Movie Duos, Rude Little Pigs, and More Events for the Week Ahead

POSTPONED: MLK Day March, Festival, & Food Drive

Monday 20, Texas Capitol to Huston-Tillotson University

[UPDATE: The MLK Day March has been canceled due to cold weather in the forecast. The festival will take place Feb. 1.]
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 at age 39. Being that the federal holiday was first observed in 1986, that means it’s now as old as he was when he died. Austin’s first MLK celebration happened in 1983 and has evolved over the years to its current iteration managed by Austin Area Heritage Council. Last year’s event was postponed due to inclement weather, so let’s hope for sunny skies, and take note of the new starting location: Meet at the south steps of the Capitol building for a program before marching to Huston-Tillotson for an uplifting community gathering with live music, vendors, nonprofit orgs, and more. Bring donations for Central Texas Food Bank, and keep Dr. King’s message in mind: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”   – Kat McNevins

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Sunday 19 - Monday 20 & Wednesday 22, Alamo Village, South Lamar & Slaughter Lane

In an industry that loves a sequel, how about: Are You There Hollywood Studio Chiefs? It’s an Underserved Audience, Clamoring for More Coming-of-Age Films From Kelly Fremon Craig. Seven years after her winning directorial debut The Edge of Seventeen, Fremon Craig adapted Judy Blume’s classic about an 11-year-old girl confused about her changing body and her uncertain relationship to religion, as the daughter of a Jewish father and Christian mother. Set in 1970 but totally timeless, Are You There God is such a charmer – intelligent, open-hearted, and a terrific showcase for Abby Ryder Fortson and Rachel McAdams as Margaret and her cool artist mom.   – Kimberley Jones

Born in Flames

Monday 20, Hyperreal Film Club

Underground filmmaker Lizzie Borden was born Linda but adopted the name of the famous axe murderer early. You’ll find the same spitfire spirit in her influential, super low-budget indie Born in Flames. Released in 1983, it tells the story of a murdered feminist activist, 10 years after an American revolution has done nothing to improve the lot of women. A rousing, radical feminist work with room for a multiplicity of voices, Born in Flames is essential viewing – and its depiction of rape culture and inequality is, dispiritingly, as relevant as ever.   – Kimberley Jones

Joel Kim Booster: Rude Little Pig

Wednesday 22, the Stateside

Moontower Comedy, not content to only put out during their yearly festival, brings us riches through all 12 months – including a stop from Chicago-born comic Joel Kim Booster. His work on the big and silver screen speaks volumes to his talent: This writer in particular prefers his 2022 Emmy-nominated gay comedy with a Jane Austen twist, Fire Island, above most of its queer contemporaries. (I shan’t say the movie I’m comparing it to, bro.) But it’s in stand-up where the guy really shines. If his Rude Little Pig show is anywhere near as funny as his first special, Psychosexual – which centered his experiences growing up gay and Asian American – then you won’t want to miss it.   – James Scott

Footlight Parade

Tuesday 21 & Saturday 25, AFS Cinema

Busby Berkeley was doing sexy work in the early Thirties. Maybe the finest example of his lurid choreography comes from the “By a Waterfall” sequence in 1933’s Footlight Parade. Berkeley sent 100 chorus girls in skin-tight swimsuits splashing into a crystal pool for the three-minute number, strangely suggesting a journey into the female reproductive system, through the cervix, into the womb, ending with the impregnation of a kaleidoscopic ovum – or have I lost my mind? The rest of Footlight Parade is rather carnal too, with several humorous references to prostitution.   – Brant Bingamon

Kids Create: Lunar New Year Crafts

Wednesday 22, Ruiz Branch Library

Get ready for the following week’s Lunar New Year celebrations with handmade themed crafts, all thanks to the Austin Public Library. From 4 to 5pm, while the family collects their book and media rentals, kids ages 6-10 can stop by the activity station and create paper crafts, simple sewing projects, and more, with all the supplies provided – just bring creativity! This Lunar New Year we celebrate the Year of the Snake, symbolizing renewal and transformation.   – Kat McNevins

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Wednesday 22, Hyperreal Film Club

“They never make pure comedies anymore,” I hear you whine. Well you know why? Because y’all didn’t go see and/or digitally rent the Kristen Wiig Klumps, as my friend called it. The descriptor comes from Wiig playing multiple roles in this coastal crack-up – only two, TBH, which to me disqualifies it from Klumps classification – but the true magic is in her collaboration with writing and scene partner Annie Mumolo. Together the comics pen a script as loony as any peak comedy flick: a trippy voyage carried out by two middle-aged BFFs, whose love for each other triumphs over oceanic adversaries. Come for the jokes at Florida’s expense; stay for Fifty Shades’ Jamie Dornan in a more fitting and musical role.   – James Scott

