Movies This Week: Superheroes, TX Book Festival, and Salesmen

­

­

Wednesday seems like the weirdest day of the week to be doing Movies This Week, but that's just how this week has been. I suppose I should have a spooky­ Halloween theme, but aren't you seeing that everywhere else, anyway? Here are a few of the more interesting screenings and film-related events going on in Austin for the next week.

• Alamo at the Ritz opens Thursday night and has programming scheduled on both screens throughout November. Mostly they're showing The Darjeeling Limited and the documentary Confessions of a Superhero, which premiered at SXSW earlier this year. The 10:30 pm Saturday screening of Superhero will be attended by Christopher Dennis (the Superman pictured above) and producer/DP Charlie Gruet.
• Galaxy Highland is still show­ing The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D daily -- I'm not sure I want to see a 3D version of this film, since I liked the original stop-motion just fine. Is it really an improvement on the original? Anyone? [More after the jump.]
• The "Tromatic Thursday" series at Alamo Lake Creek is still going strong, with weekly free screenings of Troma films at 10 pm. This week's film is one I hadn't heard of before, Parts of the Family from 2003. It's got Ron Jeremy in it!
• Wristcutters: A Love Story opens Friday at Arbor.
• Texas Book Festival has several movie-related events this weekend. John Pierson interviews Tom Perrotta, author of Election and Little Children, at 2 pm on Saturday in the House Chamber of the State Capitol. In addition, Alamo Ritz will screen Little Children at 7 pm that night. Actress Marlee Matlin will be reading from her latest book on Saturday at 3:30 pm at the Family Life Center, 1300 Lavaca. And although this is not strictly film-related, actor Roscoe Orman, best known for playing Gordon on Sesame Street, will be reading from his children's book Ricky and Mobo in the Children's Tent at the Capitol at 3:30 on Saturday. All events are free except the Alamo screening.
• Austin Cinematheque is showing Salesmen, the 1968 documentary co-directed by the Mayles brothers and Charlotte Zwerin. The free screening takes place Monday at the Texas Union Theater (UT campus) at 7:30 pm.