Richard Linklater

While other media outlets want to let you know which movie the Austin Film Critics Association picked for Best Film, and how many awards other notable movies won, here at Slackerwood we like to lead with  Austin news. So I'm happy to tell you that the AFCA announced its 2012 awards this morning and Bernie, the Richard Linklater dark comedy starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine (not to mention Sonny Carl Davis), won Best Austin Film. Read Don's review and then watch the movie if you haven't already.

In addition, the critics group recognized Austin native Matthew McConaughey with a Special Honorary Award for his excellent acting in four movies this year -- not just Bernie but also Magic Mike, Killer Joe and The Paperboy.

Zero Dark Thirty won Best Film, in case you were wondering, and Paul Thomas Anderson was named Best Director for The Master (Don's review). Zero Dark Thirty won't open in Austin until January, unfortunately, so you'll just have to take our word that it's a very good movie.

The full list of awards plus the Top Ten, which includes one film from a native Texan, is after the jump. (Full disclosure: I am President of AFCA and Debbie Cerda is a member.)

The Sundance Film Festival has announced most of its 2013 film program, which includes a pleasantly surprising number of films from the Lone Star State. Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater will premiere Before Midnight, the sequel to Before Sunset (2004) and Before Sunrise (1995), with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (pictured above) reprising their roles as their characters cross paths again. Local company Stuck On On was involved in the movie's post-production.

Take Shelter director Jeff Nichols' new film Mud, starring sometimes-Austinite Matthew McConaughey, native Texan Joe Don Baker and Reese Witherspoon will have its North American premiere at the Utah festival, having wowed audiences and critics alike at Cannes earlier this year. Young actor Tye Sheridan (Tree of Life) from Elkhart, Texas, stars as one of the young boys who befriends McConaughey's title character. As with Take Shelter, Nichols utilized Stuck On On for sound post-production and Austin composer David Wingo for Mud.

Writer/director Andrew Bujalski's locally shot movie Computer Chess features man versus machine during a chess tournament in the 80s. To create a more authentic look, Bujalski located old computers through local hobbyists as well as Austin's Goodwill Computer Works Museum, which features more than 100 working vintage computer systems. The cast includes Wiley Wiggins.

Dallas filmmaker Yen Tan's Pit Stop, shot in Austin, features local actors John Merriman, Heather Kafka and Jonny Mars as well as native Texan Amy Seimetz (Tiny Furniture, Sun Don't Shine). David Lowery co-scripted; he first worked with Yen Tan on the 2005 dramatic anthology Deadroom, which Lowery edited and both he and Tan produced and directed. As you'll learn below, this is not the only Sundance 2013 film in which Lowery is involved. Nor is it the only Sundance film involving Mars and producer Kelly Williams.

Move over, Waking Life – Bernie is my new third-favorite Richard Linklater film.

Why isn't Bernie my favorite or runner-up? As good as the film is, Slacker and Dazed and Confused have earned their rightful places at the top of my list of Favorite Linklater Films and probably will stay there forever. Pap Smear Pusher and David Wooderson deserve nothing less.

Bernie, however, is arguably the best Linklater film in a decade, an uproariously funny and engaging movie based on one of those only-in-Texas stories that would be the stuff of great fiction if it weren't astoundingly and painfully true.

Based on a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth, who co-wrote the screenplay with Linklater, Bernie is the story of Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a Carthage, Texas mortician who in 1990 befriended elderly widow Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) after her husband's funeral. Tiede became Nugent's business manager and constant companion, tending to her needs and traveling the world with her for several years. Their relationship became the talk of their small East Texas town, the subject of much speculation and gossip about why the well liked thirtysomething Tiede took such an interest in the crotchety septuagenarian Nugent, who vied for the title of the town's most hated person. The most common theory had to do with Nugent's multimillion-dollar fortune, which she left to Tiede in her will.

Last Sunday at the Paramount, Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater opened up what was originally a cast-and-crew screening of his latest movie, Bernie, to the public as a sneak-peek fundraiser for Bastrop wildfire relief. The dark comedy was shot in Central Texas, including Bastrop and Austin. At last count, I heard that the event raised more than $70,000.

I was on the red carpet to catch a few photos of Linklater and one of the film's stars, Jack Black, who attended the screening. I probably don't need to tell you that's Black in the above photo. A lot of fans showed up with items for Jack Black to sign, ranging from posters to shirts to guitars. He was very accommodating, as you can see below.

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.

Here's the latest Austin film news, along with some special screenings and events.

