Results tagged “film>”

in the war-torn country of Afghanistan, there’s a TV show much like our own inexplicably popular American Idol, where anyone can compete regardless of race, age, religion, or any other factor. And people all over the country use their cell phones to vote for their favorite performer. This remarkable film (winner of Directing and Audience Awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival) follows four finalists as they compete to become the next Afghan Star.It's sure to inform, inspire, enlighten, and entertain you. And that’s a lot more than Simon Cowell could ever do for you.

The Paramount continues their Depression-era comedy theme for the month with 1936's My Man Godfrey and 1937's Easy Living showing Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Both of these comedies throw everyday folk (if you can call a "forgotten man" everyday folk) into strange circumstances involving wealthy families.

Held annual since 2006, "Can’t Stop the Serenity" is a global fundraising effort that benefits Equality Now, a nonprofit that works to end violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world. Like its name implies, the event is centered around a screening of writer/director/cult-hero Joss Whedon's sci-fi film, Serenity, which was based on the short-lived TV show, Firefly.

Who wouldn’t want to follow Burt (John Krasinski) down the path that is Away We Go, as he and his pregnant girlfriend Verona (Maya Rudolph) take planes, trains and automobiles to visit friends and family searching for a place to raise their baby, and figuring out what life and love are all about, laughing and crying all along the way.

Hit up the Alamo Drafthouse this Sunday for a Father's Day Feast while watching Wes Anderson's dysfunctional family masterpiece, The Royal Tenenbaums. Sure, Royal might be a shitty dad. Okay, maybe he's an asshole and has disappeared for several years. And, true, he fakes his death to force his family closer together. But whatever, it'll just bring you and your dear ol' dad closer together as you can say, relatively, "You are such a great dad, Dad!"

You know what’s fun? Movies. About food. With painted up dwarves. And young comedians in purple coats. Under the stars. Sounds like a perfect Friday night, right? Well, we’ve got your golden ticket for this Friday, June 19th—the Alamo Drafthouse and Whole Foods present Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory outdoors, on the roof of their flagship store at 6th and Lamar.

Proving that not everyone is letting the ungodly summer heat slow them down, the Blanton Museum of Art and the Austin Film Festival are teaming up to present the New Directions Film Series, which will feature the intelligent voices of emerging independent filmmakers. The five chosen films will screen at the Blanton on Third Thursdays and a few selected Sundays from now until July 19. Kicking off the indie fun is Gretchen, the story of an awkward 17-year-old trying to survive the indignities of adolescence.

While righteous indignation can certainly feel good from time to time, it is not necessarily the most attractive or productive posture to take in all cases, especially when you aren't privy to all of the facts and context that surround a situation. Instead of pulling out our ole' jump-to-conclusions mat, perhaps the better reaction to would be to stop feeling like some injustice is being perpetrated on our community by horrible dictators and just take a deep breath already. In an open letter to the Austin community, Richard Linklater reminds us all to do just that, dispelling some of the recent gossip around what is happening at Austin Studios, and what it all means for Austin's film community. We're sure that any decisions made regarding the future of Austin Studios' tenant pool are carefully considered and if you wish to be more involved in the process, you should attend the open forum to discuss the pending new tenant, Soundcheck Austin, on June 25th at 11am.

Tonight and tomorrow night, the Paramount Theater will be screening two classic favorites starring Cary Grant: 1940's The Philadelphia Story and 1937's The Awful Truth. Both films feature Grant as a wealthy divorcee and both are certain to make you laugh.

Whether you’re a longtime Austinite with many years of “it was much cooler back in the day” to speak of, or you’ve just moved here to join the beardeoisie, you probably have some film school friends who love the Coen brothers. From the whip-smart pacing and whacked-out dialog of Raising Arizona to the intense emotion and sheer badass-ness of No Country for Old Men, these guys have become film legends.

Exiled in America, a short film by local director Angela Torres Camarena, has been selected to appear in the ninth annual Media That Matters Film Festival in New York City. Only twelve “inspiring” films made the cut, and beginning on June 4th they will all be available for public viewing through the festival’s Web site.

Yesterday afternoon, we spoke with Mr. Hudgins and feel that we now have a clearer story, at least from the state's point of view, and wish to tidy up some omissions and inaccuracies that were presented, not only by us, but by other media outlets as well.

What began in 2006 as an equal parts homecoming for the new season and fashionable fundraiser has grown into something of a tradition for the festival, the largest of its kind in the southwest. Like in past years, this year's BLOOM culminates in a raffle where one lucky boy or girl will drive away in a brand new Subaru of his or her choice (valued up to $24k)—as only up to 2,000 of their $20 raffle tickets are to be sold, the chances of winning are significantly better than, say, winning American Idol. Guests at BLOOM also get to enjoy an open bar while checking out a sampling from some of the films to be screened at this year's festival.

Tonight, KLRU hosts its second Community Cinema screening featuring this documentary, which explores the effects that the incredibly discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has had on our nation's military and its gay and lesbian service members. Held in the venerable halls of the KLRU Austin City Limits studio, the doors to the Community Cinema screening of Ask Not will open at 6:30 p.m., with the film starting promptly at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a questions and answer discussion with local veterans about the DADT policy and how it affected their experience in the military.

The word around town (specifically from Chris Garcia at the Statesman) is that come May 21st, the Galaxy Highland will have a brand new technology, only released last March, which bears the unfortunate name of D-Box (which immediately made us think of D-Bag, a horse of a completely different color, no doubt). D-Box replicates the motion happening on screen, frame-by-frame, in each and every theater seat. You will, allegedly, feel like you are actually in the movie.

