Every fall, Austin looks forward to ACL Fest, and each year, there's always a point where two of your favorite bands are playing on different sides of the park at the exact same time. ACL Band Clash is a weekly series in which Austinist scribes Paige Maguire and Tom Thornton examine the worst ACL scheduling clashes, and try to provide good advice on finding a resolution. Well, good advice might be a stretch, but......

Providing intricate details on creating a pretty simple food item, Austin director Robert Rodriguez takes the viewer through a ten-minute tutorial on making the perfect breakfast taco. While working on DVD material for Sin City, late nights created mean cravings, and what does every Austinite crave when it's not quite dinner, not quite breakfast? That's right. Using a recipe borrowed from his grandmother, Rodriquez doesn't just throw eggs on a tortilla with one measly......

"Grindhouse," the Tarantino-Rodriguez project filmed in Austin, opened nationwide this past weekend. And while the critically-lauded double-bill may well herald the resurgence of campy exploitation flicks, it might also bring us yet another Hollywood celeb. In an interview with News8Austin, Rosario Dawson (Sin City, Kids, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints), who stars in the Tarantino-directed "Death Proof," professes her love for Central Texas and hints at the possibility of opening up a production......

SXSW today announced an exciting new contest they're sponsoring with director Robert Rodriguez, in anticipation of the upcoming Rodriguez-Tarantino double feature, Grindhouse. Filmmakers are invited to submit their best "grindhouse trailers" for a fictional feature-length film, in the same vein as those being made by celebrity directors Eli Roth and Rob Zombie. Rodriguez (Sin City, Spy Kids, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) himself will judge the best submissions and share these at a......

They say that Jazz is the only truly American art form. But clearly “they” had never visited the back rooms of Las Vegas’ most popular casinos during the 1950s, where a group of oddball performers were developing a unique, hyper-regional brand of live entertainment known as the lounge act. Strictly speaking, lounge acts combined art forms that already existed; they were singers, dancers, comedians and impressionists. But in the swirling haze of booze, broads and......

Yea, we know, you’re tired, you’re rundown, you couldn’t possible attend another music festival for at least another year or so. Think again, friends. Just when you thought it was safe to crawl back into your cubicles, your only musical salvation coming from the tinny speakers built into your desktop, we present Vegoose. Taking place the last weekend in October, the festival in Sin City will feature Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Widespread Panic,......

Standing before thousands of screaming geeks at this weekend's 2006 San Diego Comic Con International, Quentin Tarantino announced the cast "Death Proof," one-half of a double-feature collaborative project entitled "Grindhouse" that he'll be working on with Austin director Robert Rodriquez. From wiki: A "grindhouse" is an American term for a theater that showed exploitation films; it is also used as an adjective to describe the genre of films that played in such theatres. While just......

MONDAY [22] [film] Letters from the Other Side at Congregational Church of Austin (7pm, Free) [link] [film] Hands on a Hard Body at Austin Java (8pm, Free) [link] [film] Jarhead at Cafe Mundi (8pm, Free) [link] [film] True Stories at Rounders Pizzeria (8pm, Free) [link] [film] Salt of the Earth at MonkeyWrench Books (8pm, $5) [link] [film] Anime Monday at Ventana del Sol (7:30pm) [link] [tv] 24 Season Finale at Alamo Downtown (7pm, Free) [link]......

MONDAY [15] [music] The Wood Brothers Featuring Chris Wood of Medeski Martin & Wood at Stubb's (link) [music] Wood Brothers at Waterloo Records (Free, 5pm) (link) [music] El Ten Eleven at Cactus Café (Free, 8:30pm) (link) [film] Taxi Driver at Austin Java (8pm, FREE) (link) [film] Soma at Café Mundi (8pm, FREE) (link) [film] Anime Monday at Ventana del Sol (7:30pm) (link) [film] American Beer with Amazing Beer Sampling (Sold Out) at Alamo Downtown (7pm)......

The first annual Fantastic Fest kicks off this week, beginning on Thursday night and running through Sunday. Fantastic Fest is the brainchild of Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and Tim McCanlies, and they have compiled almost two dozen feature films from a dozen countries. This new festival showcases the latest live-action and animated films in the genres of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy. The lineup includes: previews of Jon Favreau’s Zathura, Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s Sin City:......

While Austin begins to define itself as the "new American film capital", the exhibit opening Saturday at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum celebrates the past 100 years of filmmaking statewide. Texas Movies will cover the spectrum of Texas film history from the earliest productions companies and film footage to contemporary Texan directors, such as Wes Anderson and Robert Rodriguez. The exhibit honors homegrown filmmaking with artifacts from over 80 films made in Texas,......

Our local film industry has been booming in recent years - "Friday Night Lights", "Sin City", and "The Alamo" being just a few of the dozens of works produced in our city since 2000. Last week, Governor Perry signed Senate Bill 1142, which offers grants and financial incentives to filmmakers shooting in Texas. While SB-1142 certainly looks attractive to producers and directors, they may be sorely disappointed when they arrive here. As of now,......

Nearly five months ago, seven Austinites showed their movie at the Sundance Film Festival. Now three are headed to France for Cannes, which runs May 11 to May 22. Among the lucky are Robert Rodriguez’s "Sin City" (shocker) which will compete in the main program. A low budget thriller called "Room" by Kyle Henry, a University of Texas alumnus, is showing in the Director’s Fortnight program. Keun-Pyo Park, a UT graduate film student, will screen......

We played hooky on Friday to spend a little over two hours letting Robert Rodriguez, Mickey Rourke and Co. kick our ass in "Sin City." Since we imagine many of you have not seen it, we won't give away too much. We will just say, get your ass to the movie theater and see it. Regardless of your taste in films, we feel you will walk away satisfied. Whether you enjoy or have never......

It seems Austin has been getting a lot of attention from late night TV shows recently. Adding to this PR buzz was Robert Rodriguez who appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson promoting his latest, Sin City. Robert talked mostly about bringing in Frank Miler to co-direct the film, his family, and his DIY work ethic. But he did squeeze in a couple of nice things about our little city. When the sometimes......

An intrepid bird-watching local has set up a night-vision camera in the nest box he built for a pair of Eastern screech owls. (Click here to listen to their ghoulish mating call.) Not much drama yet, as the chicks haven't hatched, but in the meantime Madame Owl has been scarfing down whole birds and the occasional gecko in between confrontations with a pesky band of starlings. Think of it as Sin City minus the gangsters......

It looks like our favorite star of Speed 2: Cruise Control might have some company soon. That's right another possible celebrity transplant, but who you ask? Inside sources report that Hollywood badboy turned professional boxer turned E! 101 Most Starlicious Makeover participant Mickey Rourke is considering a move to our fair city. Apparently he fell in love with the town while filming Austinite Robert Rodriquez's latest offering Sin City. We here at the Austinist......

The post-SXSW music lull keeps our list of recommended night time activities a bit sparse, but with a CD release party that's sure to turn into dance mayhem, a local rock showcase of talented men in bear suits, and a show by a band who sings about shipping routes in the 1700's, we think you'll find something to do. As usual, if there's a show you think is notable that we've forgotten, drop it in......

Sin City, a movie based on the excellent and very dark comic of the same name, will be having a special premiere here in Austin on the 31st. Tickets are not cheap, but we think it'll be a small price to pay to see this film at the Paramount with Robert Rodriguez in the house. The movie was shot to look like the art of the comic book, which was written and illustrated by......