Fans of musician Robert Earl Keen, one-time (and future?) guv hopeful Kinky Friedman, and former Dallas Cowboy Jay Novacek may have thrilled when they read this week's Film News column in the Chronicle, which reported that all three men would appear at the first ever Texandance Film Festival in New Braunfels this June. Whoops. Turns out we skimmed the press release a wee bit fast – turns out the men all cameo in Palo Pinto Gold, a Western which will screen at the festival. Of course, fans are still encouraged to show up and support their favorite musician/candidate/tight end, and in the process also support the fledgling fest, which takes place June 5-7 at the New Braunfels' historic Brauntex theatre. Go here for more info, including slate, schedule, and ticket prices.

When local microcinema Screen Door Film programmed Eagle Pennell's The Whole Shootin' Match as part of its ongoing Texas Cinema Series, they had no idea it would turn out to be a memorial screening for cast member Lou Perryman, who was was brutally murdered last month. Prior to the screening, a reel highlighting Perryman's prolific career will be screened, and we can only imagine the post-film discussion – with co-star Sonny Carl Davis, composer Chuck Pinnell, and film historian Alison Macor, moderated by the Chronicle's Louis Black – will continue the celebration of his life. The event takes place tonight at 7pm in the Jones Auditorium, Ragsdale Center, 3001 South Congress Ave., on the St. Ed's campus. As with all other Screen Door screenings, the event is free and open to the public. For more info, visit www.screendoorfilm.com.

Is searching for alternate endings to last week's browser game, Today I Die, getting frustrating? Then you might not want to read on. This next one is impossible.

This week's game is a 2D Flash version of a console sensation called Portal. The original is a first-person shooter, but instead of bullets you shoot portals into walls. Put one portal where you are and another where you want to go, and voila. Before you know it, you're thinking about infinite regressions and gravity working for you on a horizontal plane. Repeated attempts at certain levels and seemingly endless frustration is the order of the day.

The Flash version keeps the frustration but drops a dimension. There isn't anything to say that isn't on the introduction page to the game, but I miss GLaDOS. Check out her disembodied voice on the brilliant trailer for the original game.

Click here to play the game. The load time is a bit lengthy.

I don't want to hear about it if you beat level 36.

Enjoy.

You know how the GP feels about the Austin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It's a fun and sassy, emo and aggro, mostly indie festival showcasing international films with LGBTI themes, stories, subtexts, and bodies. Well the magic doesn't happen by itself, people! It takes grande dollars to put on the festival… and now it's time to pony up! AGLIFF's annual fundraising event, BLOOM, will be happening Thursday, May 21, 7-10pm at the Palm Door. The best part: You could win a Subaru! How lesbian of you! Tickets are an astounding and affordable $20, and you'll be helping one of Austin's premiere festival events! Raffle tickets for the Subaru are $20 apiece, which, if you win, is a friggin' steal! On top of all that: Rebecca Havemeyer is hosting. Hot Damn! We're hoping that if one of you readers wins the raffle, you'll volunteer to drive us to work sometime, so we can vlog about you.

Here in Austin, we treasure our movie-going experience like pirates treasure booty, so it's only fitting that the best non-Alamo theater in town is the Highland Galaxy on Middle Fiskville Road, just behind funktastic ghetto-grotto Highland Mall. The Highland was one of the first chain theaters in the country to install Texas Instruments eye-poppingly crystal-clear DLP optical semiconductor projection technology -- we caught both 3-D screenings of Coraline and My Bloody Valentine 3-D there and we're still reeling from the optacular awesomeness of it all -- and now the Highland has announced another bold move into uncharted theatrical ballyhoo territory. That would be the pending installation of a row of D-Box theater seats slated to coincide with this weekend's opening of McG's Terminator: Salvation. Despite the virtually unmarketable name, D-Box Motion Mode® technology, which utilizes either hydraulics or very small Teamsters to literally shake, rattle, and roll audience members all over the the place, sounds like a swell idea to us, or, at the very least, a great way to get your date to latch onto you once the lights go down and those seats start a'rockin'. That said, it's hardly a new idea. Similar kinetic gambits to lure dwindling audiences into theaters have been a staple of theatrical and economic downturns at least since William Castle hot-wired theatergoers butts for The Tingler way back in 1959. Ditto that for Irwin Allen's 1974 suckbuster Earthquake, which used a patented process called Sensurround® to rattle and hum viewers right into Marjoe Gortner's head. Ick! (It should be noted here that the Alamo Drafthouse has in the past replicated both of these bombastic ballyhoo strategies to better effect than even the original innovators managed.) There is, naturally, a potential downside to all this. While D-Boxing may indeed provide a fun new way for young, attention deficit destroyed gameboys (and girls) to feel like they're part of the action on-screen, we're going to bet that it's not recommended for all movies. We've done some serious thinking on the matter, in fact, and compiled a short list of five films (and there are plenty more where these came from) that we'd never, ever want to see utilizing this new, improved rump-shakin' and mind-blowing technology. Because, you know, that's what we do. We blow minds for a living. Like D-Box Technologies, yo. Check it:

