Film News

Rodriguez Eyes Fourth 'Spy Kids'

Here's the challenge: an entire column of items generated from Facebook leads. I smell a three-dot column!... Robert Rodriguez is actively considering a fourth Spy Kids film? That's what The Los Angeles Times reports in a blog post mainly about Mr. R's plans for Predators, a revival of the Predator films based on a script he wrote 15 years ago when the special effects couldn't keep up with his imagination. Rodriguez will produce, not direct. And Rodriguez's Machete will be co-directed by Ethan Maniquis, who previously edited Planet Terror. Machete is gearing up with a call for unpaid production assistants to work through September. E-mail your résumé to machetethemovie@yahoo.com. And there's an open extras casting call for the film this Saturday from 11am to 6pm at 1901 E. 51st in the Red Building at Austin Studios. Bring a nonreturnable photo. For more info, call Beth Sepko Casting at 472-5385 x1. Rodriguez's latest kids' movie, Shorts, has its regional premiere at the Paramount Theatre at 2:30pm on Aug. 16. Get tickets, naturally, at www.gettix.net. And finally, on a personal note, Rodriguez confirmed his engagement to Rose McGowan last week in a Latina Magazine interview... The Austin Film Festival announced Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13) as its recipient for the 2009 Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award... Duane Graves recently discovered his Texas Bigfoot feature The Wild Man of the Navidad, co-written and co-directed with Justin Meeks, was nominated for a Golden Trailer award for best voiceover but lost to Tropic Thunder. The Golden Trailers honor the best in movie marketing tools. The film is out on video Aug. 11... Andrew Shapter celebrates the release of his documentary Happiness Is at 5pm on July 30 at Waterloo Records & Video. It looks closely at the notion of the pursuit of happiness in America. The film will also screen that night at 9:30pm at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. The screening, which benefits Mobile Loaves & Fishes, is free, but you'll need to reserve tickets at www.happinessisthemovie.com... Bob Ray reports that a 10th anniversary party is in the works for his most excellent Rock Opera and will include bands featured in the film. The event might also include screenings of advance footage from Ray's upcoming film Total Badass. The clock is also ticking on free showings of his roller derby doc Hell on Wheels at www.snagfilms.com... Producer Robin Blesch, owner of WPFG Studios and creator of the Wolfpack Film Group, is putting on a monster Texas film party in Austin on Aug. 8 to celebrate the increased Texas film incentives program recently approved by the Legislature. The event starts at 7:30pm in a hangar behind Omega Broadcast (817 W. Howard) and is free to those ages 21 and older with donation of a nonperishable food item for the homeless... Susanne Mason's doc Writ Writer, which examines the Texas prison system, was recently awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association in a ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.... Congrats to Turk and Christy Pipkin (Nobelity), who retied the knot in Paris last week some 25 years after their original nuptials and Paris honeymoon.

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