Short Cuts

Ned Beatty Buggery on the Colorado Dept.: Although I was unable to attend, by all accounts last weekend's Alamo Drafthouse screening of 1972 pig-squealer Deliverance -- featuring a two-hour canoe trip down the Colorado River and ending in a riverside screening of the John Boorman film -- went, uh, swimmingly, despite a park ranger's Sunday night warning to owners Tim and Karrie League of possible "deadly" lightning strikes in the vicinity and continually shifting high winds that threatened to uproot the scaffolding for the screen. The event went off without any known incidence of Beatty boffing, relays Karrie, who adds that the Alamo is planning a similarly themed event for sometime around Halloween, this time in the scary woods (anyone knowing a suitably creepy site should feel free to tip off the Leagues at 476-1320)… Just as the Paramount Theatre's Summer Movie Series is kicking off and temperatures are beginning to make my Mennon Speed Stick stocks soar comes word that fans of great Latino filmmaking can glut themselves and work on their tans down South Padre way during the eighth annual Cinesol Latino Film Festival, which kicks off Friday, June 1, and runs through Sunday, June 3. Opening festivities include a screening of Jan Egleson's La Fonda Azul (The Blue Diner), with star Miriam Colon in attendance; closing night screenings include Accordion Dreams from Austin documentarian Hector Galan, and a wealth of other films in between. This being South Padre Island, of course, attendees who find their film appetites sated can always, you know, take a long walk off a short pier. Full info on admission, directions, and so on is available at www.cinesol.com… Sometimes it seems as though you can't swing a dead cat in Austin without knocking over a Macromedia Flash animator (or having those annoying PETA hooligans parading nekkid supermodels in front of you -- hey, gang, it's a dead cat, okay?). Now's your chance to nominate yourselves, your friends, or, presumably, a complete stranger for the Flashforward 2001 Flash Film Festival, which is taking place in New York City, July 11-13, at the Hammerstein Ballroom of all places (this despite Mayor Giuliani's frequent attempts to rid the Big Apple of any and all flashers). Right now, actually, since their belatedly received press release states that the cutoff date for nominations to the event ends at 5pm PDT Friday, May 25. Complete entry and nomination procedures are listed at www.flashforward2001.com. The three-day event is described as "an educational and inspirational conference dedicated to supporting the community of designers and developers who work with Macromedia Flash" and as for the nominations, anyone, anywhere who has done Flash animation within such broad categories as "art," "cartoon," "experimental," et cetera, can enter or be entered. Again, the festival's exhaustive site lists everything you need to know to get in on this. Go Flash, young man… It seems animation is everywhere this week, even more so than usual, as Austin's femme-centric film group Reel Women sponsors their own month-long series of classes in the form, beginning Saturday, June 2, and running each succeeding Saturday throughout the month, 10am-1pm, at the Austin DV Center (708A S. Lamar). The classes are taught by UT RTF professor Francesca Talenti and CIA (that's California Institute for the Arts) experimental animation MFA Shelly Wattenbarger, and will focus on such animation techniques as cut-out, direct-on-film, and drawing. Course cost is $175 with a 10% discount for Cinemaker Co-op and Reel Women members. Registration is on a first-come basis and extremely limited. E-mail [email protected] for more info.