Tweens & Teens Create: Mini Figure Painting
Monday 4, Millwood Branch Library
Summer may be drawing to a close soon enough, but there’s still plenty of summer fun left at the library. This week they’re providing a space and materials for teens and tweens to paint miniature figures, because as they say, your army could always use another member or two. Add another couple of heroes or villains to your tabletop troops among other like-minded youths, and don’t forget to grab a book, game, or movie after craft time. – Kat McNevins
30 Years of Hatch Chile Pepper
Through August 19, Central Markets North Lamar and Westgate
Rejoice with me, reader, as Central Market’s most celebrated chiles are back again for their 30th anniversary. From a single roaster in 1995 to the massive 125-ton pepper roast that goes on daily at all CM locales, the pep will be in your step as you enjoy events like a Hatch Stroll, the Hall of Flamer sweepstakes (hmm, not sure about that name, guys), and a preponderance of Hatch-related offerings among CM’s usual gourmet options. These include dry-rubbed and oven-roasted Hatch turkey breast deli meats, Hatch pepper Bloody Mary mix, and even Hatch pepper ristras to decorate your home in accordance with this special season. As for me and my house, we will serve those delicious Hatch pepper and cheddar biscuits from the bakery. – James Scott
Showgirls 2: Penny’s From Heaven
Monday 4, Hyperreal Film Club
Sequels – not as a rule, but more as a guiding principle – rarely meet the expectations set by their predecessors. That’s not really their job, to be honest, and few understand that better than this second film’s director Rena Riffel. Originally cast as Penny Slot in Paul Verhoeven’s legendary Las Vegas takedown Showgirls, the actor took her character and spun out a new story far from the strip. In her Kickstarter-funded feature, Penny takes on Los Angeles with a dream of television stardom that gets blocked by various nefarious folks. The budget may be low, as is the production quality, but there’s more than enough heart and soul in Riffel’s midnighter to merit your ticket purchase. What’re you gonna spend that money on anyway? Doggy chow? – James Scott
Career Relaunch for Parents
Tuesday 5, Pleasant Hill Branch Library
Starting a new career after having kids can be an overwhelming prospect, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Austin Public Library puts on a workshop for all folks hoping to find a new path after parenthood with HR professional Laura Niebauer leading the discussion. Her over 15 years in the industry is further boosted via bylines in online mag Scary Mommy, financial news site Business Insider, and first resort of scrappy savers, The Penny Hoarder – but most telling is her own successful career restart after having kiddos. – James Scott
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Tuesday 5, Paramount Theatre
Because I can, here’s me throwing a wasp’s nest into the relative calm of cinema discourse: I think Jeanne Dielman is better than the film it unseated in Sight & Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All Time critics poll, aka Vertigo. Although maybe my thoughts aren’t all too unpopular, given that directors like Cheryl Dunye (The Watermelon Woman), critics like Scott Tobias, and even Texas transplant David Lowery (Pete’s Dragon) ranked the quiet 1975 drama among their top 10. As slow as it is devastating, Dielman depicts in painstaking detail what the cruel drain misogyny creates within the women caught in its oppressive cycles. While Hitchcock’s beautiful tale of betrayal still earns a spot near the top, it cannot compare to director Chantal Akerman’s incredible re-creation of life’s crushing mundanities. Anyway: All responses to my opinion – spitting mad or otherwise – may go directly to mail@austinchronicle.com. – James Scott
Cecil B. Demented
Tuesday 5, Hyperreal Film Club
If there’s any evidence that 1990s Hollywood was out of its mind, it’s that there was a glorious period during which real, legitimate studios gave John Waters actual budgets and household-name actors to make his films. The guy who made movies featuring death by giant lobster rape, talking rectums, and actual poop consumption: I mean, no one is complaining, but even Waters has publicly wondered what they could have possibly been thinking. Maybe he knew they were wising up when he created the ultimate middle-finger salute to Tinseltown, with Stephen Dorff as art terrorist filmmaker Cecil B. Demented and Melanie Griffith torching her Christmas card list as the ultimate spoiled diva. Burn, Hollywood, burn indeed. – Richard Whittaker
Mallary Tenore Tarpley: SLIP
Tuesday 5, BookPeople
“Healing isn’t linear” is perhaps the most popular recovery affirmation around these days, but the shame surrounding a slip-up persists. Mallary Tenore Tarpley’s first book SLIP: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery seeks to end the stigma. Drawing from her own experience with anorexia and augmented by insights from clinicians, researchers, and others diagnosed with the disease, the UT journalism professor offers essential clarification on a highly stigmatized disorder, and the middle place between acute sickness and recovery that so many exist in. Moderated by The 19th CEO and co-founder Emily Ramshaw, this book launch promises to illuminate both personal history and journalistic excellence. – Carys Anderson
Book Swap
Tuesday 5, Slackers Brewing
Are you going to read that? No, really. Are you? If it’s sat on your shelf for years, chances are it will sit there for many more. Put that sorry book out of its lonesome misery and trade it in for something you’ll actually pick up at Slackers’ Book Swap. Give those dusty pages a chance to see the light of someone else’s eyes. We won’t tell your mom or your cozy-historical-fiction-romance-loving friend and, let’s face it, they’ve given up hope that you’d read their gift long ago. – Caroline Drew
Clueless
Tuesday 5 – Wednesday 6, Alamo Slaughter, Lakeline, and Mueller
