Browsing the still-in-development HTML5 recommendation is fun.
My favorite addition is the “irrelevant” attribute (which I could wrap around some entire sites I’ve done in the past), but there are all kinds of interesting new gadgets, including a bunch of new dom events, sandboxable iframes, video and audio elements, a “draggable” attribute, a datagrid and more. [...]
Funniest Venn diagram I’ve seen in a long time. Also, the most accurate. Though it doesn’t differentiate between IE6 and IE7 users, which I feel is a key piece of information.
I’m probably the last person in the world to figure this out, but Gmail hates Firebug–my mail slows to a crawl if I have FB running. Disabling FB completely seems to have worked for me. Though now I need to keep turning it off and on all day, which blows. (And no, choosing “disable firebug [...]
aGLIFF 2008 The Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival kicks off next Wednesday. Austinist is presenting the opening night film, Otto, a gay zombie flick.
SXSW 09 Badges On Sale Earlybird badges for SXSW 09 are now on sale. Don't quote me on this, but it looks like the cheapest/earliest rates have gone up about $50 per badge type. If you're gonna buy, now's the time.
Austin’s 3rd Annual FunFunFun Fest has a kickass lineup this year. It’s kind of a strange hodgepodge of punk, indie, dance and hip hop, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The highlights for me include:
The National, Minus the Bear (even though each record is slightly less awesome, “Highly Refined Pirates” banks them a lot of cred in my book), St. Vincent (Member of Dallas’ The Polyphonic Spree whose solo record is great), Deerhoof, Dead Milkmen, Bad Brains, Clipse, Dan Deacon, Young Widows, Kool Keith and ALL.
I’m also really excited about the Rival Schools reunion, and the Walter Schreifels solo set. I’m a huge Quicksand fan, and Walter is still a kind of mythic figure to me.
This Sunday, the Alamo downtown will present a single screening of Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a documentary portrait of the brilliant director and sometime lecher.
Apparently, the film focuses heavily on the infamous, circus-like statutory rape trial that led to Polanski’s self-imposed exile. But it also explores the Polish director’s turbulent early life, including his time in a German concentration camp, and the brutal murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson Family.
Whatever you think of Polanski himself, the guy has led had an amazingly interesting life, and I’m interested to see how he’s presented here.
UPDATE: This will actually be playing a few times next week. I’m dumb. Got tickets for Sunday, though.
Austin Chronicle: Best of Austin 2008 It's that time of year again. Please vote for Austinist in the "Local Non-Chronicle Publication", "Local Entertainment Website" and "Local Blog" sections.
Very Short Stories Kristin and I were just talking about Hemingway's shortest story, and while I was looking for the exact phrasing, I come across this Wired list of stories written in the same spirit. Some are fantastic. Some are not.
Fantastic Fest Announces Second Wave of Titles There is some overlap between the FF lineup (so far) and the much smaller but equally awesome TIFF Midnight Madness Lineup. They both look great– in fact, Fantastic Fest looks downright amazing this year.
Dischord Records opens Direct Download Service They announced this a while back, but the Dischord MP3 store is now officially open. The entire Dischord catalog is available for download, with most albums priced at $7. Who needs retail? I love Dischord so much.
If you tried to come to my site recently (particularly if you’re using Firefox), you probably got some crazy warning about how your computer will blow up, or something.
Apparently, I was hacked. Don’t worry though, it wasn’t anything that would have harmed or infected your computer. You’re all good.
Anyhoo, I’m back online now. I guess I should check on this site more often, but now that I’m posting mostly through browser plugins, I don’t often actually see the site any more. Lesson learned.
Get Your War On, the Animated Series Not long after I moved to Austin, I caught a stage adaptation of GYWO… it was pretty brilliant. This new animated series looks like it might be just as good.
Long-Lost Reels Of Metropolis Recovered Wow. I can't wait to see this re-released in all its glory. Though I'm pretty sure Metropolis is in the public domain, so I hope someone sees restoring the footage as a worthy investment.
Alan Ball’s “True Blood” Gets Cool Marketing Campaign Six Feet under creator Alan Ball's new show–about a group of vampires who drink synthetic blood in order to live among humans–has a very cool, very extensive marekting campaign.
Amazon Debuts Streaming Movie/TV Service Amazon will launch a new streaming video service to select customers called Amazon Video on Demand. The service is different from its Unbox download service, which offers downloads of movies and TV to rent and buy, but only works on Windows machines.
Dark Knight Promotion Prompts Evacuation at KENS 5 News As part of a promotion for The Dark Knight, a "suspicious cake" was delivered to a San Antonio news station, prompting an evacuation. Apparently, the cake contains a cell phone, with which to call a "clown rental" service. Awesome.
Dead Milkmen to Reunite for Fun Fest 2008 Last year, it was the Murder City Devils. This year, punk legends Dead Milkmen will reunite for FunFunFun fest. Keep an eye on Austinist for more artist announcements.
bside acquires Dirt Road to Psychedelia Austin-based bside entertainment recently added the Austin music doc Dirt Road to Psychedelia to its catalog. A DRM-free DVD quality download is $8. Dirt Road screened at last year's Austin Film Festival.
Plexifilm Movie of the Month: Finisterre A journey through London, from the suburbs into the heart of the city over an imaginary 24 hours. Featuring Lawrence from Felt/Denim, Mark Perry, the editor of original punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue, singer Vashti Bunyan, and more.
