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Fort Worth Weekly // August 12-18, 2026

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August 12-18, 2026

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Fight for Polling Sites The forced removal of a former state rep from a recent commissioners court meeting really lit a fire. B Y

A N T H O N Y

M A R I A N I

FEATURE In nearby Paluxy, data centers take one on the chin.

ATE DAYS Voting for Best Of 2026 is now open. Time to get your (Good) Grub on.

EATS & DRINKS Juicy Seafood & Bar does fish boils splendidly.

MUSIC A new documentary looks at the heart of Fort Worth punk, 1919 Hemphill.

BY MARK HENRICKS

BY ANTHONY MARIANI

BY JENNIFER BOVEE

BY STEVE STEWARD


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AUGUST 12-18, 2026

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Vo l u m e 2 2 | N u m b e r 1 6 | A u g u s t 1 2 - 1 8 , 2 0 2 6

I N S I D E

METROPOLIS

4 Static // News Roundup, Lonamania Edition: Cutting polling sites vote delayed, $1K for info on attacked alligators, Star-T coverage of FWISD’s first day oddly chummy. By Anthony Mariani

F E AT U R E

6 Data Centers // The Good Guys: Activists in Paluxy score points for environmental protections against energy drains. Story & Photos by Mark Henricks

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SCREEN

11 Film Review // Spider-Man Brand New Day: With some growing pains, the web-slinger enters a new stage of development. By Kristian Lin

CALENDAR

12 Reel Worth // Film Fest Recap: The 15th Oak Cliff Film Festival was “a love poem” to cinema and the neighborhood. By Andie Carver & Elaine Wilder

E AT S & D R I N K S

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15 Ate Days // Promoting the Vote: With the ballot for Best Of 2026 now live, it’s time to get your (Good) Grub on! By Jennifer Bovee 17 Restaurant Review // Gettin’ Juicy; The new seafood restaurant/bar lacks visual appeal but sizzles where it counts. By Anthony Mariani

MUSIC

CLASSIFIEDS

23 Jobs // Notices // Products & Services 24 Bulletin Board // Class Listings

COPYRIGHT The entire contents of Fort Worth Weekly are Copyright 2025 by Ft. Worth Weekly, LP. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the publisher. Please call the Fort Worth Weekly office for back-issue information.

Fort Worth Weekly mailing address: 300 Bailey, Ste 205, Fort Worth TX 76107

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DISTRIBUTION Fort Worth Weekly is available free of charge in the Metroplex, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of Fort Worth Weekly may be purchased for $1.00 each, payable at the Fort Worth Weekly office in advance. Fort Worth Weekly may be distributed only by Fort Worth Weekly’s authorized independent contractors or Fort Worth Weekly’s authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of Fort Worth Weekly, take more than one copy of any Fort Worth Weekly issue. If you’re interested in being a distribution point for Fort Worth Weekly, please contact Bob Niehoff at 817-321-9788.

AUGUST 12-18, 2026

Cover photo by Sabrina Ball, photo illustration by Ryan Burger

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Owner / Publisher: Lee Newquist Director of Operations: Bob Niehoff Director of Sales: Michael Newquist Director of Marketing: Jennifer Bovee Account Manager: Julie Strehl Sr. Account Executive: Stacey Hammons Account Executives: Tony Diaz, Wendy Maier, Sarah Niehoff, Wyatt Newquist Brand Ambassador: Clint Newquist

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20 Essay // Finally, Tactile Pleasures: If the reports are true that Gen Z is abandoning Big Digital, then it’s time to celebrate. Story & Photo by Steve Steward 21 Hearsay // Focus on 1919 Hemphill: A local auteur turns her lens on the long-gone but legendary DIY space on the Near Southside. By Steve Steward

STAFF Editor-in-Chief: Anthony Mariani Art Director: Ryan Burger Special Projects Manager: Jennifer Bovee Calendar Editor: Elaine Wilder Film Editor: Kristian Lin Music Editors: Patrick Higgins, Steve Steward Proofreader: Emmy Smith Editorial Board: Anthony Mariani, Emmy Smith, Steve Steward, Elaine Wilder Contributors: E.R. Bills, Jennifer Bovee, Jason Brimmer, Todd Camp, Amber Chadwick, Jess Delarosa, Buck D. Elliott, Danny Gallagher, Ozzie Garza, Juan R. Govea, Mark Henricks, Patrick Higgins, Laurie James, Patrice Jones, Kristian Lin, Cody Neatherly, Rush Olson, Jeff Prince, Emmy Smith, Kena Sosa, Steve Steward, Jennifer Zooki Sturges, Teri Webster, Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue, Elaine Wilder, Cole Williams

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News Roundup, Lonamania Edition

Cutting polling sites vote delayed, $1K for info on attacked alligators, Star-T coverage of FWISD’s first day oddly chummy.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

AUGUST 12-18, 2026

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B Y

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METROPOLIS

Bursting the Commissioners Court’s Bubble

The 100+ citizens politely and not-so-politely fuming at the county administration building downtown last week made their point: Reducing voting locations only hamstrings democracy. Now, county commissioners are tabling until Tue, Sep 1, their vote on whether to close 45% of all polling locations, which is a victory for democracy of sorts. Far-right County Judge Tim O’Hare publicly agreed with the rabblerousers that the current reduction in sites goes too far. The question remains: Why did it take more than 100 Tarrant County residents Hulking out in a public forum for the commissioners to see the problem? Have O’Hare and his fellow commissioners ever even glanced at a newspaper or flicked on the news since 2024? Americans are struggling. As U.S. soldiers die (18 so far) and are injured (600 and counting) in a needless war along with Iranian children, everything costs more partly because an international waterway that was 100% open before the war is now closed because of the war. “We had to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” is a fraudulent argument because “Iran was nowhere close to a nuclear bomb, experts say” (Scientific American,

