Photo gallery: AFI Dallas opening night gala at the Majestic Theater

by John P. Meyer

Driving into downtown on 75 from the north ought not to be so bad at rush hour, right? Because everyone's supposed to be driving OUT of town, not INTO it, are you with me? So from whence came all that bumper-to-bumper traffic stacked up from the Lemmon Ave. exit on into the Woodall Rogers?

Well, I still can't figure it out, but the point is it delayed me long enough that I was starting to get antsy about arriving in time to nail down a key press area position in front of the Majestic Theater before the Hollywood honchos arrived.

I needn't have worried, though - there were quite a number of media folks who arrived later than I did and still found a place to set up. Unfortunately, one of them was that guy who kept stepping out onto the red carpet and blocking my view. Guess he thought his red shirt would act as camouflage. WRONG!

Anyway, it was great to see a big turnout for the first night of the fest, and it got even greater when the celebrities started arriving and commenced looking just as much like celebrities as we'd hoped they would.

I got to shake hands with Music Within director Steven Sawalich, whose film kicked off the festival; but, as a result of lowering my camera to shake his hand, I missed out on taking his picture. DANG IT! To make up for it, I refused to shake Melissa George's hand (three times) in order to take her picture. I think I did the right thing.

The only element lacking from the event was something I didn't notice until the red carpet action was all over: no one was CHEERING! Heck, I didn't even hear any clapping! Not even when Bill Paxton showed up: Morgan Earp from Tombstone, for cripes sake! C'mon, Dallasites, these here are movie folks, they're used to hearing people cheer and clap and such; let's not disappoint 'em! Pretend you're at a football game or something.

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