Spencer Parsons finds today's Austin, and pronounces it good.

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UT prof and filmmaker Spencer Parsons bangs out a bit of retrospective prose for Film in Focus on whether Austin is as cool as it used to be.

Move to Austin, and you're likely to hear from people that you just missed it. Upon arrival, I took the laments for what had just been snuffed out more seriously than I do now, not because I've discovered the complaint to be untrue or found peace with the ultimate franchising of America, but ironically because I now so often find myself telling newcomers the same thing. Austin was way better before this legendary club closed, or that dollar cinema with Bollywood Fridays lost its lease to CVS, and of course it was better before all the fucking condos. Not that there isn't much to be missed, but on the whole, the city's been good at holding onto its identity, and whenever I travel to other American cities, I find that, for instance, our Starbucks saturation appears to remain at a national low.

Read "The Once and Future Austin" at Film in Focus.