Week of « Prev | Next »
10 articles
Dallas Iff 2013: Opening Night on the Pink Carpet
6 April 2013 11:00 AM, PDT
Yes you read that right -- in honor of the 50th anniversary of contributing sponsor Mary Kay, the traditional red carpet at this year's Dallas International Film Festival (Diff) opening night was replaced with Mary Kay's favored pink. The evening featured a public service announcement-style video produced by the Dallas-based company to promote their "Don't Look Away" campaign, which focuses on ending domestic violence.
In addition to the film stars and filmmakers to walk the carpet, which you can see after the jump, several festival dignitaries were also in attendance including Dallas Film Society (Dfs) CEO Lee Papert and Dfs board chair Lynn McBee. Emmy nominee and Dallas television series producer Ken Topolsky was accompanied by Janis Burklund, Director of the Dallas Film Commission (seen above), and spoke about the receptiveness of the Dallas residents to film and television production in their community.
read more »
- Debbie Cerda
Movies This Week: April 5-11, 2013
5 April 2013 12:00 PM, PDT
Evil Dead. This week, these two words are all that matter to horror fans, as the long-awaited reworking of the cult classic The Evil Dead hits theaters. (Actually, two other words matter just as much: Bruce Campbell. I'm not into horror flicks, but yeah, he is the coolest.)
For the rest of us, there is the homegrown comedy Somebody Up There Likes Me (pictured above). Fellow River City film fans, I beg, urge and implore you to see this terrific Austin movie. Sadly (and unsurprisingly), the Friday night show with director Bob Byington and star Nick Offerman in attendance is sold out. But worry not -- there are plenty of other screenings. You also might like the Slamdance 2012 awardwinning feature Welcome to Pine Hill, screening at 9 pm Monday at Stateside.
True cinephiles won't want to miss this week's Austin Film Society Essential Cinema Plus series, which presents four recent films »
- Don Clinchy
'The Xxxx Saga' Production Diary: Week Four
5 April 2013 8:00 AM, PDT
Austin filmmaker James Christopher is directing Twitchy Dolphin Flix's new mockumentary-style features The Xxxx Saga: Rise of the Beaver Slayer and The Porn Movie Massacre (no, they're not pornos). Check Slackerwood for his updates as the production continues.
Since variety is the spice of life, it was a blast on the Quad-x set this past weekend. Scenes dealing with the attempt to shut down the porn company and scenes dealing with some of the more "horror" aspects were shot during three days of crazy shooting.
We welcomed actress Allison Wood back on set. Allison, a fixture in Austin indie film, has been in Twitchy films since the very beginning. She and Twitchy owner Nathan Bybee took a turn as married senators bent on saving the world from non-Christians. Nothing like poking some fun at the politicians who are trying to push us in a more restrictive direction. That's the »
- James Christopher
Review: Somebody Up There Likes Me
4 April 2013 12:00 PM, PDT
I've seen Somebody Up There Likes Me twice now -- once at SXSW 2012 with a lively local-heavy audience, once via screener with no one else but the cat -- and found the movie terribly funny both times. In fact, after I watched it the second time, I restarted the film so I could to see how the beginning tied into the end (it does, so pay attention) ... then had to stop myself from watching it a third time. The movie opens Friday at Violet Crown Cinema and I'm sorely tempted to go.
I liked it a lot, obviously. But I don't know whether you'd like it. Local filmmaker Bob Byington's universe is not for everyone.
Somebody Up There Likes Me is a comedy, but not in a broad sense -- its humor is very specific. I don't mean that it's full of obscure pop-culture references, either, because the movie »
- Jette Kernion
Aff Brings Three Writers (and One Sneak Preview) to Austin
4 April 2013 8:00 AM, PDT
By Marcelena Mayhorn
[Please welcome our newest contributor, Marcelena Mayhorn. She's a freelance writer in Austin who's also contributed to CultureMap Austin, and who previously worked for Austin Film Festival.]
Learn some tricks of the trade from the Austin Film Festival ongoing Conversations in Film Series. A year-round collection of film workshops and script readings, the series has three notable events coming up in the next couple of months.
The next Conversations in Film will take place this Saturday, April 6 with "A Conversation with Larry Wilmore" at the Harry Ransom Center. Having written for shows such as In Living Color and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Larry Wilmore (currently a correspondent on The Daily Show) will discuss how to maximize a writer's comedic potential, breaking into the industry and marketing your work.
