Short Cuts

Critics and film buffs alike passionately argue the virtues of legendary director Samuel Fuller, whose films brought to the screen politics atypical to the movie industry and the brutal violence Fuller experienced during bouts as a soldier and crime reporter. Possessed of a truly independent spirit, his films spanned genres from westerns and war movies to thrillers and gangster pictures -- all of them underpinned by controversial and highly original investigations of steadfast American ideals. Fuller turned the same inspection to the medium of cinema itself, pulling out all the technical tricks to create an expressiveness that is virtually unprecedented. Due in part to the popularity of contemporary directors who have acknowledged Fuller's influence on their own works (including Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Tim Robbins, and Quentin Tarantino), his movies are enjoying a kind of renaissance; the director's career was recognized last year in the documentary, The Typewriter, The Rifle, and the Movie Camera. This week begins an exciting 11-film retrospective, Cinema Fist: The Films of Samuel Fuller, brought to the big screen by the Austin Film Society (AFS). The program of free Tuesday night screenings at the Texas Union Theatre begins this Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 9pm, with Forty Guns, an outrageously melodramatic western starring Barbara Stanwyck...

Other screenings around town next week include Stealin' Home -- a new independent film by Dallas filmmaker John Carstarphen -- a romantic comedy that reflects a unique southern African-American experience in its exploration of Nineties relationships. AFS is sponsoring the Austin premiere of this first African-American feature film shot in Dallas in over 50 years on Thursday, Feb. 27, 7:30pm at the Dobie. Carstarphen will be in attendance with producer Rebecca Rice to introduce the film and answer questions following the screening; admission is free. The Chicano/Latino Film Forum is presenting Words of Our Ancients, a documentary (just back from Sundance) on the Hopi tribe by local filmmaker Paige Martinez on Monday, Feb. 24, 7pm at the Dobie; admission is $2. And check out The Learning Channel on Saturday, Feb. 23, 9pm for recent Austin transplant Ramzy Telley's The American Bullfighter, a documentary feature on rodeo clowns shot primarily at the National Rodeo Finals in Las Vegas...

The Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers meets Monday, Feb. 24, 8pm, at the Electric Lounge to discuss this month's topic: women in multimedia. Speakers will include Cyndy Kirkland, director of local women's film collective REEL Women; Amanda Johnston, director of WATER (Women's Access to Electronic Resources); and Amy Janota, head of Austin Webgrrls...

Austin filmmaker Jim Shelton's short Beyond Babylon, which was completed with a grant from the Texas Filmmakers' Production Fund, has been recently accepted by both the SXSW Film Festival and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival...

And news just in from SXSW reveals that Grosse Pointe Blank, a new movie written by and starring John Cusack has been added to the Film Festival line-up, and L.M. Kit Carson, the famed screenwriter (David Holzman's Diary, Breathless) and actor (Running on Empty and Sundance "buzz" film Hurricane) has signed on to participate in the Film Conference