"I was initially drawn to Crawford, because I'd been effectively duped. I didn't know that Bush wasn't from Crawford."... [continue]

A big-screen adaptation of Holly Black and Tony Diterlizzi's popular children's book series, The Spiderwick Chronicles follows three kids named Simon, Mallory and Jared as they try to keep a magical book from falling into the hands of some unsavory goblins.... [continue]

Photo by chaseshumwaydotcom on FlickrDogfish Head, the Delaware-based independent brewery whose name you might recognize from those tasty craft beers lining the shelves of finer booze purveyors, will be bringing their third-annual Off-Centered Film Festival to the Alamo Drafthouse this April. The marriage of a movie-loving brewery and a beer-loving theater is plenty serendipitous in its own right, BUT! It's also a grand opportunity for you, Aspiring Filmmaker: Dogfish Head will be giving away a... [continue]

What's not to love about that hairy chest and denim jacket?... [continue]

Promo still from Jaman.com AFS Essentials: Le Vent de la NuitTuesday, December 4thAlamo Drafthouse Downtown (320 E 6th Street)FREE for AFS members, $4 non-members; 7pm[info] | [tickets]Tonight, AFS continues their amazing Phillipe Garrel retrospective with 1999's La Vent de La Nuit (The Wind of the Night), starring the timeless Catherine Deneuve as Hélene, a hot (duh) rich lady driven to distraction by her much younger art-student lover, Paul. Does he really love her for who...... [continue]

Promo still from Interkosmos site Cinematexas Viking Funeral WeekendSaturday, December 1st-Sunday, December 2nd501 Studios Theater (501 N. IH 35)FREE; check schedule for showtimes[info]After an 11-year stint of avante-garde programming and generally being "the most pioneering film festival in the country", the Cinematexas Film Festival is no more. Sure, we have a wealth of film festivals to keep us entertained here Austin, but we're feeling a bit wistful about Cinematexas and their talent for bringing us...... [continue]

Promotional still from Alamo website Lord of the Rings Trilogy Hobbit FeastSunday, November 25thAlamo Drafthouse Downtown (320 E 6th Street)$100, 10:30am-11pm; includes all three films, food, and wine[info] | [tickets]According to national legend, this is a week--nay, a season!--for tryptophan-laden wretched excess and communion with loved ones. Hey, if you've got it like that, family-style communitas can be nice and fulfilling, yes, but can your family hang for TWELVE HOURS of Lord of the Rings...... [continue]

"Oh, hai." Still from No Country for Old MenThis week in new movies: A cornucopia of literary adaptations, special effects, and Javier Bardem. No Country for Old Men is FINALLY opening in Austin, and we couldn't be more excited (or strangely aroused by Bardem's "lost Beatle from hell" haircut and Wranglers ensemble.) Beowulf: Robert Zemeckis reprises the motion-capture animation technique he used in Polar Express and applies it to everyone's fave Anglo-Saxon epic poem. Ray...... [continue]

Pump Up the Volume was so much more than a proto-Jock Jams house anthem by M/A/R/R/S. It was the youthful, telegenic angst of 1990, distilled and splashed against an awesome soundtrack. It was a young and (remember?) hot Christian Slater playing a high-school pirate radio DJ named Happy Harry Hard-On. It was Samantha Mathis playing a way ballsier and like, more articulate precursor to Angela Chase. And, like any teen dramedy worth its salt, it...... [continue]

Deep in the heart of Tejas, November 2nd means it's time to celebrate Dia De Los Muertos, the holiday that's emblemized the grinning calavera since like, 500 years before designers went batshit crazy stenciling skulls all over everything. It's a day to honor the lives of the dead, and to acknowledge death as a continuation of life, oh and also to make party at La Zona Rosa for their Rock Y Roll Dia celebration. Cine...... [continue]

