Slackery News Tidbits

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Slackery News Tidbits: April 29, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin film news.

  • Locally shot film The Happy Poet will return to Austin next Monday at the Stateside Theater, with some of the cast and crew in attendance for a post-screening Q&A (Jordan's interview). Paul Gordon's comedy will be released on DVD and online streaming June 25. The Happy Poet, which premiered at SXSW 2010 (our review), tells the story of Bill (Gordon), an out-of-work poet who uses the last of his money (and a loan) to buy an all-organic, mostly vegetarian food stand. The cast also includes Chris Doubek and Jonny Mars.
  • Austin videogame label Devolver Digital has created a new division for film distribution. They've acquired their first film for theatrical and VOD release: Cancerpants. Don saw it at aGLIFF in 2011 and said it's "a terrific documentary about Austinite Rochelle Poulson's fight against breast cancer." He added: "Shot in Austin and astutely directed by Nevie Owens, Cancerpants is a starkly honest portrait of Poulson's battle, a film that doesn't shy away from the often unpleasant details of her story." Look for it on VOD outlets starting May 7, with screenings in several cities -- including Austin, natch -- planned for May 30.
  • The music documentary A Band Called Death, which screened at this year's SXSW Film Festival, is also gearing up for its May 24 VOD release and June 28 limited theatrical release through Drafthouse Films, the distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse. A Band Called Death takes a walk down a sometimes blurry memory lane, when, in the 1970s, three African-American brothers from Detroit formed the punk band Death (Debbie's preview). The documentary follows the band's newfound popularity, decades after they split.

Slackery News Tidbits: April 22, 2013

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Here's the latest in Austin and Texas film news.

  • Two Austin-based theater chains are expanding their reach in the U.S. Violet Crown Cinema will open a second location in Santa Fe at an undisclosed date, according to Austin 360. The arthouse theater, owned by Bill Banowsky, co-founder of the Austin-based Magnolia Pictures, will be part of the Santa Fe Railyard development. Austin Business Journal reports that Alamo Drafthouse will open its first Lubbock area location next year, with construction currently underway.
  • The inaugural Q Fest, celebrating queer cinema, began yesterday at the Josephine Theatre in San Antonio, the San Antonio Current reports. Festivities include a short films package and documentaries, such as San Antonio Four, about four Latina lesbians from San Antonio who may have been wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting two children in the early '90s.
  • The latest movie by former Austinites Joel and Ethan Coen, who filmed the 2010 remake True Grit in-and-around Austin, has been chosen as an official selection at this year's Cannes Film Festival, according to IndieWire. Inside Llewyn Davis, starring Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake, tells the story of an aspiring folk singer-songwriter (Oscar Isaac) in 1960s Greenwich Village.

Slackery News Tidbits: April 15, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

  • DFW-area filmmaker David Lowery (Ain't Them Bodies Saints) will team up with Robert Redford for the crime movie The Old Man and the Gun, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Old Man and the Gun, based on a 2003 article in The New Yorker by David Grann, tells the true story of lifelong bank robber Forrest Tucker, who died in 2005.
  • On Saturday night, Austin-based filmmaker Yen Tan won the Texas Grand Jury Prize at this year's Dallas International Film Festival for his movie Pit Stop (Debbie's review). Fellow Austin-based filmmaker and UT lecturer Kat Candler also won a DIFF grand jury prize for her short Black Metal. Black Metal and Pit Stop both premiered at Sundance this year, were both produced by Austinite Kelly Williams and both have local actor Jonny Mars in the cast. DIFF also recognized the Austin-shot film Good Night (Debbie's review), which premiered at SXSW Film this year and also co-stars Mars. The drama was written and directed by Sean Gallagher (Elizabeth's interview). Finally, Tomlinson Hill, directed by former Austinite Lisa Kaselak, received the DIFF Silver Heart Award. Tomlinson Hill explores the legacy of slavery from the perspective of one black and one white descendant of a Texas slave plantation. Jonny Mars does not appear in the film.
  • Legendary producer and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (The Phantom of the Opera) has acquired the rights to the 2003 Richard Linklater film The School of Rock to adapt it into a Broadway musical, IndieWire reports. 

Slackery News Tidbits: April 8, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin film news.

