Chip Rosenthal's blog

Today, January 18, Slackerwood is joining the national protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Incoming visitors will see a splash page erected for the event.

SOPA has been introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar Smith of Texas (including a small gerrymandered chunk of Austin). The legislation makes pirating movies and other content on the Internet, which is already illegal, double super-secret illegal.

It also mandates, for the first time, that a censorship infrastructure be built so pirated content can be blocked. This blocking could be done not by a court, but by order of a government agency. This is the sort of censorship regime that brought the Egyptians to overthrowing their government. And now it's happening right here, in the good old U.S. Magnited States of America.

The following video explains the Protect IP Act (PIPA), the version of anti-piracy legislation that has been moving through the U.S. Senate.

Every couple faces the challenge of how to blend two holiday traditions into one. Here's ours: I don't celebrate Christmas. My wife does.

She deserves to have her holiday, but I shouldn't have to pretend to celebrate an event that I don't -- even a secularized facsimile thereof. Yes, I'm one of those people who prefers "season greetings" to "merry Christmas", but I don't want to deny -- or even dampen -- anybody else's celebration of their holidays.

So we've had to build our own holiday tradition, one that allows her to express her celebration for the season, while allowing me to be true to my grinchy self.

On Friday night, Austin-based filmmaker Aaron Burns brought his first feature-length film, blacktino, to the Paramount Theatre for its world premier. It was an event worthy of SXSW opening night. A food truck was parked on 7th Street, giving out free tacos to the crowd. A photo backdrop was setup for people to take pictures. Even the director was out -- buzzing a bit from opening-night adrenaline -- walking the line and greeting the enthusiastic crowd.

The movie started late, due to delays in seating, but once it did the crowd was no less enthusiastic. Every credit was given a loud cheer. If they showed those awful "FBI warnings" before cinema films, I think even that would have gotten applause. This clearly was a hometown crowd rooting for the home team. They even applauded a shot of the Austin skyline, later in the film.

Blacktino is a dark teen comedy about drama nerd Stefan Daily (Austin Marshall), born of an African-American mother and a Hispanic father. Daily lives with his Nana (charmingly played with a small dose of Betty White spunkiness by Selma Pinkard). In his spare time, Stefan writes music and keeps a blog. His school is divided into rigid cliques, and it's not that there is a lot of hostility among the groups -- they just don't mix.

Little Deaths is playing SXSW as part of its SXFantastic genre film series. It's a UK anthology of three stories connected by themes of sex (often kinky) and death (often disturbing).

In "House and Home," a couple with the enthusiasm of religious missionaries and an inability to find sexual satisfaction in each other do find that satisfaction by preying on society's unfortunates. They may have bitten off too much, however, with their latest victim. This story felt a bit simplisitic, and lacked the foreshadowing necessary to deliver satisfying payoff from the turns. Caution: while the entire film is infused with sex and horror, this particular short had scenes of sexual violence that might be difficult for some.

The documentary For The Sake of The Song: The Story of Anderson Fair tells the tale of Anderson Fair Retail Restaurant, the renowned Houston more-charity-than-business venue that has anchored the Texas singer/songwriter circuit for decades. Beloved Texas musicians from Lyle Lovett to Townes Van Zandt have honed their craft on its stage -- which, in its earliest days, was more cleared corner than actual stage.

The film opens with a shot of the Anderson Fair sign being ripped off the face of the building. That bit of dramatic tension creates some misdirected expectations. The film really is about capturing a moment in time, when Anderson Fair became the home base for Texas' most revered folk singers. The story is told through interviews with both musicians and staff, with many musical performances interspersed.

The movie will be a treat to fans. The production is beautiful and the sound is lovingly produced. Numerous performances are complemented by an original soundtrack from Austinite Gurf Morlix. Even the archival footage was crisp and clear on the Paramount big screen (and sound system).

Looking for a filmmaking opportunity? The Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin has issued a call for filmmakers to participate in its "Faces of Austin" multimedia program. Short Austin-centric films and video works will be selected for display at City Hall, as well as streamed online by Channel 6 video on-demand. The city previously picked films for this program in 2005 and 2006; it's good to see it again.

The full press release follows after the jump.

Don't piss off the geeks. They've got their Twitters and they know how to use them.

We found that out back in April, when Time Warner Cable (TWC) announced that Austin would be one of four cities in the nation to get "consumption-based billing." The proposal was to cap the standard broadband Internet plan and then charge extra for usage over the cap.

The proposal was portrayed as an issue of fairness -- a way to manage excessive or abusive users. In reality, it was a shot directly at emerging online video usage.

Standard definition video requires about 1GB/hour bandwidth. That means there will be about 1 gigabyte of data transferred for every hour you watch video. So a 20GB cap means you have sufficient bandwidth to watch about 20 hours of video.

If you reach your usage cap and try to stream a movie across your Internet connection, TWC is going to assess a surcharge. You’d pay about $2 for a typical movie. [...] High-definition video is worse. It uses about 2GB-4GB/hour, so that surcharge could jump as high as $8 for a single high-def movie.

The geeks were irate. The issue became the talk of the town, and was covered nationally. By the end of April, TWC announced that the plan would be suspended while they conduct a "customer education process." (shudder)

Consumption-based billing has not returned -- yet. Online video remains a serious threat to cable video, so none of us believe that we've heard the last on this issue.

I'm sick to death of studio fanboy marketing. It pisses me off when some studio jerks throw out clips -- or, even worse, a first reel --  of some upcoming movie. We're supposed to get all excited and spread good word of mouth to build marketing demand for their film. And then -- the coup de grâce of this sucker play -- we get to pay full admission to see the entire film once it's released.

No thanks.

One of my favorite studio marketing ploys happened a couple years ago, when the first season of Star Trek was remastered with new optical effects and released on high-def video. To promote the box set, the studio did limited theatrical showings of "The Menagerie," the two-part episode that recycled footage from the unaired (and Kirk-less) Star Trek pilot. Sure, it was a marketing event to support the boxed-set release, but it was well worth the price of admission to see old Trek on the big screen.

That's why, when Alamo Drafthouse announced a special screening of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan early in 2009,  I was all excited. I own the DVD, but I'd love to see the movie again on the big screen -- especially the ground-breaking "Genesis Device" sequence. Also, the Star Trek reboot movie was scheduled for release that summer, which I was eagerly awaiting. This seemed like a great lead-in for the new Star Trek movie.

A new video spot produced by the City of Austin features the Austin Film Society After-School Film Program. The video promotes the Grant for Technology Opportunities (GTOPs) program. GTOPs is a City of Austin program that provides matching-fund grants to local groups that create digital opportunities and promote digital inclusion.

The city currently is accepting applications for the 2010 GTOPs cycle. For more information, visit www.gtops.org.

Prospective GTOPs applicants can attend a free seminar today -- Wednesday, Oct. 21 -- at 3 pm. The seminar will explain how the GTOPs program works, and provide assistance for writing a successful grant. Advance reservations may be made at http://gtopsseminar.eventbrite.com/

The famous Isaac Newton quote about standing on the shoulders of giants is about how we create better science by using the works of people that come before us. But when it comes to art, some say that's not better art -- it's stealing.

Remix culture is creating new forms in video and music, but traditional copyright holders are often hostile to these efforts. New movements such as Creative Commons try to find a balance between the rights of original content creators and those who want to build on their works.

The documentary RiP: A Remix Manifesto explores the movement towards remix culture ... and you can see this movie in Austin tomorrow night. The free screening is sponsored by ChannelAustin.