December 9, 2004
Filmmaker to attend Rangra showing of Grand Champion

Roy Hamric, Editor

Actor-director Barry Tubb will attend a showing of his movie Grand Champion at 6:30 p.m. Saturday (Dec. 11) at the Rangra Theatres in Alpine.

The movie, which has received good reviews, is filled with Texas singers and rodeo stars in featured roles and has two cameos by stars Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis.

Emma Roberts, who stars in a show on the Nicklelodian channel for kids, UNFABULOUS, plays the sister of a boy who is torn between raising money for his family on the sale of a steer and his love for the animal. She is the niece of Julia Roberts. Joey Lauren Adams, who appeared in Dazed & Confused, plays the mother.

The film has a line-up of celebrities identified with West Texas, including George Strait, who plays himself, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks (in her first movie role), singers Robert Earl Keen, Charlie Robison and Joe Ely, plus rodeo stars Larry Mahan, Tuff Hedeman and Roy Cooper and others.

Tubb, who lives in Snyder, called the cast the “West Texas Mafia of filmmaking.”

Tubb has staked a claim in this area, with his recent purchase of an old hotel in Sanderson, which he will rename The Lonesome Dove Hotel. It will feature a community gathering place called The Big Bend Bull Room. Tubb has said he plans to have offices in the hotel and, at some point, a recording studio.

Tubb said he will also direct and shoot a new movie in the Marfa area in April, called Clown Hunt, which he described as a surreal comedy with a “Jackass meets Mutual of Omaha” atmosphere.

Tubb wrote the screenplay for Grand Champion and was co-producer, along with Amanda Micallef of Alpine and Fort Worth. Her father, rancher and restaurant owner Al Micallef, was the executive producer.

“I grew up riding in rodeos, but I had friends who showed stock, and I expanded on that in the movie,” Tubb said.

Tubb recently finished a role in the Tommy Lee Jones movie, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which completed shooting in the Big Bend area this week.

In that film, Tubb played a cowboy who works on the same ranch as Jones’ character.

Tubb’s first movie as director, Blood Trail, will be released on DVD in January. He has had feature roles in Top Gun, American Outlaws, Lonesome Dove and Mask.

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