Silver Bullet With The Kingcast Live
Monday 21, AFS Cinema
Austin’s own Stephen King obsessives may have missed the full moon, but they’re bringing the lycanthropic terror with a special screening of the movie based on the master of horror’s werewolf epic. Join hosts Eric Vespe and Anthony Breznican for this special screening and podcast recording with guest and New York Times bestselling horror writer Stephen Graham Jones. Stick around after the screening as Jones will be signing copies of his new double omnibus volume containing two of his most chilling tales, Killer on The Road and The Babysitter Lives. – Richard Whittaker
Austin’s Archives & You
Monday 21, Yarborough Branch Library
Knowing your history is obviously important, but ensuring that history includes everyone is equally crucial. Learn what the Austin History Center is doing to preserve the unique story that has made and continues to make our city. Take some time to fill out their survey and ensure that the story of Austin today includes none other than you. Participants walk away with a historic map and a mug (while supplies last) – helping make history and keeping your hot beverages in place. – James Renovitch
Claudine
Tuesday 22 & Saturday 26, AFS Cinema
As the first film John Berry worked on after returning to the U.S. post-exile to France, the modest success of this Harlem romance owes less of its charm to the once-blacklisted director than it does to its writers, Tina and Lester Pine. Their script tackles the realities of racism, class, and unequal social programs, with actors Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones selling an older love affair set to a Curtis Mayfield score. AFS screens the 1974 picture as part of their current Essential Cinema special series, “On Our Way to Where: Women of ’70s Cinema.” – James Scott
Sorcerer
Tuesday 22, Paramount Theatre
There are certain filmmakers to whom you should never say “never.” One of them was William Friedkin, who ignored the accepted wisdom that a remake of a nerve-wrecking classic like 1953’s The Wages of Fear was doomed to failure. First, Friedkin would say it wasn’t a remake but a fresh adaptation of Georges Arnaud’s original novel Le Salaire de la Peur about truckers risking life and limb hauling unstable dynamite across the jungle. Second, he went full Herzog, dragging his cast and crew to Central America in the rainy season for one of the most miserable shoots ever. Those that weren’t fired often contracted malaria, everyone hated each other and Friedkin by the end of filming, and the budget-busting project was a box-office failure. But five decades later, its febrile, explosive genius is still undeniable. – Richard Whittaker
Troop Beverly Hills
Tuesday 22, Hyperreal Film Club
Gather round, you friends of mine: We’re Wilderness Girls and it’s Troop Beverly Hills time! Shelley Long brings it in this “fish out of water” tale that dominated the Eighties and Nineties. She perfectly plays a spoiled trophy wife facing divorce and trying to prove her worth by leading her daughter’s Wilderness Girls troop. Hiking up credit card charges and mountains don’t necessarily require the same skill set, but Long carries off the plucky heroine with disarming charm. Also, play “spot the future stars” within the Wilderness Girls. My favorite is Jenny Lewis as Long’s daughter, a role deliciously spoofed in the “She’s Not Me” video. Saucy green berets and patches not necessary for the viewing, but definitely encouraged. – Cat McCarrey
Grizzly
Tuesday 22, All Austin-Area Alamo Drafthouses
After Jaws was a massive success, every B-movie filmmaker leapt into the ocean to make their own sharksploitation flick. But what do you do if you’re stuck in landlocked Clayton, Georgia? You make your shark a murderous grizzly! Well, actually, it was a semi-domesticated Kodiak named Teddy, who would not roar and so had to be duped into opening his mouth wide by having marshmallows tossed to him. The Great Bites series, sponsored by the Texas Lottery, continues its exploration of movies that bit Bruce the Great White’s style with the highest-grossing indie film of 1976. – Richard Whittaker
Charitable Cheese
Tuesday 22, Antonelli’s South Lamar
Cheese is already good enough as it is, but Antonelli’s found a way to make it better: benefiting the precious pups at nonprofit Pug Rescue of Austin. The all-star cheesemongers’ megahit Cheese 101 tasting put them on the map, and this one will offer a wide variety of cheeses and snacks with an optional wine flight or other bevs. And since every cha-ching of the register sends 20% to the pugs, you can guiltlessly indulge in whatever goodies you can’t leave home without. – Kat McNevins
