Short Cuts

Fans of Charlie Sotelo's eclectic public access film program The Show with No Name must be feeling downright bewildered these days. The show, which airs Sunday nights at 10pm, is moving back to cable channel 10 this week, after being unceremoniously switched to channel 16 some time ago. Sotelo assures us this is the final switcheroo, at least until he breaks through with another piece in The New Yorker magazine (whose Nov. 8 issue features Pauline Kael's reminiscences on Sam Peckinpah, which Sotelo orchestrated) and moves the whole shebang to a remote cottage in the Hamptons. Not. This week's episode, incidentally, features "a ten-minute Spike Jonze short called 'Jackass,' in which a collection of morons and goofs do things like test tasers on themselves." No mention of whether John Malkovich will be among the "goofs." Instant classic, indeed... Due to the sell-out crowds at last week's screening, the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival is sponsoring another screening of The Brandon Teena Story, Tue., Nov. 23, 7pm, at the Ritz Lounge... CineSA is presenting Film Focus '99 on the campus of San Antonio College, Nov. 20-21. This event features a series of screenwriting workshops in a "variety of scenarios and genres," and will be followed the next day by a series of acting workshops utilizing the scenes written the previous day. On hand for the workshops will be writer/producer Frank Q. Dobbs (Streets of Laredo) and writer/documentarian Jesse Sublett (Forever Wild: The Preservation of America) on the screenwriting tip, and thesps Jackie Earle Haley (Losin' It) and Corinne Rodriguez-Montoya (Die Hard 2) as acting presenters. Registration information is available on the Web at http://www.cinesa.org or by calling 210/733-7170... This month's Film Alliance of Austin meeting will feature UT scriptwriting prof Dr. Robert Foshko holding forth on the mechanics of a good script. The meeting will be held Mon., Nov. 22, 6pm, at the Filling Station (801 Barton Springs Rd.)... Actor Van Brooks of Blood Simple is back in town and will be offering free acting classes at Casting Works LA beginning next week as a prelude to the opening of his own local acting studio early next century. A former general manager of the Actor's Institute in NYC, Van Brooks has worked with the Coen Brothers and others. Space in these classes is limited -- for dates and times, call 657-3202... One last note to remind you that the 13th Annual Dallas Video Festival is accepting entries until Dec. 3. Call 214/999-8999 for more info or visit their Web site at http://www.videofest.org... Finally, major congratulations to the Austin Film Society, which has netted a National Honoree Award from the Directors Guild of America for their "efforts in supporting the arts in the United States." AFS head Rebecca Campbell and founder Rick Linklater will be traveling to NYC this weekend to receive the award at the annual DGA Honors event, and they're in amazingly good company, to boot: Other honorees include Martin Scorsese and Congressman Dick Gephardt (!), with awards being presented by Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, Nicolas Cage, Kevin Spacey, and John Waters (!!). Just in case you're curious, John Sayles will be presenting the award to Rick and Rebecca. Go, Team Austin!