Tomorrow's screening of Real Genius with John Gries in attendance is totally sold out (*sad face*). But cheer up--you can still enter our contest for a chance to win a pair of tickets to the 9:45pm screening of Napoleon Dynamite AND a pair of pajamas autographed by Laslo Hollyfeld himself!...

Go ahead and order that failure bowl at KFC and dig in with your spork of sadness, it might be the only thing that will smother the despair that will come with missing Patton Oswalt present Ratatouille tonight at the Alamo. That’s right kids, it’s sold out. In fact, it was sold out last Thursday. You will just have to wait until June 29th for your yearly dose of Pixar magic and Brad Bird brilliance.......

If you've become increasingly bored with the Old Lions of student media at The University of Texas, you may want to consider an alternative. The Daily Texan, once considered the legit alt-paper when this was still a one-horse town, was ousted by The Austin Chronicle long ago, and now tends to offer minimal reporting that increasingly looks more like any other college daily than the proud former home of Willie Morris and Bill Moyers.......

No film festival is complete without a contribution to the teenage misfit subgenre, and the Austin Film Festival is certainly no exception. Shot in the damp urban wastes of Seattle, Urban Scarecrow benefits from impressively gritty digital photography and a plethora of endearingly ugly locations. Wesley Downs has problems; when not weathering abuse from skateboarding bullies or enduring pitiful stand-up comedy from his downwardly-mobile father, he finds solace doing Whip-Its with his best friend or......

To sum up today's releases: a few big stars, fewer hopes. *Nacho Libre This one comes from the makers of the cult favorite Napoleon Dynamite and stars the more-famous half of Tenacious D, Jack Black. Yeah, it’s probably a little crude and not as funny as the previews, but we’ll go see it anyway. Because being Mexican is hi-larious. Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties Bill Murray agreed to be the voice of a......

Lots of random music news today. Let's get to it before ACL Fest's lineup gets announced on Thursday and we forget about this stuff: - Prefuse 73 has cancelled his Austin appearance later this month due to a serious illness. A note on Prefuse's Myspace page makes it sound as though the health issues are pretty severe. Pitchfork reports that the shows may be rescheduled later this year. - Bloc Party has announced a......

This is simply too good to be true, but it is true. On Saturday, May 27th, the Alamo Drafthouse is holding the Texas premiere of Nacho Libre, a new comedy from writer/director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) and writer Mike White (School Of Rock). The film stars Jack Black as a Mexican friar who dons a secret identity as a "Lucha Libre" wrestler to help save his church. View the preview here. Be warned that......

A few highlights from this week's new movie releases: Bruce Willis is back! And he shoots guns this time! David Spade plays a nerd, just to mix things up! If the South had won the Civil War, would Toby Keith be campaigning for governor (oh God, we just vomited)? Film noir is great for teens! And Antonio Banderas teaches the youth of America that ballroom dancing can get you plenty of play! Lucky Number......

Tuesday night marked the halfway point of the NBA season, and our (nearly) local team marked the occasion by absolutely obliterating the Charlotte Bobcats 104-76. It doesn't look so bad on paper, but the Spurs were winning so handily that they played their bench for nearly the entire second half. Even Spurs 12th man (and Napoleon Dynamite lookalike) Sean Marks had 9 points. It looked like a bad high school game. With this and......

F R I D A Y [ 2 0 ] [music] Attack Formation at The Parlor [music] Faceless Werewolves, For Those Who Know, The Ugly Beats, Tran Tram play the Benefit for Austin GI Rights at Emo's [music] Just Guns CD release show with northKorean, Stories From the Frontier, Sad Accordions, and Infant of Prague at Beerland (7pm) [theatre] "Two Into War" at the Play! Theatre ($5-$20, 8pm) (link) [theatre] "House and Garden" at Austin......

Our favorite posts for last week: McChris at Infobong.com finds out that duct-tape wallets are all the rage with a certain type of Fiesta shopper. Napoleon Dynamite works with Doug&Dara, or so it seems. Who would have thought you could use film to decorate your Christmas tree? Jette at Celluloid Eyes, that’s who. Karmalized tells of her Christmas tree search. Ray in Austin posts about the dinner he fixed for friends this weekend. That pic......

Saturday was the third annual “Keep Austin Weird” 5k run. And we ran that trail to hell. It was our first timed run ever. Well, “run” may be a bit cavalier a word to describe our pace. You see, Austinist decided to get into this “health thing” last year, and we’ve been kicking up dust along Town Lake ever since. In our world, it’s all about the Yin & Yang, the attempt to balance......

This week is perhaps best summed up by the words of the English poet William Blake, who remarked: "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." As much as we'd like to claim that we've actually read Blake, we stole that from 24-Hour Party People. Did we forget anything? Let us know. M O N D A Y film · The Austin Film Society presents the Texas Filmmakers' Production Fund screening of "The......

The groovy eclectic tunes on local college radio station KVRX have helped us slog through many a tepid workday. When they're not broadcasting on FM 91.7 (the frequency space is shared with Austin community station KOOP), you can always hear them over the internet - or at your leisure now, thanks to their podcasting feature. Where else during the day can you turn to hear songs from Wolf Parade, Sufjan Stevens and !!! back......

We imagine that tonight's screening of Napoleon Dynamite, the final of the Movies in the Park series, has long been on your calendar, still we must tell you of your other options for cinamatic experiences this evening. Tonight Top Hat, the 1930s Fred and Ginger flick, kickoffs the Paramount Summer Film Series 30th anniversary season. In honor of their 30 years of summer movies, they are showing the film that started it all off......

This Thursday night offers your last chance to hang out with your neighbors and friends (and Austinist, of course) and watch a Movie in the Park. For its final cinematic event of the Spring, the Austin Parks Foundation brings you one of the funniest movies of the past year or two, “Napoleon Dynamite.” Festivities begin at 7pm in Republic Square Park (4th and Guadalupe) with a dance lesson cum dance competition to get everyone......