Try It: Pottery Wheel
Tuesday 22, Dougherty Arts Center
In an increasingly virtual world, the benefits of getting one’s hands dirty (literally) cannot be overstated. One of the most satisfying ways to gain a lasting sense of fulfillment – the antidote to endless scroll – is to make something: say, a pot or two. No experience in wheel throwing? No problem. This Tuesday at DAC, professional staff will teach people of all skill levels how to work with the wheel by centering, pulling, and shaping two original pieces, with supplies included. Best part is, within 3-4 weeks you can pick up those two original works made with your very own luck, skill, and concentrated power of will. You can register online until the 19th, but call 512/974-4040 if it says the class is full; there still may be a space left. – Lina Fisher
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Wednesday 23, Hyperreal Film Club
Peter Weir’s 1975 reverie chronicling a troop of young girls’ disappearance on a school field trip to a mysterious monolith has spawned many descendants in its thrall – Sofia Coppola, The Blair Witch Project, and any dissociative, flaxen-haired, nightgown-clad, hysteria-prone girl on a Petra Collins moodboard. Set on Valentine’s Day in early 1900s Australia, there is little plot aside from the fact of the disappearances – some girls resurface with no memory of the event, some are lost to the rock forever – but the film’s thumbprint lies in its subterranean sense of dread and awe at the mystery of the rock itself. The foggy, ethereal cinematography’s beauty hovers over a core of depression, repression, and nascent sexuality accompanying the cusp of adulthood, and Romanian folk musician Gheorghe Zamfir’s pan flute scores it like a forgotten legend. Required watching for Victorian Ghost Girl Summer. – Lina Fisher
Romance Literary Trivia
Wednesday 23, Yarborough Branch Library
Sitting on a farrago of fictional romance facts? Need everyone to know you’re an expert on literary liaisons? Find your people – up to six players per team – and get ready to test that knowledge at Austin Public Library’s romantic trivia night. Prizes go to those who know their lovey-dovey biz best, with Get It Games providing help with hosting duties. See you there, lovers! – James Scott
Stone Cold
Wednesday 23, Alamo South Lamar
Films end up the way they do for the dumbest reasons. You might think that casting former Seattle Seahawks linebacker Brian Bosworth in his first leading role would be the reason that Stone Cold is a wildly goofy action flick, but it’s 100% not his fault. He’d been doing the work with director Bruce Malmuth, the man who had helped Sylvester Stallone become a more nuanced actor on Nighthawks, but after four weeks all his footage turned out to be literally unusable. Poor Boz now had to rush to complete this underbudgeted trainwreck with former stuntman and sometime The A-Team episode director Craig R. Baxley in charge. The end result is still classic Eighties high-octane nonsense, and no one swings a punch like the Boz. – Richard Whittaker
Boogie Nights
Thursday 24, Paramount Theatre
A true ensemble feature always pleases, especially when the crew’s stuffed with generational acting talents like Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, and the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Seventies-set sophomore effort tracks the rise, fall, and re-rise of the porn industry across decades through the life of well-endowed actor Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg, here giving a career-best performance, not counting Ted or Ted 2). See it in beautiful 35 mm at the Paramount. – James Scott
Crash
Thursday 24 & Saturday 26 – Sunday 27, AFS Cinema
What can one say for David Cronenberg’s automobile-erotic thriller that isn’t conveyed through its win of the 1996 Cannes Special Jury Prize for Originality, Daring and Audacity? Based on J.G. Ballard’s 1973 novel, Cronenberg swaps the London setting for Ontario, where James Spader plays a film producer falling into a society of symphorophiliacs after his own car crash leaves him with a strange new sexual hunger. Thursday’s 35 mm screening at AFS includes a special appearance from David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials’ author Violet Lucca, with a First Light Books pop-up offering her title in the lobby. – James Scott
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 July 18 • 2025.