• Last week, I wrote about the Austin films that will screen at Cannes, some of which have screened here already. Now you can see Kyle Henry and Carlos Trevino's short film Fourplay: Tampa here in Austin before it plays the Cannes Film Festival. aGLIFF and Austin Film Society are sponsoring a benefit screening to raise completion funds for the film. Catch Fourplay: Tampa on Saturday, April 30 at 1 pm at Alamo Ritz.
• Austin is also getting some representation at Ebertfest in Champaign, Illinois this weekend. Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater will be at Roger Ebert's film festival on Friday to screen his delightful 2009 movie Me and Orson Welles. In addition, Natural Selection, the Smithville-shot film that swept the SXSW Narrative Feature awards this year (Ebert was on the jury), will play the festival.
• If you're here in Austin this weekend, don't forget the Hill Country Film Festival, which takes place Thursday through Saturday at the Stagecoach Theater in Fredericksburg. Sounds like a great opportunity for a short road trip.

Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez and other famed Texas filmmakers may be household names now. But like most filmmakers, they launched their careers with low-budget, largely unseen short films.

Despite the later success of these Texas cinematic giants, their early works remain relatively obscure and are rarely screened. So, if you're a Texas movie buff like me, you won't want to miss the upcoming "Texas Legends, Before They Were Legends" program, which presents a collection of first short films from some of Texas' most successful and cherished filmmakers. Presented by the Texas Independent Film Network, Austin Film Society and Screen Door Film, the program includes the following films:

• Bottle Rocket (1992), by Wes Anderson. This short (pictured at right) is the basis for the full-length feature version of Bottle Rocket, released four years later.
• Styx (1976), by Jan Krawitz. This documentary is an impressionistic view of the Philadelphia subway system.
• Woodshock (1985), by Richard Linklater. This documentary captures the mayhem of the 1985 Woodshock Music Festival in Dripping Springs.

The Austin Film Critics Association announced their annual awards on Tuesday. The best movie of the year honor went to director Kathyrn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, a drama about a bomb disposal unit based in Baghdad, Iraq. Bigelow was also awarded Best Director, and the film, which played SXSW 2009, won the Best Cinematography category for Barry Ackroyd's work.

The Austin Film Award, given to a movie directed by a local filmmaker or shot in Austin, went to Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles. The film, which Jette reviewed, also won an award for Best Breakthrough Performance by Christian McKay, who played Welles.

The local critics' group awarded Best Original Screenplay to Austin favorite writer/director Quentin Tarantino's WWII-era movie Inglourious Basterds. Best Actress went to Melanie Laurent for her performance in the film, which we reviewed, with my personal favorite Christoph Waltz winning Best Supporting Actor.

Best Actor went to Colin Firth for his role in A Single Man, which has not yet had an Austin release, and Anna Kendrick received the honor of Best Supporting Actress for Up in the Air, which opens Friday in Austin.

The Austin Film Critics Association, of which Slackerwood editor Jette Kernion is a member, also voted on the top movies of the decade, a list headed by the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

You can read the full list of awards after the jump, including Top Films of 2009 and the Decade.

I am not only a sucker for 1930s comedies, but I also love movies that are set in the 1930s. The dialogue! The costumes! The music! And especially the hats. I love a good hat in a movie, right up there with a well-written script and a lack of treacly sentiment.

Fortunately for me, Me and Orson Welles has a well-written script, no treacle, and lovely Thirties period costumes, including a few sharp hats. The latest film from Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater is set in New York City in 1937, when Orson Welles decided to stage Julius Caesar at the newly dubbed Mercury Theater. Local screenwriters Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo, Jr. adapted the novel by Robert Kaplow.

Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater and actor Christian McKay were recently in town for the regional premiere of Me and Orson Welles. This is McKay's first major film role -- he plays Welles, staging his now-famous version of Julius Caesar in 1937. Zac Efron plays a teenager who is pulled into the whirlwind of the stage production.

I managed to catch up with Linklater and McKay before the red carpet and talk about the film. Here's what they had to say.

Christian, you've done Orson Welles on stage, and now on film -- how do the two feel to you?

Christian McKay: They are completely different characters. On stage, I played him up to the age of 70  with a fat suit -- my dad used to say you don't need that -- and the stick-on beard. To play him right at the beginning of his career, at 22 starting out with the Mercury Theatre -- it's extraordinary, it's a brave time. To make such an astonishing success of it, that it is still considered one of the greatest Shakespearean performances in North American theatre history. It's just amazing and this is of course before War of the Worlds and Kane, to do all that by the time you are 26.