Or more extravagantly, Alex Cox, noted "radical filmmaker" and director of Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, and the forthcoming Searchers 2.0, has inexplicably and, to our minds, unforgivably, blown off this weekend's scheduled salon/screenings at the Austin School of Film and the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz. Why? We're glad you asked but we're not sure the answer is going to satisfy you, chiefly because we're still scratching out heads over it. The word on Cox's sudden detour into Suck City comes from the Alamo's ever-reliable (and insanely hard-working) Zack Carlson, who rang us this past Wednesday with word that Cox, for whom the Alamo had already secured plane fare from his home in Los Angeles as well as local lodging -- as they do for all incoming cinema legends (yes, even the cast of Troll 2 -- had mysteriously balked at the layover times in his airline itinerary. Carlson emailed back to swap flights around until Cox was satisfied, but that gambit proved fruitless, netting only a final, bewildering email from one of Cox's associates which stated that, and we quote, "Alex feels he has been mistreated and has chosen to cancel his appearance." Like Carlson, we have to agree the proper reaction here is WTF?! Although we were unaware of it, apparently Cox has a reputation for prima donna shenanigans such as this; however, that was never the case with the three prior events Carlson has done with the director. "They went flawlessly," said a audibly gobsmacked Carlson, who, like Austin School of Film Programming Director Gretchen Upshaw, has been left in the proverbial lurch both financially (advance ticket sales were strong) and emotionally (it sucks to have your filmmaking heroes behave like an Andy Dick).

On April 13, 2008 the San Antonio Spurs and the Los Angeles Lakers played an important regular-season game at the Staples Center and Spike Lee was there with 30 cameras and multiple microphones to capture every move that Lakers' guard Kobe Bryant made before, after, and during the game. This unprecedented access allows basketball fans to get a feel for the game in a way they never have before unless they've shelled out thousands of dollars for courtside seats. Bryant supplies the voiceover for Kobe Doin' Work (with occasional comments from Lee), and his love for the game is obvious. For Kobe, it's all about "communication and execution" and it becomes apparent from the start of the game that he is the team's on-court coach (with all due respect for Phil Jackson). The cinematography is extremely impressive and it is fascinating to look at the current game of basketball through the eyes of one of the greatest players to ever lace 'em in the NBA. ESPN is airing Kobe Doin' Work without commercial interruption this Saturday, May 16, at 7pm. Make sure to set your DVRs now. This is must-see viewing for all hardcore ballers.

If you've already conquered the many-floored mania of last week's waste of time then you're either pretty quick with a mouse or fired. Here's to hoping it's the former.

This week we turn it down a notch (actually, a couple of notches) with a decidedly less intense experience. In fact, Daniel Benmergui is a self-proclaimed experimental game designer – a phrase that is the commercial kiss of death. If his games have goals it's to achieve the happiest ending possible. Simple controls, 8-bit graphics, a dash of poetry (sometimes visual, sometimes textual), and a bit of sociological experimentation make for a unique and addictive experience.

Benmergui's latest creation, Today I Die, is his most textually interactive. Move objects around, find new words and change your character's situation until you find a resolution that suits you.

Click here to play.

There's something about the simple graphics and imagery that imbues a simple premise with a longing in the player to ensure the character's happiness (A common thread in his Benmergui's other games: I Wish I Were the Moon, Night Raveler and the Heartbroken Uruguayans, and Storyteller).

Enjoy.

Our full review for Angels & Demons will be up tomorrow, but after watching A&D – which isn't exactly a sequel to the filmed-first/written-last The Da Vinci Code but rather a discrete, "further adventures in code-cracking" installment – we were rather struck by its international flavor. Despite a location set almost entirely in Vatican City, very few of A&D's leads or supporting players were portrayed by any actual Italians. Cases in point**: Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer as an Italian physicist; Swedish Stellan Skarsgård as the head of the Swiss guard; and American actor Dave Pasquesi (of Chicago improv duo TJ and Dave) as a Vatican lawyer doing his best with lines like, "What is word? Formi-dable". (How come in the movies whenever someone says, "How you say..." it's always for a word that translates almost exactly the same in English? Just once I'd like somebody to puzzle over how to translate defenestrate. Or xerophagy.) But our favorite non-Italian player would be Danish actor Nicolaj Lie Kass, who plays a bespectacled assassin. We didn't recognize him at first – in fact, we lost some time wondering if Dan from Real World: Miami had gotten into acting – but when we put two and two together, we realized he was the awesomely talented and brooding star of Susanne Bier's Open Hearts and Brothers (see clip below). ** Wait, we forgot one: Tom Hanks plays a guy who speaks largely in the ancient language of gibberish.