Slackery News Tidbits, July 13

Here's your weekly dose of Austin film news in easily digestible tidbit form ... plus a couple of rants that I at least tried to keep short. It's been that kind of a week:

• Rolling Roadshow has announced its 2010 U.S. tour. The free-movie tour kicks off August 6 in Los Angeles with Jackie Brown -- the only film in the series with a female lead -- and ends August 27 with The Godfather, Part II in the Little Italy section of Manhattan. Levi's is co-sponsoring the tour, which may explain why nearly all this year's films are manly-man gung-ho selections from Dirty Harry to Convoy to On the Waterfront. The theme is "We Are All Workers" but, ahem, women are workers too. Still, I admit I'd love to see The Blues Brothers in Joliet Prison, especially if movie-themed food is available.
• Okay, filmmakers: Austin Film Festival is giving you one last chance to submit your shorts and features for the 2010 fest. The deadline is Wednesday, July 14 (tomorrow) to have your entry postmarked.
• As we mentioned in our DVD review, Bob Byington's locally shot film Harmony and Me is out on DVD today. But I wanted to draw your attention to another movie now fiiiinnnalllly available on DVD: Robert Altman's 1970 film Brewster McCloud, which is a Warner Archive release. What does this film have to do with Austin? First of all, it was shot in nearby Houston. Second of all, the guy in the camera store is local actor/filmmaker Gary Chason. It's an odd movie that's hard to like, but definitely worth your time. 
• If you missed Cropsey last week during its limited run at Alamo Drafthouse, don't worry. The movie is now available on cable VOD, including Time Warner, until August 12. Read Jenn's review for more details about this real-life horror story.
• Fantastic Fest has started an odd little Tumblr blog. It's less about the festival and more about ephemera that fest programmers have found online. Take a peek.
• Finally, Austin Public Library is looking for donations of more DVDs for children, and has even posted a list. I am divided about this. On the one hand, it's nice for children to have the opportunity to see movies they might not be able to see otherwise. On the other hand, most of this stuff on this list isn't educational. And frankly, I wish APL would spend some effort trying to get actual books donated. The branch library near our house has an appallingly low inventory of books on hand for grownups, although it has an excellent DVD collection, and it makes me wonder where the library's priorities are these days. I do intend to comb through my DVD collection and see if I can help out the library with some good family-friendly movies, but I'd rather they had the whole Betsy-Tacy collection of books for kids (they don't) instead of Barbie DVDs.