Mar 11). Starting a war on the other side of the world with no way out is one way to fail bigly at keeping everyone from talking about the modern era’s most notorious and far-flung pedophile ring involving you and your billionaire buddies. Voting our way to safety appears to be the only nonviolent option left. At the commissioners court meeting last week, noted troublemaker and former State Rep. Lon Burnam was carried out by police for becoming a little overwhelmed by the power of Free Speech. Now, he may sue. Another question: Is that what democracy looks like these days? Booting a guy just for catching the Holy First Amendment Ghost? (The suing part? Yeah, that’s totally American. Hallelujah.) To meet voter enthusiasm — “Likely voters lean more Democratic for November’s midterms, a change from past cycles,” G. Elliot Morris/ Substack, Jul 22) — counties nationwide should be going out of their ways to accommodate more voters, not shut them out — and Dem-leaning Black and brown voices are being shut out specifically. Making voting more difficult instead of offering sensible policy solutions to earn votes appears to be the Republican playbook moving forward. The Tarrant County apparatchik who proposed slashing polling sites almost in half — down

from 316 on Election Day to 176 and from a minuscule 50 to only 42 during early voting (Oct 19-30) — is Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig. The ostensible motive of the allegedly nonpartisan bureaucrat is financial. However, Tarrant County’s “rainy day” funds surpass $83 million, and closing voting sites would save only a paltry $1 million. This proposed move does not seem to be about money. In a county with well more than 1 million registered voters, this looks more like silencing Black and brown voices that are more than ready to be heard at the ballot box. As much as we admire Ludwig, thank him for his past military service, and — as outlandish as it is to say — applaud him for standing by the truth that the 2020 presidential election was decided fairly (it was), we can’t help but think that some insidious species of don’t-ask/don’t-tell politics is at play here. In which case, Administrator Ludwig, no one will admonish you for peeking outside your job-imposed news bubble and understanding, really digesting, that Tarrant County residents want to vote now more than ever and in greater numbers than ever before. Encourage the commissioners to continued on page 5


Sabrina Ball

The power of the First Amendment compelled former State Rep. Lon Burnam to be lofted out of the last commissioners court meeting by the police.

Metro

continued from page 4

Back to School-ish

Now that the state has taken over Fort Worth ISD, pushback from the local daily has softened considerably. Though more than 800 teachers have quit over the past few months and many remaining

This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. He will gently edit it for clarity and concision.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

Three alligators have been shot, and two have died at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge on Lake Worth. Now, Texas Game Wardens are offering $1,000 for information leading to arrests in the attacks. The alligators were shot between May and July. As the two dead gators were abandoned at the refuge, one survived. The money comes from the fantastic 45-year-old nonprofit Operation Game Thief (OGT). If you have information about the shootings, contact OGT at 1-800-792-4263 (GAME). Report tips online via tpwd.texas.gov/ warden/connect/ogt or the Texas OGT mobile app or by texting the keyword “TXOGT” and your information to 847411.

AUGUST 12-18, 2026

$1,000 Reward for Attacks on Alligators

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embrace the masses. I never thought I’d say this, but thank God for Tim O’Hare. It’s now up to his court to do the right thing at 10am on Tue, Sep 1, at 100 E Weatherford St and keep all the polls open for the November midterm elections.

instructors have bristled at the thought of teaching from a script, the Star-Telegram’s recent headlines would make a reader think all is swell and dandy in Cowtown classrooms: “FWISD’s first school day was success despite campus lockdown, district says”; “Fort Worth ISD begins school year with zero classroom teaching vacancies”; “Fort Worth students see gains on STAAR exam for third straight year, report shows.” Couple-a things. If STAAR scores are rising, why the need for the state to take over the district again? And if there are “zero classroom teaching vacancies” — noted particularly since so many teachers vamoosed — then why does a simple search on FWISD’s website turn up at least 30 classroom teaching openings? Could it be? Could it be that far-right state leadership is just making shit up and spewing it because they know the press won’t push back but will simply repeat the b.s. as if it were true, just for the press to maintain all-important access to government sources? If that tack sounds familiar, it’s because that’s what legacy mainstream media across the country does with one particular set of government officials 2,000 times a day. As if you needed any more reason to cancel those subscriptions or change that channel … l

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FEATURE Data Center Tussle in Paluxy

Activists score points … for once.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY 6

B Y

Sometimes the good guys win. A string of victories has raised hopes that citizen groups opposing several large data centers proposed for south of Fort Worth will prevail against the corporations and developers behind the projects. First, NRG pulled its application for an air permit to build a power plant supplying electricity to one huge center near Glen Rose. Then Hood County won a favorable ruling in a lawsuit it was defending against another developer that sued to have its project approved. “ We are thrilled,” said Joanne Carcamo, a co-founder and director of the grassroots group Protect the Paluxy Valley. “ What a win for our community.” Hood County, the second smallest county in Texas, has nine data centers proposed. Of these, Comanche Circle has drawn the most opposition. It is planned to occupy more than 2,100 acres on the line dividing Hood and Somervell counties a few miles from Dinosaur Valley State Park. The design calls for 45 buildings of 300,000 square feet each. Before withdrawing its permit application, NRG was constructing a 2-gigawatt gas-powered turbine electric generator to power the computers. Comanche Circle developer Ryan Hughes, principal partner with Florida-based Investors, did not respond to interview requests from the

AUGUST 12-18, 2026

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S T O R Y A N D P H O T O S M A R K H E N R I C K S

Protect the Paluxy members prepare to set out on a birdwatching expedition as part of their opposition to Comanche Circle.

Weekly. After the permit application withdrawal, his only public remark was “stay tuned.” The data center plan concept as approved by Hood County is valid for two years, suggesting he may be able to proceed if he lines up a new power provider. Whatever happens with Comanche Circle, Hood County has ample data developments remaining. They include Amazon Web Services, which plans two centers near the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant. Black Mountain Power, the same company proposing a $10-billion data center in Fort Worth, has an air permit for another on the north edge of the state park, and Pacifico Energy’s Fort Spunky project will sit on the banks of the Brazos River not far from Glen Rose. Two centers called Red Project and Yellow Project plan to set up on the grounds of the county’s existing Wolf Hollow power generating complex. These were the developers who sued Hood County, asserting commissioners had approved their concept by not acting on it within 30 days. The district judge’s rejection of that claim, stalling the project for the time being, was the second recent win for the area’s data center opponents.

A poster outside a Protect the Paluxy meeting at The Expo in Glen Rose lays out their objectives.

Earlier this year, yet another Hood County data center, this one called Project Patriot, was annexed by Granbury, the county seat. Granbury citizens upset by the city’s rezoning action to accommodate Patriot collected 800 signatures on a petition for an election to recall the mayor and councilmembers. All this citizen fury was distilled recently into a paradoxically calm outing. A dozen or so members of Protect the Paluxy had gathered on the Somervell County owned by Laura and Brian Crawford to go birdwatching. Their goal: To find golden-cheeked warblers, an endangered species whose presence would complicate efforts to develop Comanche Circle. After an hour or so wandering the hills, Sandy Boulouche held up a smartphone running a birdcall identification app and said, “We have one!” The rest of the group kept their eyes peeled, hoping for photographic as well as sonic evidence of the endangered bird. Birdwatching is just one of several initiatives that Protect the Paluxy organizers have revved up since Laura and Brian Crawford first saw a sign notifying locals about the air permit application last September. For the Crawfords, the realization that a 2,000-acre data center planned to go in next door was galvanizing. “It felt like we’d been punched in the stomach,” Brian recalled. As he spoke, he gazed from their front yard at the fence marking the start of the planned boundary of Comanche Circle. By October, they had begun organizing the resistance. “We had a community meeting and hit the ground running,” Crawford said. Early on, Protect the Paluxy connected with consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. The North Texas Public Citizen representative Rita Beving explained how to protest power plant air permit applications with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ ), monitor data center requests for water from local water districts, and mobilize citizen involvement.

