If you like movies, especially those with queer appeal, this is a great week to live in Dallas.
It starts tomorrow night at the Texas Theatre with a screening of 1967’s Valley of the Dolls, the inimitable camp classic about tragic Hollywood. It’s all part of Word Space‘s “behind the screen” season announcement, which includes the film, bites and cash bar. Doors open at 7 p.m., with the screening at 8:30 p.m.
Then it’s back to the Texas Theatre on Friday with Cine Wilde’s monthly LGBT movie night, this time with the joyously campy The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, about three drag queens traipsing around the Australian Outback.
Also on Friday is the inaugural Bengali Film Festival of Dallas, which takes place at the Angelika Plano. The first event focusing exclusively on films, filmmakers and topics relevant to Southeast India and Bangaldesh — a segment well-presented in North Texas — features three features and three shorts. Two of those (the opening-night short An Unknown Guest and the closing-day feature Bhool) deal with topics of interest to the LGBT community.
Back in April, in our preview of the USA Film Festival, we profiled gay writer/director Ira Sachs, whose feature Little Men was playing at the fest. Well, it took a while, but the film — about two boys initially forced into a friendship of convenience, who unite against their parents when the adults get involved in a legal tangle — finally is playing theatrically in Dallas, opening Friday at both Angelika Film Centers (Mockingbird Station and Plano). You can read my interview with Sachs here.
Also this week, last year’s revealing documentary Tab Hunter Confidential — a bio about the 1950s heartthrob, who stayed in the closet until his 70s — came out on video. I talked with Hunter at the 2015 USA Film Festival; you can read that interview here.
