Earth, Wind, & Honeycut Makin’ the Cut
SF electronico madmen Honeycut rock the SX soulfully.
No Man Purses
SXSW’s first day review
“Thank You – Now Get Off Me”
What happens when a documentary film maker gets a little too close – literally – to a subject they don’t like?
The Hudson-Suckah Proxy
Austin Music Award winners (“Best Folk”) the Hudsons play SXSW.
Rock & Royalty
The Austin Music Awards were changed forever by a lanky old guy named Pete.
Ode to M’Lady (and Her Kin)
Where would I be without Margaret?
How to ride the bus
No car = no worries.
Mumblecore and Murder
At SXSW 2005, Mutual Appreciation sound mixer Eric Masunaga half-jokingly coined a name for a mini-movement or scene or school or what-have-you. It’s made up of filmmakers around the country who were then working independently, producing microbudgeted slices of twentysomething life, marked by a fumbling inarticulacy in their talk and an exacting clarity in their…
Seen and heard #2
At the Radio Shack on Oltorf & Congress: I had to make a battery run and the person helping me got into a testy phone call while he was checking me out. I got curious when I heard him say “Convention Center,” assuming (rightly) that a South-byer needed some portable juice too. When I asked…
Seen and heard #1
We are the world on the Cap Metro.
Can you find this stall art?
Debate on a bathroom stall.
Mastodon’s ‘Blood Mountain’ Flows Into Austin
Coming down the mountain with Mastodon
The War on Rhythm
Watch W and his girls go wild in Brazil.
An Attack in Geezerville
Caligiuri vs. Conquest
GP @ SXSW
K8’s picks for tonight, Wednesday, March 14.
When You’ve Lost John Cornyn …
The administration’s dead enders are starting to desert Gonzales.
What You’re Toting
So what exactly is the fashionable film conference attendee wearing on their shoulder?
L Upon L on SL
Austin Second Lifer Memory Harker checks in on the L-Word village.
The Roller Derby Invades SXSW
Video killed the radio star, but television revived the Roller Derby. A much blathered about contact sport, today associated with tough girls, tattoos, and tantrums, the Roller Derby owns a tortuous history, which begins in the Thirties, when film publicist Leo Seltzer was hard up for a new pastime to broadcast. With dance marathons and…
A Corking Week in Soccer
It’s a corking week in soccer around the world, really – Chelsea’s splendid comeback to tie Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup (earning a replay with their North London rivals this coming Monday) … the Houston Dynamo’s Champions Cup showdown with Mexican giants Pachuca this Thursday … the last week of the regular season for…
Frag The Market
What women gamers are saying about how companies are marketing to them?
“Joe Swanberg’s Quiet City”
That can’t be right. Aaron Katz wrote and directed Quiet City, which premiered yesterday and will play two more times this week (4pm March 14 and 1:30pm Mar. 16, both at the Alamo South Lamar). Didn’t he? He did, but there’s a funny story here. Better to let Joe and Aaron tell it in their…
Toby Futrell Put This Porn on My Computer!
Texas Monthly’s Mike Levy tells council what for in EMS porn scandal.
Bedtime for Gonzo?
Please, please resign!
Quick, to your blogs!
Just as the geeks begin to disperse, Viacom sues YouTube for over $1 billion in copyright damages. Hey! Everybody come back so we can discuss it in person! Had Viacom’s announcement preceded this panel, how different it might have been. As it is, my heart’s still with the audience member who quite reasonably pointed out…
Everything Should be Made of Brass
There’s a new contender for weirdest SXSW party so far.
UT Women’s Basketball Coach Jody Conradt Retires
Jody Conradt confirmed Monday night what Lady Longhorn basketball fans had wondered about for weeks – would the iconic women’s coach retire this year? After two consecutive disappointing seasons, logic held that she would. But the suddenness of her announcement – just 15 minutes after learning of the team’s failure to qualify for the NCAA…
So This Is What City Sponsorship Brings
The city of Austin dispenses some SXSW pointers.
Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Who’s complaining about all the fun we’re having?
Up, Up, and Away … to SX!
Superman and the Hulk dropped by to talk about their new movie – no, not like that.
How to Maim an Editor
Shawn Badgley eats some lead
Don’t Blog This, Or I’ll Sue!
By acting like bloggers, are journalists leaving themselves open to litigation?
Texas Drug War Prisoner Will Be Freed
Tyrone Brown: Time Don’t Fit the Crime
Bong Hits 4 Free Speech!
When the Olympic Torch Relay came through Juneau, Alaska, in 2002, high school senior Joseph Frederick was ready: as the relay passed through the neighborhood Frederick stood on the sidewalk – not school property – and unfurled a large banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” What, exactly, that meant is open to interpretation. Could…
Wranglers Lose 60-51 to the Georgia Force in Atlanta
After winning their season and home opener last weekend over the Las Vegas Gladiators 57-36 Austin traveled to the Philips Arena in Atlanta and lost to the Georgia Force 60-51 Sunday afternoon. After trailing for most of the game Austin got within two with 46 seconds left and made a failed onside kickoff attempt which…
The Insane Route
AUDIENCE OF ONE Q&A at SXSW premiere
ABC Kicks Everyone’s Ass in the Headline Race
What else would you call an article about a queer pro ball player hired to sell razors?
Sim Butterfly, Real Fun
What was the cool toy at the Screenburn Arcade?
The Rev. Billy to the Rescue!
The good reverend and his Stop Shopping Gospel Choir vowed to fight the Northcross Wal-Mart.
Stairway to level 3
Rants about level 3.
More reasons to hate level 3
More ranting about level 3.
Doh! Homers love SXSW
For many indie films, fests like South By Southwest function as cast and crew screenings. Moms and Dads fill the seats. Cousins and extras and gaffers laugh at anything and everything. But the crowd at the Dobie to see Love and Mary Sunday night might set a new record for homerism. First a second screen…
Fictional Blogs
When is a lie a good lie? Fictional Bloggers and the people who read them, love them, hate them.
Brothers Gonna Pull It Out?
That myth of the brother on the down low? Shhhhh, keep it on the DL.
Spider House Is Home
Where Getty gets her fix. No promotional considerations. Jus’ luv.
It’s Like She Was Reading Our Horns
Sarah Silverman, Jesus, and Unicorns are magic.
The Mountain Goats Gruff
Getty’s got the Mountain Goat on the horn.
No Fruits Among the Fruits
Getty gets in trouble in the produce section, and it has nothing to do with a cucumber.
Bareback Mountin’
If wranglin’ deals at SXSW ain’t your scene, try cows.
Cloud Cult Following
Kate Getty raps with the man behind the (cloud) cult.
Free Bling!
What’s the fashinable gamer wearing this season?
Gore to Go
Roth laid low by mystery illness, the Borderland team fill out today’s horror panel.
Review: The Green Room
What’s it like in Room 19A (or is it 19B), the extremely well-hidden lair for panelists awaiting deployment? Nobody’s huddled on the floor around the available outlets, for one thing. There’s a TV that isn’t even on. But it’s the little touches–the abstract sculpture, the potted plants, the tiny Perrier–that makes a visitor sad to…
Blue Grass Pride
The Kates love Kentucky even more now.
Tales of Bill Paxton
James Cameron – nicer than you know, according to Texas Film Hall of Fame inductee Bill Paxton.
How to become a film writer
A SXSW volunteer has been here all along
‘Possession Arrow’: Badgley
They have made their selections, and I’m split between bliss and extreme bitterness.
Conversations in Line
Re: Elvis & Anabelle: Director Will Geiger and his crew “captured the colors of the Texas sunset perfectly.” Couldn’t be truer. This beautiful, quirky love story, filmed in Austin and Pflugerville, hypnotized in hues of blue and pink skies and bright yellow sunflowers. And actors Max Minghella and Blake Lively (whom you might remember as…
How To Make A Balloon Animal
Learn how to make a puppy with the people from TWISTED: A Balloonamentary.
