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This Week's Waste of Time
James Renovitch
Thu Nov 19, 4:08pm
Tags: TWWT
Time to dive into another 50 entrants in the Independent Games Festival. Tired yet? Luckily there are a few free web-browser games between the letters "F" and "L." Now let's see what games actually play well with others.
More Gifts for Gamers
James Renovitch
Thu Nov 19, 11:02am
So, our gaming coverage in the print edition wasn't enough for you. We understand. Luckily, we have more where that came from. Below we review A Boy and His Blob, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010, and Axel & Pixel. All three have kid appeal but only two might be appropriate for the pre-teen or single-digit aged.
Feast Your Eyes on This
Kimberley Jones
Tue Nov 17, 3:28pm
SXSW Film first tipped its hand last month by unveiling a brand-spanking-new award for excellence in Title Design. Eyeing the latest batch of 2010 panels to be announced, I think it's safe to say it: SXSW Film has a serious jones for the visual arts.
Austin Asian American Film Festival: '9500 Liberty'
Kimberley Jones
Fri Nov 13, 3:54pm
Want a seat at Saturday’s free AAAFF screening of 9500 Liberty? You might have to fight for space with State Representatives Elliott Naishtat and Mark Strama and Austin City Council Members Laura Morrison and Bill Spelman: They’re all confirmed to attend the just-added screening of Eric Byler’s new documentary about immigration policy.
This Week's Waste of Time
James Renovitch
Fri Nov 13, 12:18pm
Tags: TWWT
It's time for part 2 of what's looking like a six-part series covering the entrants in the competition category of the Independent Games Festival. Luckily we have until March, but I think I can get this done sometime in mid-December. Last week we covered entries 1 through 50. Aiming for consistency, I'll sift through entries 50 through 100 this week.
Fox Versus Grouch
Richard Whittaker
Tue Nov 10, 3:32pm
Pity poor Fox News. Not only are those poor, defenseless wretches being bullied by those nasty White House socialists, but now Sesame Street is ganging up on them.
Don't Call the Cops on This Mug
Kimberley Jones
Mon Nov 9, 12:50pm
From: ----
Subject: Expect to hear Explosions and Gunfire next week!
To: ----
Date: Saturday, November 7, 2009, 6:45 PM
Subject: Expect to hear Explosions and Gunfire next week!
To: ----
Date: Saturday, November 7, 2009, 6:45 PM
Longhorns, It's Time for Your Close-Up
Joe O'Connell
Fri Nov 6, 12:41pm
A few days after the Texas Longhorns defense, if not its offense, manhandled Oklahoma State 41-14, I went to the set of the television show The Deep End, an ABC lawyer drama/comedy shooting in Dallas, and it clicked for me: it’s all about attitude from here on out.
This Week's Waste of Time
James Renovitch
Thu Nov 5, 1:21pm
Tags: TWWT
Oh, it's a season thick with time wastability. The Independent Games Festival – set to pop off in March of next year in San Francisco – announced the entrants in the competition category. That means a record 306 video games by indie developers just waiting to be played. This is going to take a few weeks people.
AFF Announces Audience Award Winners
Kimberley Jones
Thu Nov 5, 11:47am
In what is presumably its last order of business for the 2009 fest, the Austin Film Festival just announced its audience award winners. The envelopes, please...
Whatever You Do, Don't Panic
Kimberley Jones
Fri Oct 30, 12:20pm
As a promotional tie-in to the Dec. 4 theatrical release of Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, Welles' famous, panic-inducing original radio broadcast of War of the Worlds will be streamed on the internets today at 7pm.
Austin Film Festival: 'La MISSION'
Marjorie Baumgarten
Thu Oct 29, 5:51pm
Benjamin Bratt plays a reformed convict and recovering alcoholic named Che in this film written and directed by his brother Peter Bratt.