In an unprecedented programming feat of nostalgia and star power, the Alamo Drafthouse has announced it will screen The Wizard--the awesome/corny paean to all things Nintendo--with cast members Fred Savage, Luke Edwards (the titular wizard) and director Todd Holland live in the theatre on December 7th! Sure, The Wizard was really just a 100-minute commercial for Super Mario Brothers 3. But oh what a commercial it was. Starring a just-barely-into-The Wonder Years Fred Savage, a...... [continue]

In colonial Brazil, quilombos were democratic societies formed by freed and fugitive slaves. They farmed and voted and defended themselves from confounded Portuguese and Dutch armies with expert hide'n'seek warfare tactics. Brazil's most famed quilombo, Palmares, had a population of 30,000 at its peak and fought off European armies for almost a century. Director Carlos Diegues' Quilombo (1984) is a sweeping hypercolor epic exploring the legend of Palmares and its charismatic leader, Zumbi (whose enshrined... [continue]

Sure, family-friendly films, "green" cinema and the corresponding warm-fuzzies you get from caring about your lil' ones and The Earth are nice. But historically, motion pictures have always been driven by violence, outlandishness and the public's insatiable and prurient interest in watching things on film that they don't necessarily want to see in real life. In this hallowed vein, the AFF Dark Matters Series explores subject matter ranging from blood-spattered vegans to Korean hillbilly gangs...... [continue]

Another Friday means another round of fresh outta the box movies. With summer's end possibly mere weeks away, these are our last days to indulge in the pastime of escaping Austin's scorching good vibes to sit in distracted air-conditioned comfort. And in some parts of the country it's already fall, which means there's a bumper crop of new movies out! The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: On one hand, this period...... [continue]

Tomorrow night, Cine Las Americas presents Víctimas del Pecado (Victims of Sin), an over-the-top slice of Mexican melodrama from 1951 and the second installment in Cine's Sin, Scandal and Song series. There's sin aplenty here (and also really great outfits and hairstyles), courtesy of its setting in postwar Mexico City's red-light district (romanticized in lush black and white cinematography by the legendary Gabriel Figueroa). Amidst all the picturesque seaminess, beautiful cabaret dancer Violeta (Ninón Sevilla)...... [continue]

You know how Texas has those new Film Incentives dollars to throw around now? Well, they're not limited to movies and Friday Night Lights only. The gaming industry gets a piece of that, too. And since there are over 50 gaming studios already in Austin (not to mention the availability of increasingly slick development/programming courses) it's a given that gaming will continue to blow up here in the Capitol City. But all that's a major...... [continue]

Just a short time before George W. announced his intentions to run for King of Amurca, the New Haven-born hopeful bought a ranch in tiny Crawford, Texas. From this suitably folksy pulpit, he engineered that down-home, aw-shucks presidential campaign persona that captivated/divided the nation, and then there were those hanging chads and...well, you know the rest. Who Is Crawford Texas follows, through the eyes of the Crawford citizenry themselves, the crazy arc that accompanied two... [continue]

Just hours before venerable Hoboken indie rock institution Yo La Tengo descend upon The Parish on September 17th, they'll be all up in your Alamo as part of the Alamo's Cinema Under the Influence Series. In a dazzlingly cross-referency evening, Yo La Tengo will present Four Flies on Grey Velvet, the Dario Argento flick that most influenced them as a band. Also on the bill is Cockaboody, an animated film drawn by YLT drummer...... [continue]

Having directed some of the most tear duct-taxing movies in recent memory (Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark), as well as some exhaustively think-y, Brechtian pieces (Dogville, Manderlay) director Lars von Trier would now like to make you laugh. Or would he? It's just sort of hard to tell in his latest film, The Boss of it All. There are some things that do not bode well for comedy. For instance, an affiliation with...... [continue]

Could there be a better emblem of corporate "zaniness" than the Segway? You know, the two-wheeled "personal transporter" device that, while marketed as a solution to traffic congestion, is in fact a really annoying adult toy that gets in everyone's way? To filmmakers Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell, however, the Segway scooter embodies the American Dream. Or something like that, because they decided, after purchasing a Segway "on impulse" (note: the things cost 5 grand...... [continue]