A few notes from the South by Southwest Film Festival and its attendant events -- chiefly, for now, the Texas Film Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Friday night at the Austin Studios, where Dan Rather tore tail through the proceedings like a burning hyena running through a meth lab during a springtime twister. Normally an Oscar-length event that climaxes with a stoner has-been's 49-minute ramble-on, this year's event played like a pro-style back-pat, with local gal Patsy Ann McClenny, Mariska Hargitay (on behalf of her Dallas-bred mom, Jayne Mansfield), Debra Winger (on behalf of Urban Cowboy), one-time Richardson resident Mike Judge and, yup, ZZ Top accepting awards for .. um ... being Texans with SAG cards.
In all, a painless affair -- though, really, how Morgan Fairchild gets in before, oh, Forest Whitaker, Aaron Spelling, Stephen Tobolowsky, Spanky or, jeez, Mr. Peppermint remains a mystery. Nicest moment: Hargitay's tear-stained acceptance speech on behalf of her mom, to whom Rather referred as "the most bodacious of the bombshells," how sweet, y'all. Said the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit co-star, though choked-back tears, "I didn't know her for a very long time, but I meet her again and again through the people I meet [who remember her]." And for those on the Star Map tour, she revealed the exact location of her grandparents' former home at the intersection of Amherst and Boedeker streets. After the jump, a video of Fairchild's speech -- alas, I didn't grab the tribute clip reel, which is a shame for those who've never seen an episode of the ahead-of-its-time Paper Dolls. But ... wait, what's this? --Robert Wilonsky
And the intro to Paper Dolls, because.