  • Phase 4 Films will release Boneboys, filmed in Austin and Taylor, in select cities and theaters on Sept. 6. Writer/producer Kim Henkel, who co-wrote the 1974 horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, teamed up with two former Texas A&M University- Kingsville students, co-directors Duane Graves and Justin Meeks, on the low-budget horror comedy about a family of cannibals. Boneboys had its U.S. premiere at last year's Austin Film Festival. 
  • Robert Redford has signed Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater to direct an adaptation of Bill Bryson's travel memoir A Walk in the Woods, the LA Times reports. The movie, about Bryson's attempting the Appalachian Trail, could begin shooting in the fall. Redford, who's producing the film, will also co-star in it with Nick Nolte.
  • Delaware-based Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema have teamed up again for the sixth annual Off-Centered Film Festival. Beginning April 18, the three-day movie, beer, and food feast -- with a hip-hop theme this year -- will feature a sing-along, rap battle competition, DJs and a short film competition. Proceeds will benefit the nonprofit Texas Craft Brewers Guild
  • Austin Film Society will host a memorial screening of prolific Spanish filmmaker Jess Franco's film Venus in Furs on Friday, April 19 at The Marchesa (6226 Middle Fiskville Road). Despite its title, the 1969 film isn't based on the novel. Instead, it tells the story of a jazz trumpeter who, while digging up a buried horn on a beach, discovers a woman washed ashore. Venus in Furs will screen from a rare 35mm original release print to honor Franco, who died last week at his home in Malaga, Spain.

Slackery News Tidbits: April 1, 2013

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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. Tugg, co-founded by Austinites Nicolas Gonda and Pablo Gonzalez, allows people to bring the movies they want to see to their local theaters. Long joined AFS in Nov. 2010 and co-founded the Texas Independent Film Network, a statewide tour of independent movies, which concludes its spring run with Hands on a Hard Body
  • Hands on a Hard Body documents an annual endurance competition in Longview, Texas, in which 24 participants attempt to keep their hands on a Nissan Hard Body pickup truck for as long as possible. The last person with their hand on the truck gets to drive away with it. Director S. R. Bindler will be in attendance at select TIFN screenings throughout the month, which begin Tuesday in McAllen, Texas. It reaches Austin on Friday, April 26 -- more details as they're confirmed.

Slackery News Tidbits: March 25, 2013

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Here's the latest in Austin film news.

  • Disney has hired DFW-area filmmaker (and former Austinite) David Lowery and producer Toby Halbrooks, whose film Ain't Them Bodies Saints premiered at Sundance this year, to script a remake of the animated movie Pete's Dragon. If this sounds unlikely, bear in mind that Lowery's first feature, St. Nick, was about two children who run away from home. And don't forget his short Pioneer, about a father and son. (Jette adds: Now, someone please release St. Nick on DVD? Finally?)
  • Austin-based filmmaker Elizabeth Mims' documentary Only the Young (Elizabeth's AFF review), which follows three Southern California teenagers, will air July 15 on PBS's award-winning TV series POV, according to Austin Movie Blog.
  • In festival news, the Hill Country Film Festival announced its lineup last week, which includes the feature-length thriller The Iceman, starring James Franco, and the 2013 Academy Award-winning short Curfew. The festivities take place May 2-5 in Fredericksburg. Texas movies at the fest include short films Black Metal, Do Over, Happy Voodoo, Fourth and Orchard, The Secret Keeper and Where am I Texas.
  • Austin Film Society Artistic Director Richard Linklater presents "Land and People: Recent Films of James Benning" April 6-8 at Alamo Ritz and the AFS Screening Room. Hailed as one of the most significant and groundbreaking avant-garde filmmakers, Benning began exploring the American landscape on film in the early 1970s. His recent films, 13 Lakes, Ten Skies, the war and Stremple Pass, were made between 2004 and 2012.

Slackery News Tidbits: March 18, 2013

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Here's the latest in Austin and Texas film news. 

  • After seven years in distribution limbo, Jonathan Levine's 2006 Austin-shot feature All The Boys Love Mandy Lane will have a simultaneous North American theatrical and VOD release through The Weinstein Company's Radius-TWC label, Deadline reports. Austin native Amber Heard stars in the horror flick about a high-school weekend party gone terribly wrong. The movie has been available only outside of the U.S. to date, apart from festival screenings.
  • Deadline continues the Texas coverage with news that Drafthouse Films, in partnership with Snoot Entertainment, acquired the U.S. rights to Cheap Thrills at SXSW 2013. The dark comedy, starring Sara Paxton (The Bounceback) and Pat Healy, tells the story of a recently fired father facing eviction who agrees to a wealthy couple's escalating series of challenges in exchange for cash payments. Cheap Thrills had its world premiere at the festival and won its Midnighters Audience Award.
  • The University of Texas at Austin's radio-television-film department will implement the nation's first comprehensive 3D production curriculum next fall through a $2.17 million grant from the Moody Foundation. Classes will be taught at the Belo Center for New Media and ACL Live at the Moody Theater, where students will use the studio's 3D production and performance facility. The grant will be distributed over a five-year period. 