Time to Grind
What happened at this morning’s Grindhouse Q&A?
Campaigns for and Against
So my Saturday started with another scolding from David Hartstein because I missed the Friday midnight screening of Mulberry Street, during which he had texted messages like “RATS!” “RATS!!!” and “MULBERRY STREET, MOTHERF***ER!!!” to let me know the self-imposed ruination of my Festival experience had begun in earnest. He tells me little more than he…
Shark v Zombie … Who Would Win?
Time for some home movies with Robert Rodriguez.
Dancing With the Stars
Dancing With the Stars TV show at 7pm; dancing in the lobby at 6:30pm.
So, What’d You Shoot On?
Maybe I should care, but I don’t. I so don’t care what camera a filmmaker uses or what film or whatever. But it’s the same every time. No Q&A is complete without The Question: “So, what did you guys shoot on?” And The Question only leads to more of the same: funding, distribution deals. Yuck.…
“Big Bucks, Big Pharma”
“Big Bucks, Big Pharma” 2005, NR, 45 min. Directed by Ronit Ridberg, Narrated by Amy Goodman. Pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry to expose the insidious ways that illness is used, manipulated, and in some instances created, for capital gain.
Kenny
If you can only see one movie this Festival. If you work late hours, and think the daytime hours are for the birds. If you have any sense of humor at all, my money’s on Australian hit Kenny, a Jacobson family mockumentary about Kenny Smyth and his business of poo. Seriously. This is some of…
Timing Is Everything
Planning on seeing a film or go to a panel on Sunday? Well, don’t forget to push those clocks ahead an hour for Daylight Savings Time. Remember, spring ahead – or face a harsh landing.
Bridging the Online Cultural Divide
The panelists: Journalist Laina Dawes, Writing is Fighting. Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Editor of Feministing.com. Jason Toney, Lead Producer, Disney Online (formerly blogster of Negro Please), and Lynne D. Johnson, Senior Editor of fastcompany.com Wow. All black and brown faces on this panel. It makes me happy and sad to say that. Happy because diversity is good…
The third level of the CC
Mild rant on the Convention Center’s third level.
The Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
The Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping take on Starbucks.
Writing Rawks!
Sitting in on Writing, Better.
Life after ‘Arcadia’
Joan of Arcadia star gets bloody
For the Out-Of-Towners at the Film Festival
Hint for people attending the film festival – don’t just hang around the convention center.
Michael Moore’s Minions
Manufacturing Dissent, a documentary that takes a close look at the fimmaking methodology of Michael Moore, is making its world premiere at SXSW. Made by a couple of leftist political activists from Toronto, Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine, the film comes not from the usual right-wing bashers of Moore but instead from a couple of…
Lookout!
The Lookout premieres at the Paramount.
Meow!
Ann-Margret arrives at the Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards
Canadians rock, eh?
The Trailer Park Boys rock SXSW!
Conventioneers, Start Your Panels!
So what happened at the first SXSW panel? Enquiring minds want to know.
Masters of Our Domain! Part 2
New shopping village commissions local artists.
‘NFL Analysis 101’: The Last of the Southern Belles
Good day, my pupils. We need to dive right into the heart of our subject. Since last we met, much has happened all across the NFL, but no team has made a splash like Detroit, and the cold waves can be felt from coast to coast. By trading defensive end James Hall to St. Louis,…
A Pig Fetus + Robots + Pizza = This Weekend
A weekend’s worth of noise.
Johnnie Taylor, Soul Man
Johnnie Taylor’s Live at the Summit Club gets released.
Google Metro
Google can now help you plan your bus trip.
When the Smoke Clears, Things Look Pretty Unfair
Blacks and Hispanics get the short end of the joint in NYC
Aloha Marijuana
Legalizing pot could save money AND make money? Pinch me, I must be dreaming!
