Slackery News Tidbits, May 26

Mmm, Austin movie news tidbits. So delicious. So hard to resist. Here they are, fresh off the -- yeah, I'm tired of this metaphor too. Just check out the news below.

• Filming on the Coen brothers' True Grit moves from small Central Texas towns to downtown Austin this week, and will be shooting at the Austin Club and part of the State Capitol on Thursday and Friday nights. Austin Movie Blog has the details, including street closures. If anyone manages to get some pictures, let us know.
• Joe O'Connell, who has been posting photos from nearly every location of the True Grit filming (Jeff Bridges with an eye patch!), also has had time to keep track of the myriad TV pilots shot in Central Texas that are in development and/or being picked up by the networks. Latest count appears to be four TV shows shooting in Dallas, plus one new Austin-set TV show, My Generation, that may shoot here, and another one in development that's set in Austin. Follow O'Connell's site to get the details -- I can barely keep up with Austin film, much less Central Texas TV productions.
• Frederick Wiseman's documentary Boxing Gym, which focuses on Richard Lord's Boxing Gym here in Austin, premiered at Cannes last week. Over at Austin Movie Blog, Charles Ealy has the scoop. Now someone please show the movie here? (Or maybe not. It'll just make me want to join the gym again.)
• Fantastic Fest is sponsoring a free double-feature Friday night of films featuring Chilean action-film star Marko Zaror: Mandrill, which played the fest in 2009, and Undisputed III: Redemption. Zaror will be at the screening. While most seats are reserved for Fantastic Fest 2010 badgeholders, Alamo promises a number of seats will be held on standby for anyone who wants to attend (and get there early. Details are available on the Fantastic Fest blog.
• Anyone else remember Jeffrey Ross's documentary Patriot Act from SXSW 2006, about USO comedian tours in the Middle East, led by Drew Carey? I remember it clearly because I got to write a couple of blurbs for the SXSW program that year, and one was for Patriot Act. I wondered whatever happened to the film -- well, now you can watch it on Hulu at absolutely no charge.
• Speaking of SXSW, IFC has just picked up distribution on a couple of films that played the festival in 2009: Dia Sokol's Sorry, Thanks, which includes Austinites Wiley Wiggins and Andrew Bujalski in its cast; and Made in China, about an inventor from Woodville, Texas who travels to China in hopes of finding a manufacturer for his latest invention. The two films will be released via video on demand in June. 
• Finally, I loved this story in Times Online written by the woman whose parents were the basis for the movie Mr. Nice, which played at SXSW this year. She traveled to Austin to see the film and was pleasantly surprised. It's more of a travel article than movie-related, but I couldn't resist sharing it.