This Week's Waste of Time
James Renovitch
Thu Oct 29, 3:08pm
This week's free online game asks the question, what if you had to play the standard run-and-jump video game without realtime visual feedback? Bored already? It's actually more fun than you think. It's more fun than I thought anyway. Does it help that this games title is Rabbit Wants Cake. Cute, right?
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Austin Film Festival: A 'Precious' Experience
Belinda Acosta
Thu Oct 29, 1:56am
The first time I picked up Sapphire’s Push, I had to abandon it. The book is raw and I was too shaken to stay with the story of an overweight, abused, African American teenager with the painfully ironic name Claireece Precious Jones.
A Winn-Winn Situation
Kimberley Jones
Mon Oct 26, 5:12pm
Tracking down Jack Rebney, that reluctant viral video hero, became something of a passion project for filmmaker Ben Steinbauer, who years ago first saw the infamous leaked outtakes of Rebney's foul-mouthed meltdown on a Winnebago video shoot and has been obsessed ever since. Funny thing about passion projects, though: They don't pay for themselves.
Austin Film Festival: 'Tenure'
Belinda Acosta
Mon Oct 26, 8:24am
Stuck in a third rate college where he really has no interest in being, Professor Charlie Thurber (Luke Wilson) is doing his best to win the tenure race.
Austin Film Festival: 'My Run'
Lee Nichols
Sun Oct 25, 8:13pm
After losing a beloved spouse, it surely must be crushing to find the will to keep going, and to keep raising your family. But Minnesotan Terry Hitchcock did keep going – about 25-30 miles a day, in fact.
Austin Film Festival: 'Houston We Have a Problem'
Cindy Widner
Sun Oct 25, 6:00pm
It can be difficult to distinguish between bullshit and wisdom when oil men are talking. That's because, as Houston We Have a Problem makes clear, they're full of both.
Austin Film Festival: 'Happy Ending'
Marc Savlov
Sun Oct 25, 4:46pm
Happy Ending is as kawaii -- cute -- as one of Takashi Murakami's manga-derived sculptures, and like Murakami's fire engine-apple red, metal-flake paint gorgeousities, there's a bubble gum heart beating at the center of this supersaturated Charms Blo-Pop of a movie. That heart poses a very serious question, though: To love or not to love?
Austin Film Festival: 'Tobruk'
Marjorie Baumgarten
Sun Oct 25, 2:45pm
Although the story of the brutal World War II battle of Tobruk has been told on film several times, it has never been told from quite this perspective.
Austin Film Festival: 'Downtown Calling'
Cindy Widner
Sat Oct 24, 11:55pm
When the New York’s Daily News famously blared “Ford to City: Drop Dead” on its front page in 1975, the paper was only making things official.
Austin Film Festival: Film & Screenwriting Awards Announced
Kimberley Jones
Sat Oct 24, 10:03pm
The Austin Film Festival announced its filmmaking jury awards today, which included a Special Jury Recognition for Independent Filmmaking for Thor at the Bus Stop (curiously not the "Awesomest Title Combining a Norse God With Public Transport" it had been picked to win).
Winners after the jump...
Austin Film Festival: Awkwardness, Onscreen and Off
Kimberley Jones
Sat Oct 24, 3:25pm
Austin-made comedy Harmony and Me finally got its Austin premiere last night, and it played great to the packed audience at the Texas Spirit Theater. Where it didn’t play so great? Up on the screen.
Austin Film Festival: 'Simmons On Vinyl'
Marc Savlov
Fri Oct 23, 4:23pm
Let it never be said that director Mark Potts doesn't know his way around a massively accurate and devastatingly comedic pop-cultural metaphor.
Austin Film Festival: 'Godspeed'
Marc Savlov
Thu Oct 22, 5:23pm
It's always a relief to kick off a festival (any festival) with a seriously great film, and this tautly wound and even more tightly paced mini-epic of love, loss, and redemption deep in the heart of God's country (aka Alaska) is nothing if not awe-inspiring.