John Inman, 1935-2007
British actor, John Inman dies
SXSW Platters
Future Clouds & Radar (The Star Apple Kingdom) Guitarist for Austin’s former Cotton Mather, Robert Harrison is nothing if not ambitious. The debut of his new local act, Future Clouds & Radar, sprawls like Tolstoy over two CDs, which would’ve amounted to at least six sides in the White Album era. An amorphous entity with…
I-35 Makeover Update
Plan in the works for making bridge over I-35 between Sixth and Eighth streets more hospitable to pedestrian traffic.
State Fair
Recognizing the pictures, but also the kinds of spirits who appreciate them: the Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards
… Vs Liger?
New Zealander Taika Waititi doesn’t mind if you compare his charmed comedy to Napoleon Dynamite
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
How to keep your moons sparkling
SXSW Platters
Peel(Peek-a-Boo) Austin has a deep commitment to the slacker ethic, which, despite a common misconception, isn’t an enervate impulse. The slacker doesn’t lack drive but rather is so overwhelmed with the paradoxical possibilities of boredom that embracing purposelessness becomes an ethical imperative. Enter Peel. The local quartet’s self-titled debut is a sonic slacker treatise and…
Minimum-Wage Delays
Republican pork tax breaks are holding up the much ballyhooed minimum-wage raises Democrats promised
Road Movies
Lisa McWilliams’ Mobile Film School
In Stereoscope
Sarah Lipstate’s songs – and shorts – of innocence and experiments
Oops!
Our latest batch
SXSW Platters
Grand ChampeenDial T for This (In Music We Trust) Fourth time’s the charm! Grand Champeen has had its flashes of brilliance in the past, but where 2003’s The One That Brought You fired far more bar band than studio savvy, Dial T for This overflows with pop hooks that would make Cheap Trick purple with…
Naked City
Quote of the Week “Clean darky.” – KVET deejay Sammy Allred, satirizing Joe Biden’s characterization of Barack Obama as a black candidate who is “clean.” The remark drew complaints, and spineless KVET management suspended Allred. Headlines• Wal-Mart representatives visited Northcross Monday for an open house intended to impress upon residential neighbors, mostly opposed to the…
This Month Only
From turtles to “The Next Tim Day”
TV Eye
So long, Sarah; hello, Halfway
So, Basically, Breakfast Tacos and Free Beer
Enjoying good food and drink for $10 a day during SXSW
SXSW Platters
Wolf & CubVessels (4AD) Time to put to rest the comparisons bet-ween Wolf & Cub and countrymen Wolfmother based primarily on the names. The latter play bong-quaking retro rock, while the former deliver bong-rattling retro rock. Touring together hasn’t helped matters, but there are more-than-subtle distinctions between the bands. And it’s a difference that’s as…
Detention Center Lawsuits Begin
ACLU files 10 lawsuits on behalf of immigrant children who were detained at the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center in Taylor
Like Out of a Movie
The legend of Alejandro Gomez Monteverde
What’s Past Is Prologue
Recreating classic tap routines from the screen and stage opens an exciting new future for Tapestry Dance Company
Grub Us Up and Grub Us Down, Cookie
Eating the cowboy way with breakfast at Auditorium Shores and dinner at the Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo
SXSW Platters
The Holmes BrothersState of Grace (Alligator) No surprise that Willie Nelson, Van Morrison, and Peter Gabriel wanted to perform with NYC’s Holmes Brothers. The trio – skinbeater/singer Popsy Dixon, low-end shepherd/vox Sherman Holmes, and strummer/ivory tickler/vocalist Wendell Holmes – is an out-and-out jukebox of African-American music. More proof on State of Grace, their 10th album…
TYC Trouble
Mounting frustration in Lege over Perry’s lack of action toward allegations of sexual abuse and cover-ups within TYC facilities
Before the Flood
In the struggle between local environmentalists and developers, Laura Dunn’s documentary reminds us, Barton Springs was only the beginning
‘My Trip to Al-Qaeda’: Lawrence Wright’s journey from page to stage
Lawrence Wright’s experiences in the years he spent researching The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 have become the basis for a one-man theatrical work
Food-o-File
Remembering Russell Altenhof; plus, the Food Network finds us so irresistible that they’d like to put us on a plate and sop us up with a biscuit
SXSW Platters
Sunny SweeneyHeartbreaker’s Hall of Fame Honky-tonk heartbreaker Sunny Sweeney screams country. Make that twangs. Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame doubles as the twentysomething’s local debut, but it demonstrates the self-assurance of someone much more accomplished. Backed by a who’s who of countrymen – drummer Tom Lewis and guitarist Tommy Detamore, who are also responsible for production,…
Happenings
March 8, 2007 – Wednesday, March 14
Property Value
Andrew Garrison on how Houston artists and inner-city neighbors rebuilt a community
Gallery Lombardi: A little farther from the train tracks, but the art still rocks
Gallery Lombardi has left its longtime home on Third Street for new digs on West Seventh, but you can expect the same great salon-style group shows for which it’s known
TCB
Beyond borders with Austin’s Lonesome Heroes, U2 tribute band Mysterious Ways, Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey, and a bunch of SXSW international bands with their fingers crossed.