The series continues Wednesday, April 10 with "A Conversation with Brian Helgeland" at the Capital City Events Center (6700 Middle Fiskville) and an advance screening of the writer-director's latest movie, 42, starring Chadwick Boseman and Harrison Ford. Brian Helgeland, who directed Payback and scripted Man on Fire, »
- Contributors
Interview: Pj Raval and the Men of 'Before You Know It'
3 April 2013 12:00 PM, PDT
A title card at the beginning of Austin-based filmmaker Pj Raval's documentary Before You Know It (Don's review) states that an estimated 2.4 million self-identified gay, lesbian and transgendered senior citizens live in the U.S. Throughout the course of the movie, Ty Martin, Robert "One of the Ugliest Girls in the South" Mainer and Dennis Creamer transcend this statistic as we follow them from Rainbow Vistas in Gresham, Oregon, across to Harlem and south to Galveston. Raval's years-long research for the film brought him face-to-face with his own immortality and the discovery that Lgbt seniors are half as likely to have health insurance and five times less likely to access social services than their heterosexual counterparts.
But Raval's subjects are more than just a number: They seek to educate audiences on a personal level and connect with them through their life stories. Like Creamer, a widower who didn't identify as gay until his 70s. »
- Jordan Gass-Poore'
Dallas Iff 2013: Austin and Texas Films
3 April 2013 8:00 AM, PDT
This year's Dallas International Film Festival (Diff) kicks off tomorrow night and runs through April 14. Many familiar faces and movies have made their way there from Sundance and SXSW, not to mention Austin Film Festival. In addition, the film festival will debut movies with local and state connections, some as part of the Texas Competition, a juried competition of films either shot in or relating to the Lone Star State.
Austinite Jeff Nichols' movie Mud screens on Friday, April 5, as part of the Premiere Series at Diff -- read my review from Sundance. This engaging and mystical tale features Austin native Matthew McConaughey and Tye Sheridan from Eckhart, Texas, with music by local composer David Wingo and sound by Austin's Stuck On On.
Here are all the other films we found with Austin and Texas connections -- let us know if we're missing anything.
The Bounceback (Don's review) (screening »
- Debbie Cerda
SXSW Review: Continental
2 April 2013 8:00 AM, PDT
The documentary Continental faces a tough challenge: Very little film footage or still photos exist for the legendary NYC bathhouse in its heyday. It's understandable -- this was not a place where many people wanted their pictures taken. But it means Continental has to drum up visual interest in other ways.
The movie takes us along on a breezy historical tour of the Continental Baths, one of the most well known and innovative bathhouses in New York in its prime. Steve Ostrow invested in the facility when it was a dark, dank warren of gay sex, and transformed it into a sophisticated gathering place and much cleaner, safer warren of gay sex. Eventually the Continental even drew a straight nightclub crowd for its concerts -- this is the place where Bette Midler launched her career.
Midler isn't one of the interview subjects -- she's represented only by still photos -- »
- Jette Kernion
Learning About Props On The Set of 'Parkland'
1 April 2013 11:30 AM, PDT
By Sasha Esquivel
Along with a few lucky others, I recently had the opportunity to be a part of the hustle and bustle of a real film set in town. Thanks to the City of Austin, the Austin Film Society and local chapters of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, I got to intern with the props department on the set of Parkland.
The movie is described on IMDb as being about "the chaotic events that occurred at Dallas' Parkland Hospital on the day U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated." The cast includes current/former Texans Jackie Earle Haley, Mark Duplass, and Marcia Gay Harden; plus Billy Bob Thornton (who won the Tom Mix Honorary Texan Award at the Texas Film Hall of Fame in 2009), Zac Efron and Ron Livingston, among many others.
This was my first time on a film set and the entire experience taught »
- Contributors
Slackery News Tidbits: April 1, 2013
1 April 2013 8:00 AM, PDT
Here's the latest in Austin and Texas film news -- no April Fooling here.
The 16th Annual Cine Las Americas International Film Festival has announced its opening and closing-night movies. Blancanieves will open the festival April 16 at the Stateside Theatre. The drama, a twist on the Snow White fairy tale that centers on a female bullfighter in 1920s Seville, was chosen by Spain as its Foreign Language Film Academy Awards nominee in 2012. 7 Cajas (7 Boxes), about a boy's journey transporting unknown cargo, will close the festival April 21, also at Stateside. In celebration of April Fools' Day, the Austin Film Festival will screen the fest's 2012 audience award-winning comedy Junk at 7 pm at Alamo Drafthouse Village as part of its Best of Fest series. Junk follows two B-movie co-writers through their film's festival debut.Ryan Long, former Austin Film Society programs and operations manager, has been named director of programming at Tugg, Austin 360 reports. »
- Jordan Gass-Poore'
10 articles
company.