Quick Snaps: Help Bastrop and Get a Peek at 'Bernie'

If you're not planning to spend the weekend ACL Fest-ing (or hiding from ACL Fest in another city), local filmmaker Richard Linklater is offering you the chance to see his latest movie as a benefit for groups helping with the Bastrop wildfire disaster.

Linklater's movie Bernie was partially shot in Bastrop, and in fact Linklater owns some property there himself. As the Austin Chronicle reports, he decided to turn what was originally a private cast-and-crew screening of Bernie into a fundraiser to help fire relief efforts in Bastrop. He enlisted Austin Film Society and j.k. livin (Matthew McConaughey's production company) to co-host this event, which will take place on Sunday at the Paramount.

Linklater and one of the film's stars, Jack Black, will be at the Bernie screening on Sunday. I hope to be on the red carpet to get a few photos of them. Linklater and Black were last at the Paramount together about 8 years ago -- the Austin premiere of The School of Rock was in September 2003. The above photo is from that event. I've posted a few more fun pictures from that premiere after the jump, including one with Roky Erickson. Austin Film Society has a Flickr set you can view.

Tickets are on sale now through the Paramount website -- they start at $100 and the proceeds will go to Friends of the Lost Pines State Parks, Bastrop County Emergency Food Pantry and the Heart of the Pines Volunteer Fire Department. If you can't be there, you can buy a ticket for a Bastrop resident to attend. Bernie may not be released in theaters until early 2012, so now's your best chance to get an early look at this Texas-shot film, which stars not only Black but also Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey. We hear local actor Sonny Carl Davis is in there too.

[Photo credit: Austin Film Society. Used with permission.]