SXSW Platters
Loney, DearLoney, Noir (Sub Pop) If Scandinavian freak-folk needs a savior, then Sweden’s Emil Svanängen may be it. Performing and recording under the Loney, Dear moniker, Svanängen has been haunting his parent’s basement for years, cranking out rather twee recordings that share sonic wavelengths peculiar to Brian Wilson and the transcendent, clairvoyant Sufjan Stevens. Backed…
Racial Fairness in the Criminal Justice System
Activists, academics, advocates gather at Columbia to address issue of racial fairness in criminal justice system
Call-and-Response
Marcy Garriott on the intricate dance between documentarian and subject
Arts Review
Rarely has Austin seen a play or production with as much of a social conscience as Naomi Wallace’s Slaughter City, as staged by the UT Department of Theatre & Dance
Event Menu
March 9-14
SXSW Platters
The Broken WestI Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On (Merge) The Broken West’s debut sports a big, masculine sound strangely lacking in swagger but with a sensitivity that never devolves into emo self-consciousness. If the L.A. quartet’s confident power-pop were to approach you in a bar, it would take the form of the guy every…
Faulty Files at the City’s Minority Business Department
Auditor’s report: City’s SMBR has operated with faulty info
Battle of the Jam Bands
Bob Ray and Werner Campbell’s five-year rock & Roller Derby adventure
Arts Review
Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie may have been done to death, but the strong cast of the Austin Shakespeare Festival production makes this masterpiece come alive again
In Print
Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacaoedited by Cameron L. McNeil University Press of Florida, 542 pp., $75 Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao is an extensive collection of multidisciplinary essays that shed light on the latest discoveries regarding the cacao tree, its history of uses in ancient Mesoamerica, and the rituals…
SXSW Platters
Lily AllenAlright, Still (Capitol) Already a superstar in England at the ripe young age of 21, Lily Allen arrives as a tongue-in-cheek corrective to much of what’s wrong with hip-hop. To those who believe the best way to riches is rapping about bitches, here’s a white woman offering her perspective. Over Specials samples and toaster-ready…
Run Granny Run
Granny D makes big-screen debut at SXSW
Perfect Liberty
To find themselves, the subjects of this year’s rock docs found that they had to follow their own sound
Arts Review
Owen McAuley’s late-night landscapes lit by street lamps and other artificial sources are all strikingly beautiful, but some struggle to achieve a sense of mystery
Wooly Bully
Simple, the 2006/2007 Austin Music Awards
How Cool Is Austin?
With a deep, collective breath, the city rolls out a world-class – but as yet unproven – climate-protection plan
Spring Break Altruism
Volunteer “alternative spring breaks” growing in popularity
We Have Met the Future, and It Is Us
Film on the Web, part II: the movies
Readings
In that it is forever incomplete, Brown’s sixth and final novel should arguably be exempt from criticism
Iraq in Fragments
This multiaward-winning documentary was two years in the making and tells stories about modern Iraq in the words of civilians of various ethnicities.
