Joe O'Connell, the Chronicle's film-industry columnist, is a man so often wrapped in old-school celluloid or awash in hi-def pixels by way of making a living, you'd think he had fuck-all time for anything else. He wouldn't be the man to win an award for crafting an excellent prose novel, for instance. Except that he would. He's the winner of the 2009 North Texas Book Festival Book Award in adult fiction, awarded on April 17, up there in Denton. His novel-in-stories, Evacuation Plan, published by Austin-based Dalton Publishing, reveals a segmented narrative of the terminally ill, the patients’ families, and those who care for the dying. His book's an excellent, thought-provoking diversion from our own inevitable plummet toward the grave, and we highly recommend it to you, the living.

It's been rumored for years, but supposedly, finally, totally for real this time: The State is coming to DVD on July 14. Don't recognize the name? You'll recognize the faces – from Stella, Reno 911, Wet Hot American Summer, Role Models, The Baxter, Veronica Mars, Ed, and on and on – they all got their start on the short-lived MTV sketch show from the comedy troupe of the same name. Doesn't this sound like something the Alamo Drafthouse – that holy temple of super-celebrity-guests and all-things-marathon – should be all over? A girl can dream, at least... (link love: matt dentler's indiewire blog)

Like film? Like in-depth discussion of immigration reform? Then keep Friday afternoon clear. There will be a special free screening of The Least of These, Clark and Jesse Lyda's documentary about the infamous T. Don Hutto Residential Center, the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility in Williamson County, in the Capitol. The film ran as part of SXSW earlier this year and is back as part of the Cine las Americas film festival. The free screening takes place on Friday April 24 at 2 pm in the Texas Capitol Extension Auditorium (Room E1.004.) Clark Lyda, ACLU of Texas Policy Analyst Laura Martin, and Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership will be in attendance. The event is sponsored by Reps. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, and Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, and may give some traction to House Concurrent Resolution 95, their call to get ICE to use family detention only as a last resort. If you can't make that, there's another screening at the Mexican American Cultural Center (600 River) at 6pm on Monday, April 27, followed by a Q&A with the directors, Barbara Hines of the UT Law School, and Lisa Graybill, legal director of the ACLU of Texas.

Maybe all art is derivative. But sometimes, rarely, after what genius hath wrought filters down through a few generations of American culture, the inevitable spawn, so often a diluted bastard of its inspiration, actually beats the original at its own game. HBO's Grey Gardens, the anticipated bio pic of Edith "Big Edie" Ewing Bouvier Beale and Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale, accomplishes just that rare feat. The source material in this case is the groundbreaking 1975 documentary of the same name by Albert and David Maysles, filmed during a particularly hot summer at Grey Gardens, the Beales' derelict family estate in East Hampton, New York. The release of the grainy film, which examines the once haute, now absent-mindedly squalid lives of an eccentric, but still bitingly observant mother and daughter, announced a brash new approach to what was then called cinéma vérité, and brought a cult following to the Edies, who were no less fascinating in 1975 for being the forgotten Bouvier relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy. After all these years, and all of the flies on the wall it inspired, we continue to rubberneck at the Maysleses' documentary …

After four days of sitting on the Senate intent calendar, House Bill 873, the film incentive reform bill, has passed through the Senate on a 27-1 vote. Chatting briefly with bill author Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, and she put it simply. "It finally passed," she said with a grin. She confirmed what Senate sponsor Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, said yesterday: That due to an administrative error, it had been put at the top of the Senate intent calendar, and a House bill at the top of the agenda is a blocking bill, so that had to be fixed. The Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program was actually founded in 2005, but went unfunded until 2007, when the lege dropped $22 million into the kitty. But after criticism that applications were too complex for too little pay-out to be competitive, Dukes came back to clean up those problems. The new rules ups the biennial pay-out to $62 million, improves the pay-out, and does more to attract TV, adverts and video game production. The bill now heads to the governor for signing.

For a bill that everyone likes, House Bill 873, the film incentive reform package, seems to be taking a long time to get passed. It was supposed to come up for a vote in the Senate today, but that's been shoved back a day. Grabbing a quick word with Senate sponsor Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, and he explained that there's no real opposition. The problem is purely administrative: It had been put at the top of today's intent calendar this morning, but a House bill can't be top of the calendar. So that means it had to be pulled, and will be back tomorrow – in the correct part of the running order. On the positive side, Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, has now signed on as a co-sponsor. West had been unhappy with the earliest House draft of the bill because it excluded metropolitan Dallas from the definition of "underutilized and economically distressed area." With that section struck out, he's fully on-board. Bonus for Travis County: That also mean metropolitan Austin is included again.

Our love for X-Men was unceremoniously squashed by Brett Ratner's crap trilogy capper X-Men: The Last Stand, but as far as we can tell, the Ratman doesn't have anything to do with the new stand-alone feature X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It doesn't open in theatres until May 1, but Austin has a shot at hosting the premiere locally. Cities all over the country are vying for the rights (or so the 20th Century Fox press release tells us). Austin was right in the thick of the battle for a while there, but we've since dropped to #5. Would it help if we mentioned Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights) is in the film? How about if we said that around noon on Wednesday, them's in the downtown and campus areas are urged to look to the sky, where there will be a message from Hugh Jackman? (We suspect it'll be along the lines of, "Get your shit together and vote, Austin. God knows I don't want to have to premiere this thing in Hastings, Nebraska" – maybe slightly abbreviated to fit on a banner trailing a plane, though). You can vote at a special mobile voting station at 7-Eleven (1814 Guadalupe) on Thursday. Or vote online here. Polls close this Friday.

Tickets are still available for tomorrow night’s world premiere of One Peace at a Time, Turk Pipkin’s followup to his doc Nobelity, which tracked down nine Nobel laureates to discuss the world’s biggest problems. One Peace at a Time is more answer-oriented, however; according to the film’s website, “While Nobelity deals with global problems, One Peace at a Time will focus on specific solutions. The goal is to create a virtual roadmap to a better future.” You can view the opening sequence (featuring the thematically apropriate Dylan song “Everything is Broken”) as well as a Willie Nelson P.S.A. for the picture up on The Nobelity blog. The screening takes place at the Paramount Theatre on Tuesday, April 14 at 8pm. Doors open at 7pm for live music by John Pointer and food from El Chilito, Mama Fu’s, and Amy’s Ice Cream. An afterparty follows at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. For more info, go here.

Fancy a good cry? Then watch this clip from Britain's Got Talent, in which a 48-year-old, never-been-kissed Scots lady named Susan Boyle sings Eponine's tearjerker "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misèrables and brings the house down. NSFW, if you're at all inclined toward weepiness. Happy Monday.