Slackery News Tidbits, December 28

Here's a roundup of all the Austin film news you might have missed during the recent holidays:

• The Texas Tribune has a sneak peek of about 8 minutes of footage from Incendiary, the upcoming documentary about Cameron Todd Willingham from local filmmakers Steve Mims and Joe Bailey Jr. Along with the footage, Evan Smith interviews Mims and Bailey about the film.
• In the Dallas Morning News, Joe O'Connell's column focuses on the state of the Texas film incentives law and how it might affect film and TV productions next year.
• Speaking of film incentives, the Austin American-Statesman reports that state comptroller Susan Coombs released a report about Texas incentive and tax-break programs, which included the film-incentives law, with notes on the program's weaknesses and suggestions for improvement.
• And while we're thinking about productions that did not receive film incentives from Texas -- Cinematical has posted a deleted scene online from Machete. The locally shot movie from Troublemaker Studios will be available on DVD and Blu-ray on January 4.
• The New York Times has a charming profile of actor Joe Stevens, a former Austinite and UT Austin grad, who has a small role in True Grit, and has been in a number of other Texas films.
• Speaking of True Grit: Victor Diaz of News 8 Austin (soon to be YNN) interviewed Jeff Bridges for the movie, and got him to talk a bit about Texas and even Austin. 
• Austin Film Festival would like you to know that their prices for badges for the 2011 festival go up in price on January 1, so now's a great time to buy one if you want to save a little money.
• The Fort Worth Star-Telegram notes that two of the movies that topped this year's "The Black List" of unproduced screenplays have Texas connections: a script about a young Karl Rove, and one about Jackie Kennedy in Dallas. 
• Finally, if you missed the adorably apocalyptic Japanese animated film Summer Wars at Fantastic Fest this year, Alamo is bringing it back to Austin. Ritz will have several screenings of the subtitled version from January 10-12, and Alamo South Lamar will show a dubbed version for a week (dates not yet set). Here's my review from the festival.