Beving, a veteran of decades of Texas environmental activism, said the Paluxy activists are a cut above. “They are one of the most data and research-oriented citizens groups I’ve ever met. I’m very impressed by them.” At a June meeting at The Expo at Glen Rose, more than 500 showed up to hear from a panel continued on page 7

Protect the Paluxy co-founder Brian Crawford (foreground) looks for golden-checked warblers near the site of the proposed Comanche Circle data center.


Feature

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of experts on the environment, water, and other concerns. District 56 State Rep. Helen Kerwin, another panelist, echoed Beving’s assessment. “I’ve been to a lot of these meetings, and this is by far the most effective and committed group I’ve seen,” Kerwin told the Expo crowd. Some of the resistance’s effectiveness is connected to Dinosaur Valley. The much-loved park was already a focus of controversy over plans to build a transmission line on its border. The sudden influx of power plants and data centers, including Comanche Circle with its proposal to drain wastewater into the Paluxy River north of the dinosaur tracks, hit a nerve already raw. There’s a sense that the opportunity to slow data center development is here, but if it’s not made the most of, it could be too late. As Kerwin put, “If we can’t protect Dinosaur Valley State Park, all state parks are vulnerable.” People and groups opposing data centers generally stress that they’re not battling artificial intelligence or opposed to economic development. Public Citizen’s Beving said, “Our organization is not anti-data center. We do think data centers should be properly sited. They should be sited in an industrial area with a sufficient amount of distance from homes.” Still, the issue has transformed many ordinary small-town and rural Texans into ardent environmental activists. The area has a history of even more ardent conservatism. Stewart Rhodes,

who founded the far-right Oath Keepers militia and was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, is a former Granbury resident. Now, however, locals find themselves sharing positions with the likes of Public Citizen and Earth Justice, which is providing legal assistance for lawsuits related to power plants and data centers. More than 80% of Hood County residents routinely vote for Republican presidential candidates, including in 2024. But today not a few have confused feelings about Republican leadership. That notably includes Gov. Greg Abbott and Donald Trump, who have been energetic promoters of data centers for AI and cryptocurrency mining. Hood Country resident and longtime Republican Cheryl Shadden led a failed effort last year to incorporate the community of Mitchell Bend to regulate noise from the MARA Digital Bitcoin mine. Now, she says, “Red or blue, if you vote against data centers, we’ll vote for you.” Data center opposition is rising across Texas. Fort Worth City Council is slated to vote on a data center moratorium on Aug. 11. Members of the Texas Legislature are holding hearings to discuss statewide regulation of the industry. Signs reading “Don’t Data Center My Hood County” are common in and around Granbury. The NRG permit application and Hood County’s court win are promising signs, but they don’t mean the end of the struggle. NRG didn’t explain why withdrew its application, and there could be several reasons. Protect the Paluxy organizers point to the 11,000 mostly negative citizen comments sent

Sandy Bouluche of Protect the Paluxy holds up a smartphone to listen for calls of endangered golden-cheeked warblers near the proposed data center in Hood County.

continued on page 9

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to TCEQ about NRG’s air permit. But TCEQ also has a huge backlog of hundreds of permit applications. That means delay, while costs for generators, computers, and other infrastructure rise steadily. Other factors may also come into play. Shadden heard that one property owner who gave Hughes an option for land to host the power plant had backed out of the deal. It’s unlikely Hood County will stop all the data centers. Amazon’s seems especially likely to go forward. Several of the rest already have air permits and have satisfied the minimal requirements that Texas counties can place on industrial developments. However, Commanche Circle is genuinely threatened. Hughes, the Sailfish developer, has no prior experience building data centers. Critics charge he is no more than a speculator aiming to snap up land, water, and power rights, then sell the package to a data center specialist such as Amazon Web Services. He still has two years to get a new power plant permit but hasn’t announced any potential partners yet. For her part, Beving suspects Comanche Circle missed its window. “I think Sailfish will run out of time and money to keep chasing this, frankly.” Meanwhile, Protect the Paluxy is not assuming victory. Dissatisfied with mere citizen birdwatching, they hired a biologist to conduct a survey that turned up evidence of golden-cheeked warblers. Next up, said group co-founder Laura Crawford, is a lawsuit they are

Stickers that starkly state the group’s goals are among the many methods Protect the Paluxy is using to reach out to citizens.

More than 500 people packed The Expo in Glen Rose to hear a panel assembled by Protect the Paluxy to outline the risks posed by data centers.

funding that will seek to stop the development for endangering the species. Crawford is also planning to attend upcoming Texas Senate hearings on data centers in Austin and constantly watching for the next new data center plan. “We are monitoring the Upper Trinity and Prairieland water district for water permits and TCEQ for air water permits, keeping vigil on all the areas.”

One thing that’s clear is that data center development has stirred a hornet’s next, of which Hood County is just one example. Upset about air pollution, water usage, noise, and other negative aspects of the centers, Texans are mobilizing everywhere. “People are really angry,” Beving said. Indeed, opposition to data centers was expressed by 56% of respondents to a June poll by the Texas Politics Project at UT-Austin.

Numbers like those tend to get the attention of savvy politicians. That may include Gov. Abbott, despite the presence of data center developers on the list of his major financial supporters. The developer of Black Mountain, for instance, gave $500,000 to Abbott this year, as reported by The Houston Chronicle. The future of data centers in Hood County and Texas is at least somewhat cloudier than before Protect the Paluxy went into action. Laure Crawford sounds cautiously optimistic. “We are very encouraged with the last two events. We’re very hopeful.” But even if the good guys may have won only an interim victory, there’s been no lessening of the citizens’ will to go up against corporate behemoths. Developers have begin contacting Protect the Paluxy seeking to negotiate, Carcamo said. “We tell them we’re not negotiating. We’re going to fight them all the way.” l

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

Celebrate Fort Worth Burger Week with 50% off a Trinity Metro Local Day Pass! Ride the bus or take On-Demand to your favorite local restaurants. Grab your GoPass promo code at RIDETRINITYMETRO.org/BURGERWEEK.

