We've said it before and we'll say it again: our motto is "If it's free, it's me." Nothing makes us happier than a couple of gratis drinks and a silver screen, which is exactly what you can get from the ole' Home Box Office, who will be hosting the Austin premier of their new series Bored to Death at our very own Alamo Drafthouse. BtD stars the target of our omnipresent dirty-shiksa-crush (Jason Schwartzman, doi), as a young Brooklyn writer-turned-private-eye-sleuth, as well as Ted Danson(!) and Zach Galifianakis, neither of which need any character description to convince us that this is going to be good. The show doesn't air on cable until September 20th, but since you are a superfan, you just might get to see it a couple days early, if you're lucky. All the details can be found on the Alamo Drafthouse website. more ›

Eugene Mirman is much funnier than you. A mainstay of New York's alternative comedy scene, Mirman's profile has been even higher of late. In February, his Comedy Central Presents special debuted, and earlier this year, he was asked to cover the New Hampshire primaries for 236.com. He can also be seen as Jemaine and Bret's strange landlord in HBO's Flight Of The Conchords. A multi-year veteran of SXSW, Mirman is hosting this year's Web Awards at SXSW Interactive and is also performing at multiple SX venues during the music festival. more ›

RSO [Registered Sex Offender], follows the unenviable life of one ex-convict, played by newbie Gabriel McIver, who must reintegrate into a world that has indefinitely deemed him a social leper. He must deal with all of the minutiae that all of these other sad, pitiful, white males that we love to capture on film must deal with, but with the dark cloud of criminal damnation hovering somewhere just above his brow, to humorous effect. We don't know what he did (just yet) but we are guessing that, in his case, the punishment and repulsion may not fit the crime. more ›

Growing up in Indiana with his Jehovah's Witness mother, Dax Riggs got used to going door to door inviting people to hear about Armageddon. He believed that there was a God, and that God was good. One night Dax stayed up late, alone, and watched The Elephant Man on HBO, and nothing was the same after. His other band, Deadboy & The Elephant Men, grew from the ashes of a whirlwind romance that involved... more ›

Local favorites Okkervil River released their new full-length today. It's called The Stage Names, and we'll be running a feature length review of it on Thursday. Art in Manila Set the Woods on Fire (Saddle Creek) Orenda Fink, ne half of the now-defunct Azure Ray, has been writing and recording solo work for a while now, but her most recent project is a collaboration between Fink and a group of folks that used to... more ›

From the tallest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love to Canadian tourism copywriting brilliance, here's what you should know from our -ist cities: This week, Phillyist took a gleeful listen to the White Stripes' exciting new release, watched in awe as their new tallest skyscraper was finally completed, found a cheaper way to get to Gothamist, invented a tasty new dessert, and brought back their Craigslist Round-Up feature with a bang. Bostonist watches... more ›

—we're excited to check out their next batch of shows. more ›

The prosecutors in Bastrop County are fond of the good jokes, but they're evidently not the best at delivering them. more ›

• You got lucky, this time, smokers! The House was tired yesterday.
• The CEO of HBO, Chris Albrecht, took the De La Hoya/Mayweather fight into his own hands.
• Now here is a genius business model! Who wouldn't want to take Junior to day care every morning?
• Mix Arkansas and a guy name Jim Bob and you get a family with 17 children. This story brought to you by the letter "J".
• Be a Born Again Virgin again. For a small fee, of course.
• "Of course, we intended for Cocaine energy drink to be a legal alternative the same way that celibacy is an alternative to premarital sex.”

Blame it on HBO's repeated broadcasts of all six films this past month, or every super-geek's secret desire to be that Star Wars Kid, but either way, the Statesman's decided to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the sci-fi classic... with the nerdiest contest ever! more ›

That's right: it's time to heat up your winter nights again, with the 14th season of FronteraFest. The Short Fringe, the Long Fringe, or Mi Casa es su Teatro -- FronteraFest is five weeks of alternative, offbeat, new, and just plain off-the-wall fringe theatre presented by Hyde Park Theatre and Austin Script Works. For complete FronteraFest 2007 information, including times and locations for the Short Fringe, the Long Fringe and Mi Casa es su... more ›

That's right: it's time to heat up your winter nights again, with the 14th season of FronteraFest. The Short Fringe, the Long Fringe, or Mi Casa es su Teatro -- FronteraFest is five weeks of alternative, offbeat, new, and just plain off-the-wall fringe theatre presented by Hyde Park Theatre and Austin Script Works. For complete FronteraFest 2007 information, including times and locations for the Short Fringe, the Long Fringe and Mi Casa es su Teatro,... more ›

That's right: it's time to heat up your winter nights again, with the 14th season of FronteraFest. The Short Fringe, the Long Fringe, or Mi Casa es su Teatro -- FronteraFest is five weeks of alternative, offbeat, new, and just plain off-the-wall fringe theatre presented by Hyde Park Theatre and Austin Script Works. For complete FronteraFest 2007 information, including times and locations for the Short Fringe, the Long Fringe and Mi Casa es su... more ›

