Slackery News Tidbits, December 1

This is a great week for Austin movie-related news. Here's the latest:

• Congratulations to local filmmaker and Austin Film Society staffer Bryan Poyser, whose film Lovers of Hate (my review) has received a Spirit Award nomination. The movie is up for the John Cassavetes Award, for indie films with a budget of less than $500K. I am also pleased to see Houston documentary Thunder Soul (Jenn's review) up for Best Documentary. Many of the independent films nominated for awards played either SXSW or Austin Film Festival this year -- check out the above link for a full list.
• UT instructor (among other things) John Pierson has an article in The New York Times this week about the latest film from Austin filmmaker Steve Mims, which is now called Incendiary: The Willingham Case. (Under the title Dead to Rights: The Willingham Case, it won a Texas Filmmakers Production Fund grant this year.) Mims and Joe Bailey, Jr. are co-directing the documentary about Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted and executed for murder by arson in a case that has become quite controversial. Can't wait to see this movie, which is still being completed.
• Speaking of Mims, we just got word that the filmmaker will be teaching his Production One class at Austin FilmWorks in the spring. Registration has just opened for this introductory filmmaking class. I hear nothing but good things about Austin FilmWorks classes, so if you want to learn more about filmmaking, sign up now.
• The Fit City blog on Austin360 reports that the Bicycle Film Festival is back in Austin, from Thursday through Sunday, December 2-5. The weekend of bicycle-related films will take place at a downtown venue called Super!Alright! on Chicon.
• The Paramount has just announced their 2010 holiday films, which are all listed on this Facebook page. You can see White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street (the original one, natch) and The Shop Around the Corner in December at the historic downtown theater.
• Finally, I just found out (via Twitter) that Slackerwood has been nominated for an Austin Blogger Award, for Best Entertainment Blog. Other nominees include the excellent film site Gordon and the Whale and the top-notch blog for all Austin-related stuff, Austinist (where Elizabeth also contributes). I'm just posting the link to vote and y'all can go do the right thing. I have to say that Chip and I used to organize all kinds of local blogger events and projects back in the day, and seeing a long list of local websites I've never heard of makes me feel a little old and out of touch. But the more the merrier, right?