The documentary What Would Jesus Buy? had its world premiere earlier this year at SXSW. I am still regretting that I didn't get a chance to see the mo­vie in March. The film's subject, Reverend Billy, was at SXSW with his Church of Stop Shopping Choir, and apparently they were quite the hit. YouTube has a clip of Rev. Billy holding an impromptu protest at/around the Austin Convention Center during the festival. Morgan Spurlock's distribution company picked up the rights to the anti-consumer-greed film, and it's currently getting a limited theatrical release.

What Would Jesus Buy? returns to Austin this weekend for a run at the Arbor Great Hills, just in time to fight the frenzied shopping characteristic of the Christmas season. The Arbor has teamed up with Responsible Growth for Northcross (RG4N) to offer some special screenings and discounts as part of RG4N's fundraising efforts. Tonight (Friday), you can see the 7:30 pm screening of the doc for only $5 admission, with proceeds going to R­G4N. You also can visit the RG4N website for a coupon that gets you a discounted admission to the movie at any screening this weekend. RG4N has all the details here.

[Full disclosure: My husband is on the board of RG4N and we live in walking distance of the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter development at Northcross.]­

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Scott Kirsner over at CinemaTech has been covering the International Film Festival Summit this week in Las Vegas (or as Matt Dentler discovered, not-quite-Vegas) and has some great news to report that affects Austin. At the keynote speech, Variety publisher Charlie Koones listed the ten film festivals that he says Variety loves, and that he also considered interesting and exciting. The list included such long-running and well-known festivals as Cannes, Telluride, the Toronto International Film Festival ... and Fantastic Fest here in Austin. Congratulations to Tim League and the other talents behind Fantastic Fest for developing a festival that film geeks adore and Variety praises too.

The above photo is one of my favorites that I took this year at Fantastic Fest: Wiley Wiggins and Tim League at the opening party festivities. Incidentally, Fantastic Fest has already sold out its VIP badges for 2008 (I bought one myself during the festival).

In case you're not getting enough Austin film blogging here at Slackerwood, I thought I'd share some of my favorite recent photos and blog entries from other websites, all related to local movie stuff in one way or another.

• Slackerwood contributor Chris Holland took some excellent photos during opening night at the Alamo Ritz. I'm having severe camera envy right now -- my delightfully small camera is incapable of taking good photos in movie theaters. The photo with the confetti is amazing.
• Sarah (aka "sarah pants," "Sarah who's dating Henri," and "Sarah who's on a poster in my office for reasons too complicated to explain here") has blogged about Alamo's Blazing Saddles BBQ Tour. She also has a Flickr set from the event, as well as ­photos from Alamo's opening night -- I get the impression from these sets that she is fond of mac and cheese.
• One more Flickr set from the Alamo Ritz opening? Please? This one's from Wiley Wiggins and features­ action photos of the fighting gorillas. (A brief aside: I feel like I'm always linking to photos of one Alamo event or another. I would love to feature photos from other local theaters, but apart from the occasional Paramount premiere, I can't find any online. If I'm missing something, please comment with a link.)

It's a movie-rific week, let me tell you. I don't know if it has something to do with the week before Thanksgiving or if everyone is simply in a movie-watching frame of mind, or what. Anyway, there's a wide variety of stuff going on, some of which is highlighted in the list below.

• After Dark Horrorfest is taking place at Rega­l Metropolitan this week. Eight horror films are being screened, usually 1-2 per day through Nov. 18.
• This week, Alamo Ritz is showing the documentary King Corn, which premiered at SXSW this year. The theater is also screening Michael Clayton and The Darjeeling Limited daily.
• Austin Cinematheque is showing Michelangelo Antonioni's 1975 film The Passenger on Monday night at the Texas Union Theater. Admission is free.

I was so happy to hear The Paramount would be showing Blade Runner: The Final Cut here in Austin, and looked forward to seeing the movie there. I haven't seen any version of Blade Runner in a movie theater since the late 1980s at LSU's little movie theater, and that was the original theatrical version with the voiceover. (I kind of liked the voiceover myself, which is weird because I usually don't like them, but that's another story.)

Then I checked the Paramount calendar and learned they are only screening the movie during the week of Thankgiving: November 18-23. We'll be out of town that whole time, and I know we're not the only ones. Perhaps this was the only time the theater could rent the print, but it's unfortunate that they are showing a college cult favorite only during a week when many students and other Austin moviegoers will be elsewhere.