HBO Films' newest documentary project, When I Knew, asks America's GLBT community: When did you know you were gay? When I Knew is based on Robert Trachtenberg's book of the same name, which alternates between hilarious and heart-rending tales. The documentary crew is currently crisscrossing the country, hoping to capture as many interesting and diverse anecdotes as possible. Next Wednesday, they'll be stationed at the Radisson Hotel on Cesar Chavez for an entire day's... more ›

A billowing American flag against a pitch background opens this compelling story of a Seattle grandmother, Bev Harris, who started asking questions after presidential candidate Al Gore managed to get negative votes (-16,022, to be exact) in Volusia County, Florida in 2000. more ›

David Milch ("NYPD Blue," "Deadwood"), Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) and Sydney Pollack (Tootsie, Three Days of the Condor) gathered Saturday for the Creating Classic Characters panel at the Austin Film Festival. The conversation quickly became a completely engaging discussion of the craft of writing, managing expectations of the studios, Dostoevsky and much more. Black was his general convivial and vulnerable self, while the affable Pollack spoke with great humility about... more ›

TUESDAY [17] film • SXSW Presents: Viva Les Amis on KLRU (9pm, Free) film • AFS Essential: Heaven Can Wait at Alamo Downtown (7pm) film • Bad Education at Arbor (1:10pm & 6:50pm) ® film • Live Flesh at Arbor (4:10pm & 9:30pm) ® film • Gimme Shelter at Alamo Downtown (9:45pm) ® film • The Weather Underground at The Space (8pm, Free) film • Gremlins at Rounders Pizzeria (9pm, Free) comedy/wanted • HBO... more ›

[The following is an editorial column by contributor Alison Coffey and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Austinist staff. --The Editors] In my youth (also known as The 80's) summertime was not a prime time for television viewing. The Keatons and the Seavers were on vacation (hey--does anyone remember how Mike Seaver's best friend had the nickname Boner?) and unless you liked reruns of Good Times (which I did, actually) or watching... more ›

In stream-of-consciousness style, Klein weaves musings about the day-to-day in crosscutting fashion with the subconscious turmoil of a woman newly divorced. Like an over-filled martini glass, her ready acerbic wit spills forth on bad first dates, reminders of the “Wasband,” rantings about her worst fears as a single, and retrospectives on the challenges of her marriage. more ›

With an HBO special, Red, White and Screwed, and a book tour to supplement his already demanding road show and TV obligations, it’s been a busy year for Lewis Black. We caught up with Black over the weekend at BookPeople, where he was to promote the paperback release of Nothing’s Sacred. Having been subjected to seven hours of interviews a day and arriving in a new city every afternoon, it’s a wonder he wasn’t... more ›

It’s all right. You’re not the only one, which means you’re (probably) not a loser. more ›

Ted Koppel will host his last Nightline tonight. He will be moving to HBO, because smart, topical national news programming just doesn’t cut it anymore. That talentless hack, Martin Bashir - who grilled the King of Pop in that crap piece last year - will host the newfangled news program with a bunch of other jackasses. Tune in to ABC at 10:35 tonight to catch Mr. Koppel’s final act on network TV. more ›

M O N D A Y [3] film · "Bamako Chic"'s creator Maureen Gosling, a former Austin resident, is back in town hosting a special fundraising screening of "Blossoms of Fire" - her 16mm documentary film about the people of Juchitán, Oaxaca, Mexico - at Austin Studios. (7pm, map) music · 54 Seconds play Lucky Lounge (10pm) in-store · Billy Joe Shaver at Waterloo Records (5pm) film · aGLIFF runs through Saturday - check their... more ›

The guys from I Love Video, Super!Alright! and Car Stereo Wars will be screening Season 1 of “Lost” at Spider House cafe on Wednesday nights at 9pm, and the fun starts tonight. We have not personally seen the show, but we have heard and read great things about it from some respectable sources. One reader even went so far as to declare the show HBO-quality. The screenings will feature three episodes each Wednesday and... more ›

Austin Energy, already provider of the nation's top Green Power Program as ranked by the U.S. Department of Energy, is now boldly taking the initiative and thinking, as it were, outside the house. They're applying their model of low-impact energy consumption to the one sector that desperately needs it - namely, transportation. more ›

Lisa Kudrow has a new show and because we love her, we watched. It's called The Comeback and it airs on HBO where they can be much more creative (and dirty) than the networks. All the best shows are on HBO, right? more ›

We are big fans of the HBO show, Deadwood. We cannot help but talk about it here, because one of the frontmen of the band we just interviewed is one of the stars of the show. His name is John Hawkes. He plays Sol Star, the business partner of Seth Bullock, and the only Jew in Deadwood. The thing about Deadwood is, it really pushes the boundaries of what we normally think of as... more ›