complete with a special cake

The Art of Divorce: Ex Houston Chronicle critic Devon Britt-Darby ends hisprotest marriage in style

Devon Britt-Darby, who is keeping his married name, and Theresa Anne Reese Darbypose with their official divorce documents.
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The Facebook invitation for the divorce party, which included a score of friendsand supporters, was light hearted.
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Like all good events, there was even some cake-in-the-face smashing at thedivorce.
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The end of the Britt-Darby marriage ended in a ceremony that involved a specialdivorce cake.
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In an intimate happy-hour event at Leon's Lounge, art critic Devon Britt-Darby and Reese Darby-Britt untied the knot in a special divorce ceremony led by friend and Internet-certified minister Christian Chiari.

Amongst a small group of supporters, the couple officially dissolved the marriage vows taken in protest against the Menil Collection's planting of a tree from The Art Guys Marry a Plant performance piece, which became the focal point of a row in the Houston arts community about marriage rights and the role of public art.

The tree planting was the second part of The Art Guy’s performance piece in which the artist duo of Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing wed a live oak in a public ceremony in 2009. Britt-Darby felt the work devalued gay marriage, hence the protest marriage and now . . . legal divorce.

"It's funny," Devon Britt-Darby says. "You need a minister or some sort sanctified body to make the marriage licenses official in Texas, but you don't need one to get divorced."

CultureMap spoke with the ex-couple in the days following the divorce ceremony to hear what they learned from the union and what they hope people will take from their public protest.

Aside from a thin live oak branch stuck into the "divorce cake" from Randalls, discussion of The Art Guys' piece was largely side barred at the event by a larger commentary on marriage and marriage equality.

It's an institute you can't disparage

"I've definitely come to see how marriage is this truly civil affair," Britt-Darby, who is keeping his married name, says. "It's funny. You need a minister or some sort of sanctified body to make marriage licenses official in Texas, but you don't need one to get divorced.

"The wedding is something we often view in religious terms, while divorce is completely civil."

Britt-Darby said that after announced his former life as a sex worker in late November (which led to him leaving his job as a Houston Chronicle arts and society reporter) and embarked on a 10,000-mile road trip across the country, he gave his bride the duties of filing the matrimonial paperwork with the county.

"When we got married, I didn't realize the whole cathartic effect it would have on me and I certainly didn't know I would come out about my escorting and go on that huge trip," he says. "It felt only fair to let Reese have the final say."

Reese Darby notes that she and her now ex-husband had different reasons for going through with marriage — hers more political, his more art oriented — and that she hadn't anticipated the rage within the art community that would lead to the vandalism of the Art Guys' tree.

"It was very upsetting to see The Art Guys become the focal-point of all this anger," Reese Darby says . "There was no reason to be hateful."

"It was very upsetting to see The Art Guys become the focal-point of all this anger," she says. "There was no reason to be hateful. I went into this project hoping to broaden the conversation about the piece, not to attack The Art Guys.

"Admittedly, maybe that was a little naive at the time."

After six months of memorable matrimony, both Darby and Britt-Darby say they have forged a unique bond, though they met only days before that fateful autumn wedding at Tony's Corner Pocket strip club.

"We've shared all of this personal information since the wedding — even a number of Internet passwords," Reese Darby laughs. "Is it weird how I sort of miss being fake married?"

When Britt-Darby left Houston for his cross-country trip, she says they maintained regular contact by phone and quickly built a surprising a level of trust. "I've been amazed at how seriously we've taken this silly marriage," Reese Darby says. "It was like this arranged marriage that kind of worked despite the two of us having these almost opposite personalities."

The now ex-husband was equally touched.

"There's something about ritual and ceremony that is very powerful, which is why it's such a common theme in art," Britt-Darby says. "I think this marriage piece truly proves the power of going through a ceremony and letting it have this transformative effect on you."

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Movie Review

New horror movie Faces of Death puts a modern twist on cult classic

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy — in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks — is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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