Slackery News Tidbits, May 9

Here's a recap of last week's Austin film news, as well as some more recent news.

• Local filmmaker and Austin Film Society staffer Bryan Poyser (Lovers of Hate) has made a short film that will be available online later this week as part of the USA Network Character Project. The short film project is part of USA's new "Characters welcome" theme, the idea being that all eight shorts are character-based. Poyser's short is called The Fickle and stars Katie Aselton (The Freebie); it was shot earlier this year at Austin Studios.
• Do you like movie marathons? Really, really long movie marathons? If so, you may be spending a lot of time at Alamo Drafthouse this summer. On Sunday, May 29, Alamo Ritz is showing all five Planet of the Apes movies -- al in 35mm -- starting at 10 am.They also promise "ape-centric menu specials." In addition, Alamo is dropping hints on their Twitter feed of an upcoming marathon of all eight Harry Potter movies when the final film is released in mid-July. I think that would just about kill me, especially if I had to watch the last one in 3D.
• As part of the Slacker 2011 project I mentioned last week, Austin Film Society is looking for remakes of the final scene of the original movie. You can submit your version of the scene to AFS for consideration in the film -- deadline is May 30.
• Looking for a job? aGLIFF is hiring a new Executive Director. We'll miss Skot Tulk as well as Programs Director Jake Gonzales, who have both left the fest staff. We at Slackerwood have really enjoyed the fest under their direction over the past couple of years. Jason Scott Rosen is serving as the fest's interim Executive Director.
• Finally, some sad news: South Austin restaurant Nueva Onda closed on Saturday. Not only does this mean a little less tasty Tex-Mex in Austin, but Nueva Onda hosted an excellent summertime free monthly movie series, programmed by David Chang and other volunteers (including me back in 2006). The programmers screened a lot of independent films without distribution, including plenty from Austin, and sometimes local filmmakers would show up with their movies -- this is how I met filmmakers like John Bryant and Steve Collins, for example. David is looking for a new venue for the film series and we'll keep you posted on what happens.