Request to the Paramount: If you could bring the film back for a weekend at a later time, a lot of us would be truly grateful.

I know the Paramount is dedicated primarily to live performances, and it looks like that week was the only time in November/December not taken up with the latest Greater Tuna antics or various concerts (and then the inevitable annual Nutcracker). However, the film isn't playing anywhere else in Austin as far as I can tell. I don't know if ­the Paramount secured exclusive screening rights for Austin, or if other theaters were uninterested -- if it's the latter, I suppose I must also be disappointed with Alamo, Galaxy Highland, Dobie/Landmark, and the larger chains. (It's showing at a Landmark theater in Dallas -- the Inwood -- the week after Thanksgiving, if any Austinites want to make the drive.)

This is one case where I will be picking a home viewing over a theatrical viewing -- giving my money to a DVD rental or purchase instead of a movie theater -- thus advancing, in a small way, a trend I hate to support. But Austin's theaters have left me no choice, at this time. Too bad.

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I knew we were doing something special for my birthday today (although strictly speaking, it's tomorrow), but my husband was stubbornly silent about the details. "We're going to get socks for Rufus [our cat]," he kept telling me. I was pretty sure we weren't going to Alamo at the Ritz's opening-night triple-feature, because it didn't start until 7, and he picked me up from work at 4:30. Also, it included a mushroom feast and my husband has a dire dread of any kind of edible fungus. I imagined all kinds of scenarios: we were going to Tea Embassy, we would have drinks with a bunch of friends, my sister secretly flew into town ... I love a good surprise, because the guessing can be almost as fun as whatever eventually happens.

When I got into the car, he said, "I lied about Rufus's socks. We're actually going on a birthday picnic," and headed downtown. I started to have a slight suspicion when we parked awfully close to Sixth Street. But I still wasn't sure we were going to the new Alamo at the Ritz -- after all, he could be trying to trick me -- until we walked in the door and my husband said to Lars, "Tim's expecting us." 

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Wednesday seems like the weirdest day of the week to be doing Movies This Week, but that's just how this week has been. I suppose I should have a spooky­ Halloween theme, but aren't you seeing that everywhere else, anyway? Here are a few of the more interesting screenings and film-related events going on in Austin for the next week.

• Alamo at the Ritz opens Thursday night and has programming scheduled on both screens throughout November. Mostly they're showing The Darjeeling Limited and the documentary Confessions of a Superhero, which premiered at SXSW earlier this year. The 10:30 pm Saturday screening of Superhero will be attended by Christopher Dennis (the Superman pictured above) and producer/DP Charlie Gruet.
• Galaxy Highland is still show­ing The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D daily -- I'm not sure I want to see a 3D version of this film, since I liked the original stop-motion just fine. Is it really an improvement on the original? Anyone? [More after the jump.]

The above photo is from this year's Fantastic Fest, during the Timecrimes Q&A: Tim League and Timecrimes writer-director Nacho Vigalondo are showing off a dance that Nacho popularized during the film fest.

I like to think that Vigalondo is somewhere doing a similar happy dance right now: Magnolia Pictures has bought worldwide distribution rights for Timecrimes (except in Spain, where the film was shot). The film had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest where the buzz was amazing -- just about everyone was gushing over the film and also over Vigalondo's delightful Q&A sessions; in fact it was almost overhyped. Timecrimes won the Best Feature award and the silver audience award at Fantastic Fest, and the only regret was that Vigalondo wasn't there to chug his beer (the awards at the fest are large beer mugs).

The film then played at Sitges, where Blake at Cinema is Dope reports the reception was not nearly so warm. So I like to think that it was the good reviews and warm fuzzies coming out of Fantastic Fest that helped this film find distribution. [ETA: Harry Knowles notes that Magnolia reps did attend Fantastic Fest this year.]

You can read my own review of Timecrimes at Cinematical. I'm pleased that many people will have the opportunity to see this movie in a theater. Magnolia plans to release Timecrimes in 2008; no word yet ­on a specific date. If you're really lucky, you may get the opportunity to see Vigalondo in person at a screening -- maybe he'll even dance a bit.

[via Matt Dentler's Blog]

­I don't like the LED screen that the Arbor uses as its main marquee, which is visible from Hwy 183. However, the Arbor has a second marquee, the old-fashioned kind, on the side of the building that faces Jollyville Road. Last week, whoever put together the marquee obviously had a sense of humor -- and was able to get away with it, too.

I think "Shadow of the Jane Austen Universe" would make a great science-fiction film.