AUSTIN – About an hour into Sunday night’s world premiere of Elektra Luxx, the screen went dark in the Paramount Theatre. It was during a transition from one scene to the next, and in the new scene, the characters were speaking to each other on the phone. It sort of made sense as an artistic choice – [...]

You may only dimly, painfully recall this, but this past weekend saw NX35 in Denton (Preston Jones’ festival review here), the start of SXSW in Austin, the end of the Out of the Loop Festival in Addison, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Greenville, Funky Finds in Fort Worth and an Art Crawl in Oak [...]

AUSTIN – Yes, this really happened.
A DJing storm trooper is one of the weirder things I’ve seen this weekend (though I also saw a ninja handing out flyers). But his presence at The Highball Saturday night wasn’t out of place. The bar hosted the after party for The People Vs. George Lucas, a documentary that [...]

AUSTIN – Many years ago, I had a music teacher who used to tell me that I couldn’t play something fast if I couldn’t play it slow. Maybe David Gordon Green had the same teacher – we both grew up in Richardson.
The Pineapple Express director told a crowd full of film enthusiasts and future filmmakers [...]

AUSTIN – The sign to the right wasn’t the best way to start my first day at South by Southwest. But one of the rules of attending (and covering) film festivals is you gotta roll with the punches. There are a million moving parts, and sometimes they don’t always line up as planned.
Which is not [...]

Guest blogger Gail Sachson owns Ask Me About Art, offering tours, lectures and program planning. She is Vice-Chair of the Cultural Affairs Commission and a member of the Public Art Committee.
I never knew what I’d answer Barbara Walters. Now I know. I’d want Peter Guber, Bob Balaban and Brett Ratner at my fantasy dinner party!  [...]

LOCAL OSCAR NOTES: Of the story lines that touched North Texas last night at the Oscars, the most direct comes via “The Weary Kind” winning best original song. It was featured in Crazy Heart and was written by Ryan Bingham of Austin and T Bone Burnett of Fort Worth. Once onstage, Bingham was quick to [...]

Guest blogger Andy Streitfeld is owner and CEO of Dallas-based AMS Pictures. He sends along the following post:

Last year, I met an ordinary man who did a very extraordinary thing. His name is Nando Parrado, and he’s the hero of the “Miracle of the Andes,” the story of the 1972 Uruguayan plane crash most [...]

The Dallas International Film Festival sends word today of 12 additional films that it has added to its slate. More on that in a minute.
The other bit of cool news is that the festival will honor Pete Docter with the 2010 Tex Avery Animation Award. If you aren’t familiar with Docter, be sure to watch [...]

Did you miss the Oscar roundtable discussion featuring Chris Vognar, Chris Kelly and Yours Truly today on Think? Or did you tune in for it, and now you just want to replay it over and over and over again?
Well, now you can. Click the audio player below to listen to the entire episode in podcast [...]