FRIDAY [20] benefit/music • Ashera-Blare-A IV with All In the Golden Afternoon, The Heirs, The Minderchucks, and The Otters at Club DeVille beer/party • Black Star Co-op's Craft Beer Celebration with Pong, Opposite Day, The Second Line Social, and fine craft beer from around the country at Fiesta Gardens (8pm-Midnight, $10) comedy • Punchline, open mic stand up comedy at ColdTowne Theater (10pm) dance • Room, part of Refraction Arts' Fuse Box Festival at The......

Tonight, as part of their South By Southeast: The Films of Thailand and Vietnam series, the Austin Film Society presents Ong-Bak, the breakout 2003 action film that brought martial arts whiz Tony Jaa to international attention. When a nasty big-city gangster steals a sacred Buddha head from a small Thai village (thereby severely messing up the village’s karma, or something), Ting (Jaa) ventures to Bangkok to recover it. With the help of his estranged con-artist......

Tonight, as part of their South By Southeast: The Films of Thailand and Vietnam series, the Austin Film Society presents Last Life in the Universe, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s gorgeously pensive tale of violence, loneliness and love on the outskirts of Bangkok. Last Life tells the story of Kenji, a timid, obsessive-compulsive librarian whose attempt to hang himself is interrupted by his brother Yukio, a Japanese gang member on the run from a vindictive Yakuza boss. After......

Tonight, as part of their South By Southeast: The Films of Thailand and Vietnam series, the Austin Film Society presents Academy Award nominee Anh Hung Tran's elegiac 2001 drama Vertical Ray of the Sun. Set in modern Hanoi, Vertical Ray of the Sun follows three sisters (Suong, Khanh and Lien) as they prepare a memorial feast in honor of their deceased parents. The more time the sisters spend together, the more they discover hidden truths......

We'll be mostly offline through the rest of this week to spend the holidays with our families. Happy Thanksgiving, Austinites! WEDNESDAY [22] film • "School House Rock" Sing&Learn-Along at Alamo Downtown (7pm, $10) film • The Syrian Bride at Congregation Beth Israel (7pm) film • Be Here to Love Me at Beerland (7pm, Free) film • A Woman Is a Woman at Spider House (8pm,Free) film • Moulin Rouge at Rounders Pizzeria (8pm,Free) film......

WEDNESDAY [18] party • Cut Club with The Young Professionals (Prince Klassen, KidIndie) at The Mohawk dance • Requiem at Intel Shell (8pm, $20-$30) film • Bad Education at Arbor (1:10pm & 6:50pm) ® film • Live Flesh at Arbor (4:10pm & 9:30pm) ® film • Norman Mailer: Beyond the Law at Alamo Downtown (7pm) ® film • The Films of Joseph Cornell at The Space (8pm, Free) film • Back to the Future......

aGLIFF, or the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, tonight hosts the latest in its 2006 Filmmaker Series, which presents works by up-and-coming queer filmmakers and donates any proceeds from ticket sales to support their future projects. Austin-based auteur Alpha's first effort, a documentary short piece entitled What Can 2 Girls Do Together?, debunked common misconceptions that straight males hold about lesbians and earned her a reputation as a guerrilla filmmaker. Since then, she's......

WEDNESDAY [16] film • Take a Chance on Me: the ABBA Sing-along at Alamo Downtown (9:45pm, $10) film • Save Our Springs presents Green at Alamo Downtown (7pm, Free) film • Black Orpheus at Paramount Theatre (7:30pm) film • The Man with the Golden Gun at Rounders Pizzeria (8pm, Free) film • aGLIFF presents The Films of Alpha at Arbor (8pm, $10) ® film • Weird Wednesday: Fer De Lance (aka: Snakes on a......