AUGUST 12-18, 2026

FULL-ON FLAVOR

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HALF-OFF RIDES

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fwweekly.com AUGUST 12-18, 2026 FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY 10

Happy Hour in the Kimbell Café EVERY FRIDAY | 5–7 pm | Live music | Beer | Wine | Food Admission to the permanent collection is always free. View the full schedule of exhibitions, events, and programs at kimbellart.org.

kimbellart.org Support for the Kimbell is provided in part by Arts Fort Worth and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Pensionante del Saraceni, Still Life with Melon, Watermelon,and Other Fruits (detail), c. 1610–20, oil on canvas. Kimbell Art Museum


SCREEN

With some growing pains, the web-slinger enters a new stage of development. B Y

K R I S T I A N

L I N

Tom Holland and Jon Bernthal take on Odyssey haters and Marvel bad guys in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

( Jon Bernthal). While the movie’s PG-13 rating forces Frank to cut out the swearing he does on his TV show, the Punisher is still plenty salty when Spider-Man stashes MJ with him to keep her safe from the new villain. Frank isn’t wrong to call Peter a coward for pushing her away, though of course, when Frank lost his loved ones, he responded by shooting everybody. The filmmakers call out his crap as well, which is great. This ties in, if not so neatly, with the main plot, as Spider-Man has to deal with a hidden villain who can take possession of anyone and make them do their bidding. The person behind this turns out to be a character that the Marvel movies have dealt with before, although this time, their motivations are much easier to understand than previously. They take control of both Banner and Castle and send them to kill Spider-Man, and they’re also responsible for a splendidly mean

there are other directors in Marvel’s stable who could have delivered a more streamlined version of this story. How much do Spider-Man fans care about that, though? The story elements here both get Peter Parker’s story out of a holding pattern and set up stuff to come in the upcoming Avengers movie. The script recognizes that it’s not good for Peter to carry on his crime-fighting quest by himself, and so the evolution of his superpowers comes with evolution of his character. Time and future movies will tell whether the saga follows up on that, but it’s good for now. l Spider-Man: Brand New Day Starring Tom Holland and Zendaya. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, based on Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s comics. Rated PG-13.

How to save water. Check those sprinklers. Make sure there aren’t any leaks. And make sure you’re watering the grass, not spraying the street or sidewalk. I’ve spent a lot of years here in the a few changes and you can save a lot of water.

Water is Awesome.com

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

yard and I’ve seen it all. Take it from me, make

AUGUST 12-18, 2026

The Gnome Knows...

moment when Peter thinks he’s told MJ the truth about his identity. Aside from Killmonger in Black Panther, this person is the best bad guy in the whole Marvel universe. The ideas are all here. The problem is the shape. Director Destin Daniel Cretton and fight choreographer Zhang Peng come over from Shang-Chi to assume the helm, and they create striking visuals (like the Hulk straining against the slender threads of Spider-Man’s web) as well as a fight sequence in which Spidey takes on a sisterhood of red-clad ninjas — the sight of them leaping through the air toward him makes him say, “God, that’s cool.” Unfortunately, the structure of this adventure means that the wall-crawler has to spend the entire third act undoing everything he did in the second. More than once I thought, “Another plot development?” It all feels overstuffed, and I dare say that

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Near the end of Avengers: Endgame, Tony Stark says, “You mess with time, it tends to mess back.” Too bad Peter Parker (Tom Holland) had to learn that lesson the hard way in Spider-Man: No Way Home, when his attempt to make everyone forget his secret identity resulted in his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) being killed. In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter deals with the fallout in ways that aren’t always pretty. The new film finds him living like a shut-in, only talking anonymously by phone to an NYPD detective (Liza Colón-Zayas) and only venturing out of his Queens apartment to foil criminals. He spends most of his time sadly following Ned ( Jacob Batalon) on Instagram as he documents the crazy times that he and MJ (Zendaya) are having at MIT. After Peter reunites with them following their graduation and return to New York, his superpowers start fritzing, resulting in inaccurate slinging of his spider webs and fits of uncontrollable rage. Logically enough, he consults Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) regarding the latter. There are other pairings with Marvel superheroes here, but the best one is with Frank Castle

Photo by Jay Maidment

Spider-Man: Red Recluse

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CALENDAR The 15th Oak Cliff Film Festival was “a love poem” to cinema and the Dallas neighborhood. B Y A N D I E C A R V E R E L A I N E W I L D E R

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From local shoots and films made in (and about) Texas to screenings at Alamo, Coyote Drive-In, Texas Theatre, and all our other favorite spots, if it’s got roots here, it’s … Worth your time. This new column will take a closer look at films made in, set in, or shaped by the people and places of North Texas and let you know where to see them in Fort Worth or in our cinematic sister cities. Welcome to Reel Worth.

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Cour tesy Oak Clif f Film Festival

Reel Worth

Although there were several participating locations, Texas Theatre was undoubtedly the star of the show.

In the fourth installment of the series, we explore the annual film festival that recently took place at one of North Texas’ best art house theaters in our adopted sister city of Oak Cliff. After you read Andie’s thoughts, stick around,

AROUND TOWN

and we’ll tell you where you can see these great films. — Elaine Wilder

Over the first weekend of August, the 15th Oak Cliff Film Festival (OCFF) ruled the intersection

of Jefferson and Zang boulevards. “A love poem” to Oak Cliff, according to the playbill, OCFF held feature-length and short-film screenings, some with Q&As from the creators, as well as workshops continued on page 13

AROUND THE BLOCK

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N&D

continued from page 12

and parties. The community outwardly received that poem with an open heart. Throughout the four-day event, more than 3,500 film enthusiasts packed the multiple venues that hosted the festival’s programming. Although participating locations included Arts Mission Oak Cliff, Bishop Arts Theatre Center, Kessler Theater, Oak Cliff Cultural Center, and more, Texas Theatre was undoubtedly the star of the show. A historical community staple, with its white stucco walls, old-school red velvet fold-down seats, and comforter-sized hand-painted movie posters, Texas Theatre showed the first spotlight film of the festival, The Sun Never Sets, and hosted its opening-night gathering. On the final day of the festival, a line wrapped around the block to ensure an ideal pick in the open-seating format to see Pulp Fiction with a Q&A after the show with co-screenwriter Robert Avery. Those who missed the festival may feel relieved to learn that Q&As with film creatives are not an OCFF exclusive. Texas Theatre often hosts special events of that nature. In 2021, I caught The Green Knight with after-the-film feedback from local producers James M. Johnston and Toby Halbrooks, but I was devastated to miss a sold-out screening of Scream with commentary from the original Ghostface duo, Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard, earlier this year. However, after the credits rolled for Pulp Fiction, Robert Avery explicitly said, “I love Texas Theatre and would absolutely come back.” OCFF even enabled Texas Theatre to showcase some of the venue’s more distinct offerings: a showing of a silent film — in this case animated The Adventures of Prince Achmed — with a live score, this one by the Anvil Orchestra, but past Texas Theatre silent film screenings have included Nosferatu (1922) to the music of The Invincible Czars, who will return to Texas Theatre on Fri, Oct 30.

