While other alumni of In Living Color went on to bigger fame (Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, David Alan Grier, Jamie Foxx), Tommy Davidson was perhaps an even more valuable all-around utility player, the Phil Hartman of the ensemble. Davidson is in town for a weekend run at the Houston Improv, with two shows on Friday.
"It was really funny -- it was genuinely funny," he told GapersBlock.com about the groundbreaking sketch comedy show, still popular online. "It was one of the funniest things ever that will stand the test of time because it was just pure."
Davidson released a DVD of his standup comedy last year, Chocolate Sundaes. But right now he's also riding high as the voice of "Cream Corn" on the highly rated Adult Swim Blaxploitation satire cartoon Black Dynamite. And he enjoys the experience of letting just his voice make people laugh. "I like that I don't have to worry about how I look on camera," he continues. "I can just express myself and make whatever sounds and voices I need to make and not worry about how I look." He also hopes to complete a project in the near future that uses his amazing Sammy Davis Jr. impression, which will surely make an appearance in Houston.
8 and 10:30 p.m. Friday, 7 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Improv Comedy Showcase, 7620 Katy Freeway. For information, call 713‑333‑8800 or visit improvhouston.com. $20 to $32.
For all you movie mavens out there -- and we do mean "out" -- we have a film festival for you! The Houston GLBT-Q International Film Festival cruises into town with a five-day international array of world premiere features, documentaries, music videos, live performances and panel discussions. This is the event's 18th year, an unbridled accomplishment that not even our gay sister on the bay, San Fran, can better. The venues are as multicultural as the lineup: Alamo Drafthouse, Aurora Picture Show, The Houston Museum of African American Culture, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 14 Pews, Brasil Café, FBar and The Montrose Center. Holy Hugh Jackman!
The fireworks have already begun, but Saturday is particularly hot. Start the day at the Montrose Counseling Center with a news clip retrospective celebrating Queer Nation Houston, our own in-your-face, go-for-broke confrontational protest group. Then gallop over to the MFAH for Monika Treut's lesbian pastoral Of Girls and Horses, which premiered at the Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in May in Turin. Spend the afternoon in a hazy gay time warp with cinematic nods to Jean-Luc Godard as George Markakis seduces you with India Blues: Eight Feelings, but end your evening on a wistful note with Becca Roth's 2014 documentary One: A Story of Love and Equality, which depicts the struggles in North Carolina to overturn the state's constitutional amendment for gay marriage.
Sunday ups the voltage with Yann Gonzalez's sublimely art-directed (and very French) study of an open marriage, You and the Night, co-starring French soccer superstar Eric Cantona and Alain-Fabien Delon, the beautiful son of the beautiful French film superstar Alain Delon. Later in the day, cast off that mimosa haze with Madina Mustafina's pore-revealing documentary about Zhenya, a transgender in Uzbekistan, Come On, Scumbags, which we predict will be the highlight of highlights in this amazingly eye-opening and revealing film festival.
A complete list of all screenings, activities and times is available at qfest.org. Screening times, locations and prices vary. Of Girls and Horses screens at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet. For information, visit q‑fest.org. $10. This story continues on the next page.