Photos from Friday's Star Trek premiere party at the Bob Bullock Museum, hosted by Austin Planetarium. Attendees enjoyed Star Trek music performed by the Austin Wind Symphony, improv by Start Trekkin, and a panoply of Trek-themed beverages and snacks. Most importantly (and as expected), Darth Vader made a surprise appearance.

In a tactical move of sheer intergalactic brilliance, the enterprising people over at the Austin Planetarium have forged an alliance with the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum to bring you a Star Trek premier experience like no other. On Friday, May 8th from 6-9pm, the grounds and lobby of the Bob Bullock will play host to Austin's Trekkies and astronomy buffs alike, featuring none other than cosmonaut and space tourist extraordinaire, Richard Garriott.

30 years ago, before the dawn of the Reagan era and all the conservative back-patting and chumminess that would come with it, a film was released that would eventually introduce our little sheltered selves to punk rock and rebellion-as-fun. Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is the bizarre anti-Grease (which, notably, was released just a year before RNRHS), a film which follows the same musical paradigm as its lily-white counterpart, but instead of poodle skirts and dance competitions favors "ugly, ugly, ugly" punk rockers and a boys-bathroom-businessman who sells black market hall passes and hired dates.

The Hulu/laptop combo has proved to be a great one, but watching stuff for free doesn’t always have to feel quite so conventional. Change things up this summer by heading to the Austin Public Library for a slightly more social alternative; each month you’ll have two chances to see an independent film free of charge (and free of “limited commercial interruption”) that you probably wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.

In two weeks, KLRU will premiere Independent Lens' stunning new documentary, Crips & Bloods: Made in America, which explores the decades-long feud between rival LA gangs the Bloods and the Crips that's left some 15,000 dead and rages on even today. The film is narrated by Forest Whitaker and directed by Stacy Peralta, the director of Dogtown and Z Boys, Riding Giants, and, interestingly, an episode of Mr. Show with Bob and David.

At yesterday's signing of HB 873, the bill providing incentives for the film and media industries in Texas, director Robert Rodriguez announced that he intends to shoot a slew of new movies at his Austin-based Troublemaker Studios.

n a top 40 world, Austin is a proudly NPR town, so tonight should be a special treat for many of us who enjoy the popular radio show “This American Life.” Tonight only you can catch a live HD simulcast of the show at movie theaters around town. Glass will be there hosting the show, and contributors will include regulars like Starlee Kine, sex columnist Dan Savage, and the hilarious Mike Birbiglia, among others.

Tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar, you can experience the tornado-like fury that surrounds the competitive Dachshund circuit in the dog-umentary Wiener Takes All. Canadian filmmaker Shane MacDougall, who apparently challenged Queen Elizabeth II to a kickboxing match or math test to win the monarchy of Canada at one point in time, spent two years following what we would assume to be a real-life Best in Show, documenting the heated rivalries, the epic speed trials, the allegations of doggie doping and the amazingness that is the Westminster Dog Show, watching as the broad field is winnowed down to one winning weenie.

Anxious Wilco lovers must wait a few more weeks until the still-untitled next album is released, but a worthy distraction will soon arrive to make the suspense a little less terrible. Ashes of American Flags, a live concert film featuring performances from the band’s 2008 tour, will be released on DVD April 18 and will also be shown at the Alamo Ritz on Monday night.

"Oh, that's cool," we thought, "Leonard Nimoy showed up for the screening of The Wrath of Khan that the Alamo Drafthouse and Fantastic Fest had set up for last night." We were so naive to think that the Alamo didn't have some subversive trick up its sleeve. Suddenly, our mobile phone exploded as millions of geeks from inside the maroon-swathed walls of the Alamo South Lamar simultaneously flooded the internet with word that, no, Nimoy had not showed up for TWoK, but rather he had shown up with a never-seen-by-pedestrian-eyes print of the soon-to-be classic J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek.

How many times have you considered how awesome a movie version of your life would be? You're hilarious, your friends are crazy, you have gut-wrenching problems, and then there was that great that thing you said that one time. Seriously—it’s not just us, is it? But would people who didn’t know you find it as great as you would? Adventureland might just answer that question.

Set in 1957, Alien Trespass chronicles a fiery object from outer space that crashes into a mountaintop in the California desert, brining the threat of disaster to Earth. Out of the flying saucer escapes a murderous creature - the Ghota, which is bent on destroying all life forms on the planet. A benevolent alien from the spaceship, Urp, inhabits the body of Ted Lewis (Eric McCormack) - a local astronomer - and with the help of Tammy (Jenni Barid), a waitress from the local diner, sets out to save mankind.

Thanks to yelpers, rotten tomato throwers and a veritable uprising of basement bloggers, the old saying has become truer than ever before: Everyone’s a Critic. Exploring this modern trend (and taking the time to remind us of pre-blog America) is the 2009 SXSW Documentary Feature For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, which calls movie reviewing a “profession under siege.”

Billed as an “unromantic comedy,” Sorry, Thanks is a contemplative and heartfelt detour from standard romcom fare, a skillfully made ensemble piece that makes no excuses for screw-ups, but tells you it’s okay to love them anyway.

Winter and snow offer a sort of pay to play combination. There are the sunburns in January from hitting the slopes, or the fact that playing the world's most glorious game requires that you endure frigid temperatures and fasten knife-like blades on a surface as hard as concrete. "Snowblindness" is a condition that occurs when you essentially become blinded by light in the middle of the dark winter, but this is a documentary about a more serious variety.