The crowd at the theater outwardly embraced every film’s whimsy with a generous disposition, laughing even at too-often repeated jokes, leaning into the dark humor of modern classics, and wiping moisture from their eyes at the moving documentaries. “We were impressed with the variety of films [that the OCFF] showcased this year,” said North Texas horror director and screenwriter Bradley Steele Harding. “The entry that surprised us the most was David Kittredge’s engaging documentary Boorman and the Devil. My husband was moved to tears by its unexpected emotional turn at the end.” And while I wasn’t able to catch all the screenings, a few that I saw (below) really stood out. In the same 1977 summer that saw the release of major blockbusters like Jaws and Star Wars,

Exorcist II: The Heretic wowed moviegoers in the worst way possible, and Boorman and the Devil captures what went wrong along the way. In what I learned is not an urban legend but an actual true story, told through interviews with two different eyewitnesses, a full theater turned into a literal mob and chased three people “responsible” for the film out of the theater and down the street at an early screening of Exorcist II. Though the screenplay — a mere “suggestion” to be “thrown away,” according to Exorcist II director and documentary namesake, John Boorman — followed The Exorcist’s pivotal character, Reagan, after her possession, Boorman insisted that his film’s failure was due in part to the marketers’ push to title “The Heretic” “Exorcist II.” From his perspective, because of its severe tonal shift from the source material, The Heretic should not have been labeled a sequel.

With further commentary from The Exorcist star Linda Blair, Academy Award–winning actress Louise Fletcher, and horror darling Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, Doctor Sleep), the documentary humorously explores this flop of a film, but as the screentime count rose, the audience’s aura shifted from holier-than-thou chuckles to quiet sniffles. What might have happened to cinema if Boorman had hid in shame after this failure instead of bringing crowd-renowned pieces like Excalibur and Hope and Glory into the world? What can other creators take away from this message? An independent film with a small cast and a dazzling production design, Cramps! A Period Piece is a horror/comedy set in the ’60s and a metaphor

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Cour tesy IPIC Theater

AUGUST 12-18, 2026

On the final day of the festival, a line wrapped around the block to see 1994’s Pulp Fiction with a Q&A after the show with co-screenwriter Robert Avery. Catch the anniversary screening of the film this weekend in Fairview.

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Ate Days of Promoting the Vote

With the ballot for Best Of 2026 now live, it’s time to get your (Good) Grub on! B Y

J E N N I F E R

B O V E E

With its magazine-style glossy cover, great photographs, and insightful opinions on the BEST of everything this area has to offer, Best Of 2026 is the issue you don’t want to miss. Our critics will make their choices, and those winners will be announced in the Best Of 2026 special edition on Wed, Sep 30, but they aren’t the only ones participating. Our readers get a say in all this as well. (Yes, you!) Now thru midnight Sun, Sep 13, make your voice heard by participating in our online-only write-in ballot to determine the Readers’ Choice winners for all the sections: Getting & Spending, People & Places, Arts & Culture, Good Grub, and On the Town. Below are the categories for each.

Good Grub Categories

On the Town Categories

Cour tesy Bitly

Antique & Vintage Finds, Barbershop, Beauty Service, Boutique, Car Wash, Place to Buy CBD or THC, Place to Buy Cigars, Place to Buy Coffee, Comic Book Store, Customer Service, Day Spa, Farmers Market, Place to Buy Gifts, Grocery Store, Hair Salon, Place to Buy Jewelry, Liquor Store, Metaphysical Shop, Music Store, Optical Shop, Pet Services, Record Store, Smoke or Vape Shop, Tattoo Studio, Thrift Store, Place to Buy Wine, and Wildcard.*

Arts & Culture Categories

Art Gallery, Art Gallery Exhibit, Artist, Arts & Crafts Event, Burlesque, Concert, Culinary Event, Cultural Event, Dance Troupe, Day Trip, Dog Park, Drag Performer, Entertainment Spot, Festival, Haunted Attraction, Kids’ Activity, Place to Take Kids, Place to See Movies, Museum Exhibit, Music Lessons, New Mural, Nonprofit Organization, Park, Podcast, Theater Production, Theater Troupe, and Wildcard.*

People & Places Categories

Place to Adopt Pets, Animal Rescue Group, Apartment Community, College Athlete, Professional Athlete, Camp for Kids, City Councilmember, Dentist, Doctor, Dog Groomer, Facebook Group, Hospital, Lawyer, Local Celebrity, Place to Meet Locals, Nurse, Photographer, Radio Personality, Realtor, Social Influencer, Tattoo Artist, Teacher, Television Personality, Veterinarian, Place to Work, Place to Work Out, and Wildcard.*

*About Wildcard Entries

Did we miss something in the categories above? It’s a big ballot, so it happens. Use the Wildcard field in each section to plug in your extra category idea, who you’d like to see win said category, and why.

ATTN Business Owners: How to Promote the Vote

Are you interested in campaigning for any of the categories above? Use the QR Code in this column to see the online version of this article, which includes the rules and advice on creating a post. Plus, that is where you’ll find the digital art that you can use on your social media channels to invite your family, fans, followers, and friends to nominate you in the category/categories of your choice at FWWeekly.com/Best-Of-20265-Ballot.

About the Music Awards

This year, we will be doing a separate Music Awards Ballot in December, then celebrating the 2026 winners at a ceremony in March 2027. Stay tuned for more info.

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Business owners, use this QR code to access the digital art you’ll need to #PromoteTheVote.

Getting & Spending Categories

AUGUST 12-18, 2026

Bar-Bar, Bartender, Beer Selection, Brewery, Place to See Comedy, Craft Cocktail, Place to Dance, Distillery, Dive Bar, Drag Show, Happy Hour, Hotel Bar, Karaoke Night, Late-Night Food, LGBTQIA+ Bar, Margarita, Martini, Mixologist, Patio, Dog-Friendly Patio, Restaurant Bar, Sports Bar, Place to Drink Wine, and Wildcard.*

Voting for Best Of 2026 is live now thru Sun, Sep 13.