A Glossary of Cool
A quick definition of terms used in describing the Austin Climate Protection Plan.
On the Lege
News from beneath the pink granite dome
New Joy
David Hudson on cyber cinephilia
Readings
In this a talky, bawdy book, Jane Smiley says a lot about the vapidity of Hollywood and even more about the humanness of the 21st century American
Miss Potter
This Renée Zelweger movie about the life of Peter Rabbit author Beatrix Potter lacks dramatic tension and a sense of purpose.
Wednesday Picks
The ‘Chronicle’ says see these SXSW acts now
Austin Climate Protection Plan
The five components
Capitol Briefs
• Two more state reps last week entered the increasingly crowded field of lawmakers seeking to regulate the use of electroshock Taser guns, with bills that seek to further regulate their use. San Antonio Democrat Trey Martinez Fischer filed House Bill 1535, which would require training and weapon registration for all civilian Taser owners –…
Looking More Closely When Others Look Away
On directors examining structure, storytelling, and how pictures can move us
Page Two: Let’s Get Lost
An invocation on the eve of South by Southwest
300
Both Frank Miller’s comic about the legendary battle of Thermopylae and Zack Snyder’s cinematic adaptation are bloodthirsty affairs, awash in spectacle.
Wednesday Sleepers
The ‘Chronicle’ says see these SXSW acts directly afterwards
Carbon Neutrality
A primer
Point Austin: Locally Cool
Austin embarks on a long but hopeful journey
Different Stages
The divergent paths of one disease, in life and on film
After a Fashion
Something’s burning a hole in Stephen’s pocket as he carouses a number of Austin retail delights
Believe in Me
Despite all its clichéd moralizing and blatant borrowings, the movie does offer a few clever twists on an old sports-movie formula.
SXSW Interviews
They said what?
Coal Hard Reality
Still cloudy over TXU
Beside the Point: Time Is on Her Side
When it comes to zoning cases, perhaps less is more
Michael & Us
Canadian filmmakers Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine set out to celebrate a lion of the left. They ended up with something a little different.
Day Trips
Port Arthur’s the home of Janis Joplin’s psychedelic Porsche
Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs
Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs 2007, NR, 45 min. Directed by Keith Melton, Narrated by Christopher Lee, Starring William Hope, Crispin Redman, Nasser Memarzia, Daud Shah, Boris Terral, Elana Drago. Modern-day forensic adventures unravel the historic past – with narration by a master of the crypt, Christopher Lee.
SXSW Showcase Picks
Spend the evening with your favorite record label.
Global Warming
By the numbers
The Hightower Report
More Monkeyshine From Exxon; and Making an Honest Dip
The Few
A former Marine’s unfiltered photography leads an American documentary crew into Darfur
Soccer Watch
Houston Dynamo advances to semifinals, Irish breakfast at Fad�, and more
SXSW Platters
Razorlight(Universal/Motown) Sometimes the sophomore slump yields Razorlight. Bookended by “In the Morning,” the hangover following the London quartet’s splashy Up All Night, and anthemic closer “Los Angeles Waltz,” Razorlight shoots from the hip noticeably more immediate than the group’s more manicured 2004 debut. The run-and-gun nature of second albums sometimes boils a band down to…
Enviro-Rentalism
Saving the planet when you don’t even own your own (low-flow) pot to piss in
SXSW Film 07
March 9-17
Taking the ‘Us’ out of It
Michael Tucker hears the voices calling him back to the war in Iraq
The Common Law
Family and Medical Leave Act – options if FMLA leave is denied
Luv Doc Recommends: Robert Rodriguez Presents “Torso” and “Zombie”
If you’re waiting around for a Robert Rodriguez “think piece,” it already happened. It was written by a 7-year-old and it was called The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl. Smoke a bowl and watch it sometime. SB&LG is like pressing a naked eyeball against a glory hole of unrestrained parental indulgence. It’s an…
