A smarter Rachel Ray

Houston activist/Pride Parade marshal Fiona Dawson braves the Oprah scandal —and the Internet critics

Houston activist Fiona Dawson is making a pitch to Oprah.
Oprah's contest has been plagued by controversy, but she's still the queen ofall media.
The OWN network is trying to make another star.

"When people ask, 'Where are you from?' I typically answer West Texas," Fiona Dawson states, her striking face and British accent filling the screen.

This is part of the video audition Dawson submitted in hopes of getting her own show on Oprah Winfrey's TV network. Not surprisingly given her background as a non-profit crusader in Houston, Dawson describes her potential show as something that would embrace and tackles issues of all people.

"NOW with Fiona" is pitched as show that celebrates and presents diversity. Dawson's goal is to win Winfrey's “Your OWN show: Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star" contest. The one that's recently come under fire with accusations that it's being rigged to produce an African-American host winner.

When Oprah announced that she would step away from her talk show after next season, everyone wondered if there was something up her sleeve. Then, Oprah announced that she'd be working with famed reality TV producer Mark Burnett to find the next TV star. Oprah has made household names out of Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, Dr. Oz and Nate Berkus. Oprah's even turned her close friend Gayle King into an OWN on-air personality.

Fiona Dawson hopes to join that list of Oprah-blessed super successes.

Dawson has been working and volunteering for non-profits almost her entire adult life. She is the co-chair for the HRC Houston Federal Club where she helps raise and maintain over $350,000 for lobbying on Capitol Hill for the election of "fair-minded candidates" at the national and state level. Dawson also helps education and awareness programs across the country.

She was honored with Outsmart's Gayest and Greatest Awards in 2006, 2007 and 2008 when she was awarded Female Volunteer, Female Fundraiser and runner-up Female Community Hero respectively.

She pitches her show about diversity by presenting two issues of discrimination. The most engaging one is about how women aren't allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, but they can fly an airplane. These women pilots have to be chauffeured to the airport. Dawson hits her potential audience with the question, "Wouldn't you love to go meet that very first pilot in Saudi Arabia and ask her, 'When are you going to get your drivers license?' "

A viewer comments, "I, too, want to hear about the airplane pilot without a driver's license!"

Another issues Dawson would like to explore is the economy, specifically housing market studies showing that there is still a racial bias in lending.

"That means African-American's and Latino's (getting a loan) is disproportionately harder," Dawson says. "There is also the civil rights issue of our time, which is important, the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender) community. That community faces discrimination, in central law, state law, and local law. But, it's a fully inclusive diversity show."

Dawson assembled a group of local friends to create a professional film and a video wiz to produce the video for the pitch. "It was her concept, her script, her talent that made that video come to life," says one of the friends.

Like Oprah, Dawson's already gained some appreciation and hate. A commentator wrote, "Sorry honey, you don't have a talk show host voice. Your idea is great for a segment or series not a whole show."

When asked to respond Dawson tells CultureMap, "I believe everybody has a right to their opinion, but that doesn't necessarily mean we have to agree with that opinion. But, I was happy to see she actually saw the video."

Dawson still has to fill out a questionnaire for the video, but it's already slowly gaining more and more viewers.

"Please watch the video, it's only three minutes long and it could help put another notch in Houston's belt," she says.

Dawson also hopes the profile she gained as a former Female Grand Marshal for the Houston Pride Parade (which takes place tonight) will inspire even more people to watch the video.

Meanwhile, Oprah fights back against the rigged contest accusations. The controversy started when one's video submission spiked up by 300,000 votes in 20 minutes while some charge that the contest leader's votes actually fell. Now, it's come out that the whole thing may have been the result of an Internet spam attack.

There's no doubt about Dawson's love for Houston though.

"I tell people it's hot and cheap," she says in the video — and when Dawson says it, it sounds really good. People can vote for Dawson — who is trailing the leader by more than eight million votes — here.

Watch Fiona Dawson's show pitch:

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Movie Review

'I Know What You Did Last Summer' reboot lacks energy or thrills

Photo by Brook Rushton

Sarah Pidgeon, Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

When the original I Know What You Did Last Summer came out in 1997, it was riding the coattails of Scream, which came out in 1996. Like that film, it featured hot young actors of the time, albeit with a story that was much more standard than the inventive Scream. Still, it made enough of an impact for some studio executive to think it was worth reviving nearly 30 years later with its own legacy-quel.

In the new I Know What You Did Last Summer, a group of five high school friends — Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) — have reunited at the engagement party for Danica and Teddy on the 4th of July. While on an impromptu trip to watch fireworks on a twisty road in the nearby hills, Teddy goofs off in the middle of the road, causing a truck to swerve and drive off the cliff.

A year later, having sworn to each other to not speak of the accident to anybody, they start getting stalked by a mysterious person in a fisherman’s slicker carrying a hook. With Teddy’s rich father, Grant (Billy Campbell), actively trying to cover up what his son did (as well as the fallout), it’s up to the group to figure out who is coming after them and how to stop that person.

Written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and co-written by Sam Lansky, the film doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel; in fact, it barely builds something that can roll. It might just be the laziest and most incompetent attempt to capitalize on an existing piece of intellectual property. There is almost zero effort put into establishing a connection between the members of the friend group, making them feel like strangers for the entire film.

It doesn’t help that the young male actors in the film — which grows to include Wyatt (Joshua Orpin), a new fiance for Danica — serve no purpose other than to be generically good-looking. The most impactful of the men in the film is the returning Freddie Prinze, Jr., who — along with Jennifer Love Hewitt — has his old character from the first two films shoehorned into the new story. The filmmakers undercut any good feelings from their return by giving them hardly anything to do and then having Hewitt deliver the line, “Nostalgia is overrated.”

The film as a whole never has a sense of momentum. The inciting incident is so tame — they even attempt to save the driver before the truck goes off the cliff — that the guilt they feel and the anger of the person going after them doesn’t feel warranted. Once the attacks start, it is shocking at how low-energy the sequences are, providing no sense of suspense or thrills. The filmmakers resort to the lamest of horror movie tropes, turning the film into a paint-by-numbers affair.

Cline (one of the stars of Netflix’s Outer Banks) and Wonders (The Studio on Apple TV+, Bodies Bodies Bodies) are the clear stars of the film, but their characters are made into inert scream queens, negating any acting talent they possess. Hauer-King, Withers, and Pidgeon don’t bring anything interesting to their characters, existing merely to have someone else for the killer to go after.

Even the worst films can have some kind of redeeming value if you look hard enough, but the only thing I Know What You Did Last Summer has to offer is that it becomes so comically bad by the end that you can’t help but laugh at its ineptitude. Both fans of the original and fans of horror movies in general will feel cheated by the experience.

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I Know What You Did Last Summer opens in theaters on July 18.

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