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Bakery, Barbecue, Breakfast, Brunch, Burger, Chef, Chicken-Fried Steak, Chinese Food, Coffeeshop, Deli Sandwiches, Food Truck, Fried Chicken, Italian Food, Japanese Food, Mediterranean Food, Mexican Food, Pizza, Plant-Based Dish, Ramen, Restaurant, New Restaurant, Salsa, Seafood, Soul Food, Street Tacos, Sushi, Tamales, Tex-Mex Food, Thai Food, Vietnamese Food, Waitstaff, Wings, and Wildcard.*

Ar t by Ryan Burger

EATS & drinks

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As part of a tactical “cluster” in North Fort Worth, the new seafood restaurant/bar makes up for sterile ambiance with succulent fish. Juicy Seafood & Bar, 6501 N Fwy, Fort Worth. 682-250-5798. Noon-10pm Sun-Thu, noon-11pm Fri-Sat. Happy hour 3-7pm Sun-Thu. B Y

A N T H O N Y

M A R I A N I

With three locations around Dallas, Juicy Seafood & Bar recently opened a Fort Worth spot right beyond The Wall (the territory north of Meacham Airport) — and right next to another, rather popular seafood restaurant. From Juicy’s entrance, you could throw a bag of scallops or one empty beer

A b e e k u Ya n k a h

Gettin’ Juicy

Ahoy-hoy, Captain Juicy.

bottle (please don’t do that) and hit Joe’s Crab Shack. The culinary-O.G. outpost of the once-formidable/now-shrinking 35-year-old chain has been sitting in its current location near the I-35/ Western Center intersection since the Paleozoic Era, long before the neighborhood exploded from a handful of eateries to what it is today: a city within the city, replete with a ton of chains but also a few mom-and-pops. Let’s consult the plagiarism machine: Is opening a restaurant right next to one serving the exact same cuisine as yours a smart business move?

A b e e k u Ya n k a h

EATS & drinks

HAL 9000, in his soothing voice, answers, “Opening a restaurant right next to a competitor serving the exact same food is often a smart move called clustering. It draws more people to the area because customers know they have choices. You share heavy foot traffic and save money on finding a new customer base.” Well, color me learned. Thanks, HAL 9000. So, maybe in your daily travels, you’ll find yourself beyond The Wall. Maybe headed to Texas Motor Speedway for some high-speed fender-benders or to Denton for some high-school football action or live indie-rock. Or maybe to Christian Brothers Automotive for a $9 million tire rotation, and maybe you’ll make a stop at 7-Eleven or Race Trac to pump some $4/gallon gas along the way. Just know that crab legs? We got crab legs. The specific setting in which you choose to enjoy them depends. We all know Joe’s: shiny, cheesy, beachy, loud, and family-forward, with a legit playground out front. Juicy represents a somewhat elevated, decidedly anti-kitschy affair. “Shiny wood” is what I’d written in my notes. A shaded, enclosed patio cradles a medium-sized bar counter outfitted with dozens of taps. Booths and a few four-tops busy the dining room, and all the TVs broadcast sports or stunts. Juicy, when my 14-year-old son and I visited last week, was also loud, oddly loud — don’t know who was in charge of the playlist, but the lewd rap music definitely said, “Kiddie playground, crayons, and servers gathering around tables and singing ‘Happy Birthday’ are next door, you scallywags!” That’s great, Juicy, but you know what else is also next door? Those all-important handheld plastic blades to slice through the crab shells to reach the meat inside. Nutcrackers alone aren’t going to … cut it.

Juicy’s Party of One packed a ton of seafood into one steaming bag o’ flavor.

And that, along with the really inappropriate rap music and our scandalously puny appetizer serving of fried calamari, is my only real complaint: no shellers. The quality of Juicy’s food overall was exceptional. Along with fresh snow-crab legs that my sheller-less self had to take home to eat comfortably and without looking like a newly divorced dad with a sledgehammer and a baseball bat in

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Eats & Drinks

The catfish was cooked perfectly.

average for the region. The deliciousness of the fare is worth the splurge. As with most crab shacks, Juicy’s simple three-step ordering process reduces the sensory overload of the enormous laminated menus in all different sizes — is this a thing at fast-casual restaurants now? three or four menus per person? Stop it. Anyway, pick your seafood (king crab legs, snow crab legs, lobster tail, scallops, Dungeness crab, shrimp, crawfish when in season, mussels, or clams), then your sauce (house, lemon pepper,

garlic butter, or spicy Cajun), then your heat level (from mild to “Nuclear”), then you can sit back and watch the “NOW OPEN” banners wave outside or some hayseed do a flip on a lawnmower on TV. Add-ons include corn on the cob, red potatoes, smoked sausage links, and egg, and for folks who don’t want to get messy — believe me, boil bags go all over — Juicy also offers three platters: grilled salmon, fried catfish, and shrimp scampi in addition to a handful of mostly fried appetizers. My boy went with the superbly done catfish, not too flaky cornmeal exterior and melt-in-your-mouth tender inside. Definitely a reorder next time. Juicy sits in a former sports bar much beloved by the neighborhood, and while it’s great that the building is no longer vacant, all the soul that Boston’s Pizza had as a warm, colorful, buzzy, friendly post-Little League-game or big-gamewatching spot is gone, replaced with “shiny wood” and $45 entrees.

A b e e k u Ya n k a h

The only quibble with the calamari was the small serving size.

A b e e k u Ya n k a h

a rage room, my Party of One special came with succulent, not-small shrimp; huge coins of zesty sausage; a couple red potatoes; two peeled hardboiled eggs (?); and half a corn on the cob, everything cooked to perfection, every bite exploding with flavor and true to the restaurant’s name, all the goodies bathing in mildly seasoned garlic butter as requested. All that was missing was a slice or three of warm, buttery garlic bread. BYOGB? Along with BYOScissors? Kidding! I know it’s 2026 and the world is on fire, but please do not bring your own food or any potential weapons to a restaurant. Yet. The cost of my Party of One (~$35) made me giggle nervously like a guy who forgot his passport at airport security. “I’ll just sell some plasma.” A few days later, still high from my initial Juicy experience, I pulled up the menu on my phone and homed in on the Weekend Special: lobster tail, half-pound snow-crab legs, half-pound shrimp, corn, two potatoes. Just as I was about to load up the Nissan Rogue with my hungry ass and pounce, the sound of autopay bills zinging out of my banking app caused me to stop and consult the plagiarism machine again. HAL 9000 kindly told me that market price for Juicy’s Weekend Special was ~$45. I hung the car keys back up. “Next payday,” I told myself, patting my tummy and wiping a tear from my cheek. Always next payday. With the economy the way it is (terrible — thanks, Obama), seafood prices in general aren’t exactly low. Juicy’s numbers appear to be around

A b e e k u Ya n k a h

continued from page 17

“Shiny wood” defines Juicy’s fast-casual atmo.

There’s no reason for a special trip to Juicy other than the spectacular seafood, and if that’s not enough for you or for you and the fam, perhaps you’ve heard of a fun little joint called Joe’s Crab Shack? Look! You’re already there. l Juicy Seafood & Bar Weekend Special ....................................... $44.99 Party of One ................................................ $34.99 Fried catfish basket ................................... $15 Calamari ..................................................... $12.95

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Hot Deals At Cool Prices

Small wares, pots & pans, and all kitchen essentials available to the public. Come see our showrooms! MON-FRI 8am-5:30pm

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Stock your Kitchen at Mission!

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MUSIC Finally, Tactile Pleasures

Welcome to the Dark Side (of the Moon — on vinyl), young folks.

