Whoa! Glad we stocked up on all those crates of ammo we found at Smitty's Gun 'n' Fun the other day. Remember, kids: Aim for the head. See it for yourself (and don't forget your 20-gauge) at the intersection of MLK and Lamar Streets.

aGLIFF's new site is cute, I just love an organization that makes its goals clear. And on the website today the fest announced its own election results, as the organization says goodbye to current board president Alisa Weldon (L Style G Style publisher) and hello to Calvin Williams. From today's press release:

Calvin, a fan of gay films since he saw two men kiss in Making Love when he was 17, has avidly supported aGLIFF as a festival participant since 1989 and jumped headfirst onto the board only one week before the 2006 festival. He is thrilled to channel his experience as an educator and administrator into his role as President of an organization that brings the LGBTQI community together through film.

Additionally, the board has a new member in Hey Homo! co-organizer Chivonn Anderson. All this newly elected blood makes us thirsty… er… excited?

Despite my plea to the ether that no filmic breaking news happen while I was on vacation, the ether went ahead and broke it anyway. Like yesterday's news that SXSW posterboy Joe Swanberg would world-premiere his latest, Alexander the Last, there in a unique twin-platform release with IFC Film's Festival Direct – meaning, as the curtain goes up on March 14 at a SXSW theatrical venue, Swanberg's film will be available on video-on-demand simultaneously.

Two additional SXSW '09 titles will be available on Festival Direct – Javor Gardev's Zift and Matthew Newton's Three Blind Mice – as well as two popular SXSW 08 premieres, Joe Maggio's Paper Covers Rock and Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy (which stars new Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac).

IFC also announced its new genre sidebar, IFC Midnight, which will traffic in the scarier, sexier stuff common to midnight movies. The Texas-made Wild Man of Navidad, which played the 2008 Austin Film Festival, will be one of Midnight's first titles.

The collective of local video artists Austin Video Bee and aGLIFF are presenting a nationally touring night of queer video art. CHANNELING: An Invocation of Spectral Bodies and Queer Spirits happens this Saturday, January 24, 8:30-10:00pm at the Hideout Theater on Congress. (NoCo? I'm sorry I even thought that was a word. Vomit.) The Cockpit on San Jacinto will host the afterparty. Sounds spooky, no? It's supposed to. To wit:

The intent of the program is to re-imagine film and video as occult technologies that allow us to connect with the bodies, experiences, and emotions that are often invisible – ghostly, even – in everyday life.

Boo! (Um, Yay!) It's a veritable who's who in young queer video art. It's the best five dollars you'll spend all winter. Even better than that fiver you spent on those Obama panties. We know you've got them… we've got them too.

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