cuban is in it, Billy Bob Thornton is in it talking about Is it in it? Oh, boy. What? Mike Reiner. Nor nor should I be. Aren't you a staple down there? No. No. I'm a nobody down there. I I would beg to differ. That's what Russell Russell I'll blame Russell on it. Cause he the toadies are in it. All the guys that did the Star Club, they're talking about building the Star Club and they had to go to Deep LM to figure out how to do cool stuff. Yeah. So it's gonna be it's gonna be a gem and I was just talking to I'm literally getting text messages. I've I've finally got this thing muted about party afterwards because I go there's like, it's not gonna a big enough place. And we've we've reached out to Cuban and say, hey, you know, you get like eleven to fifteen minutes of screen time in this movie. You might wanna you're talking about what you used to do and what you used to take from deep out and and how you got that building. He's pretty deep in it. So yeah, it's a that's gonna be cool. When is this coming out? It's gonna be Friday night, April twenty fourth at 05:45, 06:00, I believe Wow. At the Texas Theater. And it's the it's the world premiere and we're gearing up for that and it'll be a big fat stupid after party. It's in Deep Ellum somewhere. Alright. Back to the roots. That sounds like fun. Yeah. Let's go. Let's go. Year, you were that was the biggest surprise and I love seeing you and the wifey out there. When we were at the opening night party, went, Ryder's here. I'm sorry. Don't think you saw the film, but it's okay. You were at the party and it was very cool. The party is there to support. That was very cool. The party will be back not in the same place, but in the same area. We're having we're actually using our original buildings from the first festival. So we'll be at the we're using the Virgin Hotel, but we're also using the W Hotel for some things as well. And so, like, it's gonna be really, really cool. Virgin's our headquarter and they're our love, but W has been kind enough to help us out with some things. I wanna go. Yo, you're in Justin. They'll be passing your inbox soon enough. Every as my mama would say, all y'all gonna come. That's awesome. We'll make it happen. Got jump in phone? Promise I will. You didn't come. I know. You got to this time. I had things to do. No, we'll fix that. Pressure's on Ash. That's right. It's okay. It's it's seven days. You got time. Yeah. Alright. Here's James Faust. He is awesome. We love him. Yes. We do. I love you guys. I love being here. Thank you very much for doing this, man. No. Thank you. Really, best part of my day just happened right now. Aw. Sorry to hear that. Who believes that? Because now you're about to give Shoopy a sav stick. Oh, yeah. If it's not if it's if it's not true, just let me think it. Okay? Just let me think it. Oh my gosh. Alright. There it is. The Dallas International Film Festival is coming up. It's something you do not want to miss, April 2026. It's fun. There are good films, and there is big business being taken care of all around you by people you think you know, but you can't really place them. If you like that scene, this is for you. Even if you don't like it, this is for you. So go see it. Alright. Thank you, Shoopey. Thank you, Ashley. James, thank you, man. You're great. Thank you for having me. Love having you in here. Love being here. Alright. This is your dark companion. Remember, we need you to get us out there. Sling us around on your social media. Do whatever you have to do to get us out there wherever you do that type of thing. And until next time. .Com. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Go to stolenwatermedia.com. That's our new website where you can find all of YDC and all of everything that we have here at Stolen Water. So go there and check it out. Check out everything we've got. And we got a lot, man. We got a lot. We got a lot going on here. Mhmm. So check that out, and until next time. Bye. Alright. I'm gonna go take my pants off. You're Dark Companion is a stolen water media presentation.