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S T O R Y S T E V E

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A N D P H O T O S T E W A R D

B Y

I really hope this news cycle about Gen Z’s disinterest in the attention economy in favor of the physical realm is based on real events and not the result of some psyop-like clipping-based marketing campaign, which is a thing I learned about only recently, probably like everyone else my age who needed a reason to not have to check out the band Geese. This is not so much because I am nostalgic for the physical media of my youth — I prefer it, but I also remember what a cassette tape usually sounds like and have concluded that when considering nondigital music formats, individual mileage may vary. Rather, I believe that any activity that draws people away from the instant, always-on gratification of a screen and reacquaints them with the frictive joys and turmoils of living in real life is to be recommended with enthusiasm. Any opportunity to reclaim your attention from the companies that profit from it or deny them — and thereby deprive them of — your attention in the first place should be celebrated like an act of personal defiance. No matter your generational cohort, giving your attention to art in the physical world is the kind of defiance that is easy to do and available to everyone. Listening to music on vinyl counts, but so does contemplating the graffiti on a billboard or a train. Bonus points if you don’t even snap a pic and actually just remember what you were looking at! Defying the companies that brought you social media, trapped you in it, and are now using it to stuff your eyes and ears with AI-generated brain-poison weakens their grip on society. The more time you spend outside their algorithmic miasmas, the worse those miasmas feel when you do step in them, and eventually, when seen from outside, the world within the phone looks pretty vile. Need proof ? The next time you’re driving around, spend an hour listening to KTCU or KXT, then switch to Spotify. Every time I do this, my ears feel stressed from the return to the tinny world of the streamer. If your car is old, pop a CD in the dash, then, when it’s over, stream it. To say the difference is palpable is probably obvious, but the difference is palpable. Choosing the audio quality of old media — and the focus required to

Eliminator the way it’s supposed to be heard.

get to the end of a single artist’s work, rather than passively absorbing a hundred artists blurring into one another on an hours-long playlist — over the sucky-sounding, hyper-convenience of a streaming service just makes your brain feel better. Though these are the thoughts of a 48-yearold man who just got out of the shower, they are indeed still thoughts, and as I write this, it

I hope y’all really are coming around to the old shit and peacing out on constant app-based habituation.

is a quarter past noon, and I’ve really looked at my phone only twice since I’ve woken up today, choosing instead to continue shoveling through an ever-expanding, digging-up-my-backyard project, make breakfast, and listen to ZZ Top’s Eliminator on my record player. “Got Me Under Pressure” sounded like a good way to get pumped up about meeting a deadline, and while it did nothing to mitigate the self-created stress of my own procrastinative lean, cueing up a song on a record felt better than having to poke at my phone about it. I remember what it was like to be 23-yearsold in 2001, but I don’t know what it is like to be a 23-year-old now, and maybe all these think pieces about Gen Z’s shift in media preferences are overblown and not actually representative of the 70 million or so people who fall within that generation’s birth-year parameters. But I hope y’all really are coming around to the old shit and peacing out on constant app-based habituation. My cohort is a little smaller than yours, but long ago, we all bought a shit-ton of records, tapes, and CDs, and our youths and young adulthoods were blissfully free from having to post, like a post, share a post, or accept a cookie. In fact, we were encouraged via radio and CDs to tell those who would offer us such cookies that they could take that cookie and shove it. Sixty million of us uncs might be right about something. Life before the smart phone was pretty fun. We should all just put them down and hear the world around us. l


HearSay

Focus on 1919 Hemphill It’s difficult to overstate the impact of 1919 Hemphill. The long-gone, all-ages, DIY community space on the Near Southside lasted from 2002 to 2019, and in those years, the rickety, colorful, faultily wired, graffiti-sprayed maintenance-nightmare of a two-story building provided a space for outsiders and weirdos, hardcore bands and freak-folk artists, activists and anarchists, and hundreds of kids who needed a place where they didn’t feel so alone. It was a center for progressive organizing and philosophical discussions, where people could just be themselves, often amid ear-splitting amp volume and the churn of a circle pit. That place touched hundreds of lives, and the void left by its unceremonious closure is more noticeable now than ever. Denton-based documentary filmmaker and MFA student McKinley Argyle has completed a short film about 1919 Hemphill. A Place We Can Go To premiered in July at the Oak Cliff Film Festival and is currently making the rounds of the festival circuit (along with her other film, a documentary about the Denton noise scene called Meet the Noisemakers). To be eligible for festival submission, A Place We Can Go To is not yet available online, but Argyle said she is hosting screenings at Rubber Gloves (409 E Sycamore St, Denton, 940-514-0675) on Mon, Aug 31; Fort Worth Zine Fest on Sat, Oct 17, at Southside Preservation Hall (1519 Lipscomb St, Fort Worth, 817-926-2800); and at the Dallas New Media Contemporary “sometime in September.” In one of the film’s interviews, Fort Worth spoken-word poet Tammy Gomez says, “DIY is

about practicing your type of existence, and [at 1919 Hemphill], I loved the interplay of people’s bodies working together, people’s minds with very diverse ideas coming together and sharing.” The film’s footage, which will elicit a lot of “I was at that show!” moments if you spent a lot of time there, underscores Gomez’s idea of interplay between people and ideas: youth working on projects, youth slamming in mosh pits, youth just making shit happen because it was fun and personally expressive. The end credits are an archive of all the local and touring bands that played 1919, some of which — like Kimya Dawson and Japanther — are still kind of a big deal. But regardless of who came through, showing young people that they could come together and have something of their own was what mattered the most. As organizer/activist Charli Bonham says in another interview, “For me as a young person, seeing people my age, like, running a place like that — I don’t think I realized until I was older how influential that was.” Argyle is 25 and “was a very sheltered Mormon teenager in Prosper, Texas” during 1919’s heyday, so her connection with the space is really only through her own investigation. She plays bass in a shoegaze band called Gloss and the ambient project Tag-Team Tag-Team, and at a show at a coffeeshop, when she was talking about her idea for a doc about local DIY spaces, a guy there told her about 1919. She said she just “cold DM’d” 1919 Hemphill volunteers Rick V and Al Rios along with Bonham. “They’ve been amazing.” In addition to the story of 1919 Hemphill, Argyle’s film features Denton DIY spaces Can of Beans and a secret-ish spot generally known as “The House with No Name,” and while 1919’s end was a bummer for Fort Worth, the spirit it exemplified lives on elsewhere. A Place We Can Go To’s message is that these spaces can happen if likeminded people work together. “I think creating DIY spaces in this day and age is extremely difficult, both because of the cost of living but also the political climate,” Argyle said. “The best resource I have is literally just going to as many shows as you can. I find that that’s where the best connections and community support come from.” — Steve Steward

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“Seeing people my age, like, running a place like that — I don’t think I realized until I was older how influential that was.”