Slackery News Tidbits: March 4, 2013

in

Here's the latest in Austin and Texas film news.

  • Factory 25 has acquired David and Nathan Zellner's awardwinning feature Kid-Thing (Don's review), according to The Hollywood Reporter. The movie, about a mischief-making 10-year-old girl in East Texas who stumbles on a mysterious abandoned well in the woods, will be released theatrically in New York on May 24, followed by a nationwide tour through the early summer. The Brooklyn-based distributor has scheduled a digital release via VOD and iTunes, among other outlets, on May 24 as well.
  • SXSW has been chosen as an Academy Award-qualifying festival in the Documentary Short Subject category. This means that recipients of the Documentary Short Film award at this year's SXSW Film Festival will qualify for consideration in the Academy Awards' Documentary Short Subject category without the standard theatrical run, provided the film complies with Academy rules.
  • Fans of the 1997 long-lost documentary Hands on a Hard Body will be able to get their hands on a copy of the remastered film when it's released on DVD and available for download April 1, IndieWire reports. S.R. Bindler's film -- unavailable on home video for many years -- documents an annual endurance competition in Longview, Texas, in which 24 participants attempt to keep their hands on a Nissan Hard Body pick-up truck as long as possible. The last person with their hand on the truck gets to drive away with it. We hear the film will screen in Austin this spring with some help from Austin Film Society.

Slackery News Tidbits: February 25, 2013

in

Here's the latest in Austin and Texas film news.

  • At the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, Austin actor Matthew McConaughey took home a Best Supporting Actor award for Magic Mike, and former Austinite John Hawkes won Best Actor for The Sessions. The full list of awards is available on Indiewire.
  • Austin-based filmmaker Heather Courtney's documentary Where Soldiers Come From (Jette's review) has been chosen to screen at this year's Museum of Modern Art's Documentary Fortnight on March 2 as part of MoMA Selects: POV, which highlights awardwinning films that have screened on the television series from the past 25 years. Courtney's documentary, about the lives of small-town childhood friends who enlist in the U.S. National Guard after graduating high school, is one of 22 films to screen during the six-day event. Where Soldiers Come From is now available on Netflix.
  • Austin Film Festival has a new Director of Marketing -- Celina Guerrero, a native from Houston. She was previously the Registration Director for AFF.
  • Austin-based production company Rooster Teeth has released its second trailer online for the animated series RWBY, which follows four very different female fighters on adventures. The "White" trailer introduces viewers to the second of four main characters from the new series, which will premiere at the Third Annual Rooster Teeth Expo July 5-7 at the Austin Convention Center. 

Slackery News Tidbits: February 18, 2013

in

Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

  • The Berlin Film Festival surprised Austin director Richard Linklater last week with the Berlinale Camera before a screening of his film Before Midnight, the Los Angeles Times reports. The award is presented to film personalities or institutions to which the festival wishes to express its thanks. Former Austinite Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who star in and co-wrote the film with Linklater, attended the screening as well. Before Midnight, which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (Debbie's review), is the third film in a trilogy that also includes 1995's Before Sunrise (Elizabeth's review) and 2004's Before Sunset.
  • In more Berlin Film Fesitval news, recent Austin transplant David Gordon Green won the Silver Bear award for Best Director at Saturday's ceremony for his buddy film Prince Avalanche, according to Variety. Prince Avalanche, the only comedy among the 19 contenders at the festival, stars Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch (Killer Joe) as Texas roadway workers at a crossroads in their lives in the 1980s. The film, which will screen at this year's SXSW Film Festival, is a remake of the Icelandic comedy Either Way.
  • Writer-director Hannah Fidell's feature debut, A Teacher, also set to screen at SXSW, has been acquired by distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories, the Los Angeles Times announced. Oscilloscope plans to release the indie drama, about a young high-school teacher (Lindsay Burdge) who has an affair with a student (Will Brittain), in a combination of theatrical, VOD and digital platforms later this year.
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