The current issue of The New Yorker has a superb article on the hard realities of marketing a big-budget studio film these days. It's written by Tad Friend and you can find it here. Depressing but true, the piece profiles Tim Palen, Lionsgate's "co-president of theatrical marketing," and it's the kind of info-crammed articulation of Tinseltown WTFery Friend does best. Good stuff to know, well-explicated, and thoroughly depressing for those of us who don't like "cheese," or at least not cheese that runs upwards of $20 million in marketing and ad costs alone. C'est la Brie.

Okay, so you've read the story, you've wept over the death of VHS, and now you're thinking of inviting the rest of Joy Division and Charles Band over for an impromptu necktie party, but wait! Hold up there, sad VHS persons (you Charles Band fans can by all means continue approaching cyanosis)! Our friends at Nakatomi, Inc. have come out with a dazzling T-shirt that'll not only provide you with instant tapehead street-cred but also doubles as a handy hanky (stop your sobbing, already), or, when all else fails, an E-Z-tear, DIY asphyxiation device. Not that it's ever going to come to that, mind you. Based on an idea by Zack Carlson and artistically executed by Justin Ishmael, we think it's better than sliced bread, but not quite as cool as Betamax or old Atari cartridges. But that's just us. Long live the old flesh!

Not to be left out of the inaugural fun (or ratings bonanza), ESPN Classic will be airing 10 hours of their Breaking Barriers program on Tuesday featuring groundbreaking African-American athletes such as Arthur Ashe, Jack Johnson, and Eddie Robinson. Today, MLK Day, they are airing seven hours of BB with programs devoted to Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and others. As far as the actual inauguration goes, SportsCenter will present live coverage of President-elect Obama’s swearing-in ceremony with Jeremy Schaap reporting from the west front of the U.S. Capitol. Schaap will also be interviewing athletes in attendance. ESPN’s inauguration coverage will include “Realizing The Dream” vignettes in which athletes talk about what the election of Barack Obama means to them. The vignettes will air within ESPN studio programming and across platforms (ESPN Radio, ESPN.com, etc.). Sports figures participating include Magic Johnson, Tom Jackson, Paul Pierce, and Craig Robinson, the Oregon State head basketball coach and brother-in-law of Obama. See below for Tuesday's Breaking Barriers schedule …

Of all the vanished video stores in Austin's storied VHS culture, the one we miss the most has to be Pedazo Chunk, which opened in 2001 in a tiny (and boy do we mean tiny) space 2009 S. First St. across from Sinsations) before moving approximately thirty feet to the left and re-opening in a considerably larger space in June of 2004. Managed and owned throughout its short life span by Dannie Knowles and her beau José "Lobo" Ramirez, Pedazo Chunk was, simply, the shit. With its emphasis on then-obscure, Region-3 Asian DVDs, Spanish-language titles, and featuring a wealth of VHS treasure, Pedazo Chunk was the epitome of the neighborhood video store hangout. They had their own digital screening room, hosted regular parties for local filmmakers (among them a then-twelve-years-old Emily Hagins, of Zombie Girl: The Movie fame) and best of all, the store came complete with an enormous back deck, replete with Tiki torches, the comforting burbling of Bouldin Creek in the background, and plenty of film fans and luminaries -- Quentin Tarantino, Tim McCanlies, Elijah Wood -- lazing about, shooting the breeze, and arguing the merits of CGI vs. stop-motion. (Harryhausen's camp always won, natch.) It's gone now, no more than another in the increasingly lengthy list of Vanished Austin venues that includes Les Amis, Liberty Lunch, and Randy "Biscuit" Turner (whose art opening/wake was held at PD on Fri., August 16, 2005; it was so successful/happy/sad that the APD showed up to mourn and/or harass Big Boys fans). Pedazo Chunk, which ceased operations in 2006, was a major hub in our life as both Austinites and cinéastes. And it was a place where, to a much larger degree than elsewhere in Austin, VHS still ruled the hearts and minds of its clientele. Accordingly, we chatted up Dannie Knowles' older-but-not-cooler brother Harry in conjunction with our recent piece on Netflix vs. indie video stores. As usual, Harry came up with some spot-on observations. Here's a few of them....