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Cour tesy Oak Clif f Film Festival

CLASSIFIEDS

Actor Cory Michael Smith, with director Joe Swanberg and festival director Ashton Campbell, discussed The Sun Never Sets.

N&D

continued from page 13

This film is cleverly named by subverting what has become a popular phobia: Instead of centering scary clowns, Fears of a Clown focuses on a professional clown in his 60s as he navigates red-tape hurdles to open the world’s largest clown museum, in California, which greatly exacerbates his OCD symptoms. However, Steve, the Downtown Clown, does feature a room in his museum for scary-clown memorabilia — with a full wall dedicated to, of course, John Wayne Gacy. Steve is a lovable character who must maintain a series of rituals to ease his own compulsive fears: eating a certain combination of fruits every day, countering bad thoughts with good thoughts, touching salad dressing bottles again and again until he believes he can stop. Despite the amusing events in his early adulthood that led him into clowning, the events in his childhood that triggered and then worsened his OCD are gut-wrenching. In the Q&A after the show, director Bart Vandever revealed that he keeps in contact with Steve: After texting him before the screening, Vandever reported that Steve felt glad to “get the story out.”

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metaphor for the director’s experience with endometriosis. In addition to writing and directing the movie, Brooke H. Cellars also plays Teddy, a hairstylist who subverts the Good Christian Southern Girl trope as a Good Satanic Southern Girl. “Curse your heart” and mentions of “Our Dark Lord” grace most conversations with main character Agnes (Lauren Kitchen), who cannot even mention her period without blushing through a euphemism. The central conflict in the film exposes Agnes’ strange feminine issues: During blackouts, a sparkly, red, gelatinous mass scurries out of her skirt and murders her enemies. Cramps! A Period Piece won the award for the festival’s Narrative Feature category.

Starring Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, and Cory Michael Smith, The Sun Never Sets details a messy — and arguably unnecessary — break between Wendy (Fanning) and Jack ( Johnson) and the love triangle that forms when Wendy’s ex-boyfriend, Chuck (Smith), moves back into town. Before the film began, award-winning director Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, V/H/S, Happy Christmas) shared 22 that the breakup is based on true events but set in

Anchorage, Alaska, simply because he had always wanted to shoot a movie there. Despite the stress of watching three emotionally immature adults make a series of mistakes — I had to glimpse certain scenes through my fingers — the film is also surprisingly funny and tender. Of the tone, Swanberg explained, “I didn’t want to punish people with how dark or hard life can get, because life is awesome.” The 15th Oak Cliff Film Festival saw a nearly 50% revenue increase from the record-breaking previous year, so the odds that you will get to enjoy the festival next year are looking as good as this season’s promotional graphics. — Andie Carver

What//When//Where While Cramps! A Period Piece and Fears of a Clown will both be on the festival circuit for a while yet, follow the films at Facebook.com/ TheCrampsFilm and Facebook.com/FilmFreeway for updates on future wider releases. Meanwhile, here are some of the OCFF films you can see at home or IRL. The nearest showing of Boorman and the Devil is the national release at a few select cities on Fri, Sep 4. The closest for us is Houston, so consider a road trip for this one, or wait for it to go to streaming. For a great dinner-and-a-movie night, check out Lucille’s (“Just Add Water,” Mar 4, 2026) while you’re down there. Additional local commercial bookings have not yet been finalized. For updates, keep an eye on Facebook.com/ YellowVeilPictures. The 1994 cult classic Pulp Fiction can be streamed on any number of platforms, including Amazon Prime and Paramount+, but if you are looking for an in-person experience, IPIC Theater (321 Town Plc, Fairview, 972-886-3400) is hosting special screenings at 3pm Sun, Aug 16, 6:30pm Mon, Aug 17, and 6:30pm Wed, Aug 19. The Sun Never Sets will see a wider release in a few key cities on Fri, Aug 28, then open in other major markets on Fri, Sep 4. Since hosting the festival premiere and frequently programming titles from Independent Film Company (IFC), Texas Theatre (231 Jefferson Blvd, Dallas, 214-9481546) is likely to bring it back for a full theatrical run. As the parent company of the IFC, AMC regularly programs its films as well, so check soon to see if you can do dinner-and-a-movie at AMC Dine-In Clearfork (5015 Trailhead Bnd Wy, Fort Worth, 817-769-6762). l

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STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTY OF: LANCASTER IN THE MATTER OF: IN THE PROBATE COURT TIMMY LEE WITHERSPOON CASE NUMBER 2025-ES-29-00____ x Decedent Alleged Incapacitated Individual Jamie Lee Witherspoon SUMMONS Petitioner(s), vs. Timothy Demarcus Witherspoon, Marquis Witherspoon, Bradley Coleman Witherspoon and Teshauna Witherspoon, Respondent(s).* *For Guardianship/Conservatorship matters, you must include the alleged incapacitated individual as a Respondent. TO THE RESPONDENT(S) LISTED ABOVE: YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED and required to Answer the Petition in this action, a copy of which is herewith served upon you, and to serve a copy of your Answer upon the Petitioner(s) listed above at the following address(es): Please Type or Print. T. ALSTON DEVENNY, Attorney for Petitioner (Name of Petitioner/Attorney for Petitioner) POST OFFICE BOX 1657 (Street Address or Mailing Address) LANCASTER, SC 29721 (City, State, and Zip Code) Your Answer must be served on the Petitioner at the above address within thirty (30) days after the service of this Summons and Petition upon you, exclusive of the day of such service; and if you fail to answer the Petition within that time, judgment by default will be rendered against you for the relief demanded in the Petition. s/ T. Alston DeVenny T. ALSTON DEVENNY Date: SEPTEMBER 30, 2025

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IN THE PROBATE COURT NOTICE OF HEARING CASE NUMBER: 2025ES2900636

SEPTEMBER 29, 2026 10:00 A.M. LANCASTER COUNTY PROBATE COURT, COURT ROOM “C” 104 NORTH MAIN STREET, LANCASTER, SC 29720

PURPOSE OF HEARING* PETITION FOR FORMAL APPOINTMENT

Executed this 24th day of JULY, 2026

Signature: Print Name: Address: Telephone (Work): (Home): (Cell): E-mail: Relationship to Decedent/Estate:

T. ALSON DEVENNY POST OFFICE BOX 1657 LANCASTERE, SC 29721 803-286-6647

ATTORNEY

NOTE: Probate Court recommends that all interested parties be represented by counsel licensed to practice law in South Carolina. If any interested party wishes to represent him/herself, he/she will be required to adhere to the South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure and South Carolina Rules of Evidence. *When sending Notice of Hearing to interested parties upon whom pleadings were not required to be served, attached the petition or motion to be held. FORM #326ES (1/2016) 62-1-401


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notices / products & services / employment

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EMPLOYMENT

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