As we all know, high school is the ideal setting for the highest drama to be played out. Ergo, the GOAT of classic literature adapted into teen movies, Clueless. Transporting Jane Austen’s Emma to a Beverly Hills high school was a stroke of genius on the part of Amy Heckerling, and the film is often regarded as the best Austen adaptation, period. The magic of Cher and Dion’s clothes, edgelord stepbrother Paul Rudd, and Brittany Murphy as Tai (of “Rolling With the Homies” and “You’re a virgin who can’t drive” fame) definitely deserves its own Drafthouse Movie Party. There are too many famous references to even fit in this blurb. – Lina Fisher
The Roxy Horror Picture Show Presents Better Watch Out
Wednesday 6, Violet Crown Cinema
Who’s for an early Christmas gift? It may not be December yet, but it’s never too soon for some seasonal cheer. OK, so maybe yuletide merriness is in short supply for this deliciously twisted riff on Home Alone, as a babysitter (Olivia DeJonge) tries to protect her charge (Levi Miller) from deadly home invaders. Host Roxy Midnite brings this twisted modern classic back to the screen as a reminder that you don’t have long to get off the naughty list. – Richard Whittaker
Adventures in Anxiety
Wednesday 6, ColdTowne Theater
Who needs therapy when you’ve got Children of the Corndog to help you process your anxiety? This “mindfulness-inspired improv revue” will run the gamut from music to montage to short- and long-form comedy. As they say, laughter is the best medicine! And the doctors are in this Wednesday and next so you can get a double dose of comedy to soothe all the anxieties that ail ya. – Kat McNevins
Shanghai Blues
Wednesday 6 & Saturday 9, AFS Cinema
Restored for its 40th anniversary, this screwball romance from 1984 – doing 1930s Shanghai – is a good intro to the comedic skills of director Tsui Hark, often referred to in the U.S. as the Chinese Steven Spielberg. During a Japanese bombing, nightclub clown Tung Kwok-Man (Kenny Bee) and the painfully shy Shu-Shu (Sylvia Chang) meet-cute taking cover under Suzhou Bridge. They swear to reunite in the same spot after the war is over, Before Sunrise-style, but when that time rolls around 10 years later, Shu-Shu is unrecognizably cool as a nightclub singer and Tung Kwok-Man is a bumbling tuba player who keeps mistaking everyone around him for his erstwhile flame – except the actual woman. Lots of physical comedy and Shakespearean mistaken identity gags abound. – Lina Fisher
Louis Sachar: The Magician of Tiger Castle
Wednesday 6, BookPeople
Louis Sachar has a knack for writing children’s stories that not only transcend the young adult section, but also evoke the same timeless relatability as stories like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. If you grew up thinking that Holes is the best book/movie of all time and find yourself returning to it for comfort in adulthood, then get excited for Sachar’s adult debut, The Magician of Tiger Castle. Sachar doing romantasy may be the escape we all need right now from technofascism-induced dissociation. Maybe the author himself can fix that at BookPeople Wednesday, where he’ll be discussing and signing the new book. – Lina Fisher
High and Low
Wednesday 6 & Saturday 9, AFS Cinema
Spike Lee’s adaptation, Highest 2 Lowest, starring Denzel Washington arrives in August, so consider this catch-up with Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 original the best kind of homework. Based on a crime novel by Ed McBain, it stars Toshiro Mifune as a guy who mortgages the house to seize control of his company on the same day his young son is kidnapped for a ruinous ransom. There’s twists from there I won’t spoil: Just know this is about three different movies in one – detective procedural, morality play, class melodrama – all excellent. Screening as part of Austin Film Society’s ongoing Newly Restored Kurosawa series, you’re going to want to see this on the big screen. – Kimberley Jones
Inky Eyes No. 2: A Quarterly Comics Mixer
Wednesday 6, Alienated Majesty Books
This quarterly mixer is for the other kind of comic, the two-dimensional, pen-and-paper kind. Whether you’re comic-curious or an accomplished cartoonist, the second installment of this quarterly comics mixer has something for all illustrators and graphic art enthusiasts alike. Local cartoonist Ashley Robin Franklin acts as your guide through Austin’s independent comic scene and beyond, inviting artists and creators to read from their work and while sketchers of all skill levels drink-and-draw and mingle among Alienated Majesty’s selection of quirky comics and graphic novels. – Caroline Drew
Priscilla
Wednesday 6, Hyperreal Film Club
She paints her eyelids black. She teases up her hair. She wanders around Graceland alone. Helmed by the queen of damned girlhood Sofia Coppola, Priscilla arrived just one year after Baz Luhrmann’s idol-worshipping atrocity Elvis to set the record straight on a whirlwind romance typically only portrayed with unquestioning awe. There’s some of that in the film, which was based on the woman herself’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me. But after the initial, inevitable wonder of a teenage dream comes agonizing isolation, abuse, and, eventually, hard-fought independence. Coppola treats Priscilla’s one-of-a-kind story with sepia-toned extravagance and a woman’s knowing empathy. – Carys Anderson
Freaky Friday Trivia
Wednesday 6, the Brewtorium
It’s been 22 years since we’ve had a Freaky Friday franchise film on the big screen, but get ready because here comes Freakier Friday, starring much of the same cast as the charming 2003 Lindsay Lohan/Jamie Lee Curtis vehicle. To celebrate, Get It Games focuses a quiz game on that 2003 version, not on the several other versions based on the 1972 book by Mary Rodgers that taught us about understanding each other by literally walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Register your team of 1-6 players starting at 6:30, and make sure to bring a charged phone for the contactless scoring system. – Kat McNevins
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.
This article appears in August 1 • 2025.