Hi, How Are You Coffee Day

Wednesday 22, Cosmic Saltillo

Near and dear to most Austinites’ hearts is the mantra “Hi, How Are You.” Originated by the late singer-songwriter/visual artist Daniel Johnston in his iconic amphibious mural, the question inspired the Hi, How Are You Project, a nonprofit that works to educate on and uplift mental health. While the big party hits on Friday, Jan. 24, when Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham take to the Paramount stage, local caffeine slinger Cosmic opens its Saltillo location to the HHAU spirit. From 8am until noon, the project’s team will be set up at the coffee bar hawking hats, shirts, YETI mugs, and more bearing the Hi, How Are You brand. However, should you only be interested in contributing to the org closer to your own coordinates, locations like Cenote, Intelligentsia, and all Radio and Houndstooth venues will be participating as well. See www.hihowareyou.org for more details.   – James Scott

Three Bewildered People in the Night

Wednesday 22 & Thursday 30, AFS Cinema

AFS describes the central relationship in Gregg Araki’s 1987 feature debut as a “disorienting bisexual love triangle,” which is possibly the most Araki-ass phrase on Earth. Araki’s guerrilla filmmaking methods of shooting sans permit on his film-school standard Bolex results in kinetic kino – a style that’d follow the filmmaker into his reign as King New Queer Cinema. See this tale of artists dating artists and be blessed by a video intro from Queer Cinema: Lost & Found programmer Elizabeth Purchell.   – James Scott

Mulholland Drive

Thursday 23 - Sunday 26, AFS Cinema

The Chronicle staff is absurdly packed with film buffs – then there’s me. My favorite movies are Friday the 13th, Midnight in Paris, The Secret Life of Pets, and Mulholland Drive. It makes no sense. But please allow this non-expert to convince you Mulholland Drive is one of the best movies ever made – right up there with Secret Life of Pets! This film is not for your conscious mind. It’s like dipping into our collective dreamscape. You could say it sticks with you, but more accurately it existed within you before you watched it: reached into you, and pulled out memories you didn’t know you had. Plus, it’s got one of the best lesbian makeouts of all film history, and that’s something I actually am an expert on because I grew up queer with access to YouTube.   – Maggie Quinlan

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Thursday 23, Hyperreal Film Club

Do I think Crank and Crank: High Voltage’s Brian Taylor will bring to his intro of this camp classic the important theory introduced by film archivist Elizabeth Purchell that the film’s villain is acutally trans masc? No, not really, though I wouldn’t leave any possibilities off the table when it comes to the director of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Gamer. One of the strangest sequels to ever be produced, Russ Meyer’s multicolored fever dream features all the best of 1970s schlock from musical numbers to skimpy outfits, drug montages to an overbearing moral conclusion. Allow Taylor (Mom & Dad) to be your guide through this mad, mad movie.   – James Scott

“Shape Shift | Grids & Surfaces”

Through February 15, ICOSA

The Eastside gallery brings two artists who, in turn, each combine two (often more) mediums into their works. Monica Mohnot combines traditional painting processes with textiles, creating a warped, visually kinetic effect that brings a sense of modern spirituality to the cultural tradition of weaving. Melding collage and sculpture, Juliette M. Miller Herrera Nickle updates a Bauhaus aesthetic using paper, grids, and much more to co-exist in two and three dimensions. Sound improbable? We recommend you see it in person and become a believer.   – James Renovitch

“The Story I Tell at Parties”

Through February 22, Ivester Contemporary

Fiction and memory exist in side-by-side apartments, easily confused by the mind whenever it misreads the building directory. Such is the subject of artist Candace Hicks’ new solo exhibition where, utilizing hand embroidery, she recounts experiences tiptoeing between real and unreal. These fabric and thread recollections weave in themes like “the cultural shift from VHS to DVD in the late 1990s and the anxiety surrounding Y2K” through crop circle imagery, Google searches, and Hicks’ first job. Decide for yourself whether Hicks’ threaded story is fact or fiction this Saturday, Jan. 18, at the show’s opening reception.   – James Scott

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Want to see all of our listings broken down by day? Go to austinchronicle.com/calendar and see what's happening now or in the coming week.