Celebrating Ana
Saturday, January 24 at 1pm.

Trinity United Methodist Church
600 E. 50th Street

A small, sweet gathering was held at La Peña to honor Ana Sisnett, the community activist, writer, poet, friend, and leader who passed away Jan. 13 after a three-year battle with ovarian cancer. An altar bearing photos, flowers, copies of Ana's book, Grannie Jus Come! and sweets had been assembled the night before, and those who attended the event gathered before it to share their memories, poetry, and laughter, and yes, tears. "Oh no," Sisnett's daughter Meredith Sisnett told the assembled. "My mother told us, 'Don't give me one of those sad, sad, everybody crying, funerals!'" Everyone recognized the spirit behind those words, and it was the perfect cue to invite musicians Olivia Prendes and Odaymara Cuesta to perform. The two women, new to Austin, who happened to be from Sisnett's native Panama, were found at a chance meeting earlier in the day. Their spirited, heartfelt singing, accompanied only by conga and rhythm sticks, was the perfect way to send the assembled out into the frigid night, a little warmer than when they arrived. Below are a few remembrances of Ana. Others are invited to share their memories by clicking on the link below. The thread will remain on the Austin Chronicle site indefinitely.

Lately I've been having a bit of insomnia, so I've taken to watching the HG network's many addictive home buying, selling, and improving shows. This doesn't make a lick of sense -- I'm frustratingly far from being able to escape from rental land, so it's kinda like a chubster choosing to pass the time with his face pressed to the glass outside a Krispy Kreme – but for whatever reason, I'm hooked. My favorite show is House Hunters, in which a rental agent takes a potential home buyer to three different properties and weighs the pros and cons; each show ends with an offer, and then a six-months-later happy ending in which the new homeowner shows off the place. I've gotten pretty good at armchair quarterbacking – marveling at open floor plans and gleaming marble islands, tut-tut'ing at laminate floor and unfinished basements. I'm an even bigger sucker for House Hunters International, having whiled away plenty of hours imagining my own Parisian garret with windowbox planters... Which is why when Ellie Nielsen's Buying a Piece of Paris: A Memoir (St. Martin's Press, $24.95) crossed my desk, I took it home and tore into it immediately. (Finished it the same night, too -- like I said, insomnia.)

A few months back we were trolling French eBay searching for some trés chic, dans la Metro-sized film posters that they do so well, when we came across the oddity pictured above. It's the French one-sheet for Samuel Fuller's lost masterpiece White Dog. Needless to say, we snagged that sucker for 40 Euros and promptly plastered it to our wall. Co-scripted by future Oscar-winner Curtis Hanson, Fuller's film is an anti-racist cri de coeur revolving around a stray German shepherd trained to attack and kill black people. Paramount Pictures had expected something along the lines of "Jaws on paws," but, Fuller being Fuller, what they got was something altogther different and far more challenging. Nonplussed, Paramount shelved the film prior to its scheduled release in 1982 and that was that until a brief art-house run a decade later. [You can read Marjorie Baumgarten's review here.] Lo and behold, Criterion, always ahead of the pack, has just resurrected the film in a sparkling new DVD edition with a pristine print, a snarly documentary ("Four Legged Time Bomb"), and more. The irony, of course, is that White Dog has finally received the attention it so richly deserved 27 years ago just as the country that birthed it prepares to swear in its first African-American President. We're pretty sure Sam Fuller would've appreciated that. We certainly do.

RED, WHITE, AND BRAVO!
Bravo has decided to celebrate the presidential inauguration by serving up a day of The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin's award-winning, progressive-leaning drama that aired from 1999 to 2006. Given the spirit of the present, the series' tagline, "The right place. The right time. The right man," seems downright poetic. The West Wing marathon is Tuesday, Jan. 20 from 9am. to 5pm. Check local listings.