Repo: The Genetic Opera This Generation's Rocky Horror? Not quite sure what to make of this yet, but it looks totally strange in a good way. I'll try to ignore the "from the producers of SAW" bit.
The 2008 Fantasia Film Festival I wish I had an unlimited supply of time and money. This year's Fantasia Film Festival looks pretty unbelievable. If you live anywhere near Montreal, you should go.
The Ultimate Dark Knight Adventure This may be the coolest movie adventure yet–a trip to Bracken Bat Cave, followed by a screening of Dark Knight. I've been to Bracken, and it's amazing on its own–you've never seen this many bats in your life. Literally; it's the worlds largest colony.
Clive Barker On Lionsgate’s Mistreatment of Midnight Meat Train I have to admit, the title "Midnight Meat Train" isn't as appropriate for a movie as it is for a short story. But I'm still jazzed about seeing this–the first in a series of adaptations based on Barker's brilliant "Books of Blood".
‘Passchendaele’ to open Toronto Early news from TIFF. The website (with more info, I hope) goes live on June 27th. I was just talking to Chris about what an amazing lineup TIFF had last year.
Movies about Making Movies Austinite and all-around cool person Jette Kernion has put together a list of seven great movies about making movies. It's a great list, and it's actually realy fun to try and think of more.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button A good quality English trailer for the new David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) flick starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. I'm pretty psyched about it.
I guess I never explained this “link roundup” thing.
Here’s the deal: it takes me a really, really long time to write anything at all. And at such a sluggish pace, I can’t cover a tenth of the interesting junk I run across during the course of a day. So rather than let post after post of unfinished full-length commentary languish in draft, I attached my del.icio.us account to this blog and started publishing my bookmarks in chunks of 4 or 5. This way, my commentary is necessarily limited to 250 characters, and I’m pretty much forced to keep things simple. Which is best for both of us.
This is not to say I won’t also be writing full-length posts any more–but there’ll probably be lots of supplemental content in between. Hooray?
Hitchens on Bohemia It's not about movies or music or Austin. But I like Hitchens a lot, and he's right: "on the day when everywhere looks like everywhere else we shall all be very much impoverished, and not only that…we will be unable to express or even understand or depict what we have lost."
Trailer for Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna Lee's newest follows Buffalo Soldiers trapped behind enemy lines in Italy during WWII. The trailer looks good… release is set for the fall. I think it's about time I watched Do the Right Thing again. It's probably time you did too. (via Ain't it cool)
Alamo July/August Calendar Available Some really fun stuff in the next few months, including a Spaced marathon hosted by Edgar Wright, a trip to Bracken Bat Cave for the Dark Knight opening, a Monte Hellman triple-feature, a Slapshot roadshow and Guillermo Del Toro live to open Hellboy 2.
The Siskel & Ebert YouTube Guide This has been up for a while, so you may have seen it, but part-time Austinite and popular movie critic Scott Weinberg has a fantastic collection of old Siskel & Ebert reviews. Definitely worth a browse, but be prepared to lose some productivity.
Speaking of Vampires… The Lost Boys 2 Trailer The long-unwanted sequel to the absolutely amazing vampire flick Lost Boys is going straight to DVD in the near future. Who'd have guessed? I've got to admit though… I'm a little curious to see the Coreys battle vampires again. Kind of.
Twilight Is the Hot New Vampire Movie for Teens I must be way out of the Young Adult horror/fantasy loop, because I'd never even heard of Twilight until a few months ago. But apparently it's a wildly popular series of vampire novels. Some even call author Stephenie Meyer the "American J.K.Rowling".
Blogopticon Map Includes Gothamist Vanity Fair puts the Gothamist network (Austinist's publisher) in a reasonably non-insulting spot on their "Blogopticon". We're apparently slightly less newsy than Salon, yet more scurrilous. Which I thought was complimentary until I looked it up.
Back in March, I did an email interview with Mark and Jay Duplass, the super cool ex-Austinites behind the new comedy/thriller Baghead, which got tons of positive press from Sundance and Tribeca this year. The SXSW screening was so jam-packed, I didn’t even come close to getting in… and I got there an hour early.
Anyhoo, Baghead will open in Austin this Thursday (long before anywhere else in the country) with an outdoor screening at Star Hill Ranch. Im’ pretty psyched about it. Over at Austinist, we’re giving away a couple sets of tickets to folks who email us a “Baghead” photo of themselves.
Plexifilm’s Free Streaming Movie of the Month The staggeringly cool DVD label Plexifilm has introduced a Free Movie of the Month feature on their website. Every month, you can stream an entire movie for free. They're kicking it off with the doc "Spend An Evening With Saddle Creek".
The War on Photography This is so dead on. A few years ago, I had a scrape with a security guard in Chicago while taking photos near the Boeing building. I was simply standing on the sidewalk, taking photos AWAY from the building itself. Sometimes, people can be total idiots.
Shearwater’s Rook Gets a Pitchfork 8 Austin-based Shearwater's last record, Palo Santo, is one of my favorite albums in recent years. And though I rarely read Pitchfork any more, I'm glad to see that the band's new record, Rook, got a glowing review.
Austin City Limits Releases 2008 Schedule The schedule for ACL 08 is online. This'll be the first year I actually go. Looking forward to lots: David Byrne, Band of Horses, M. Ward, Del, Hot Chip, Spiritualized, Neko Case, Okkervil River and City and Colour
???????? ????? ????????Weird Wednesday Blog! Weird Wednesday is an incredibly popular, incredibly awesome weekly film series hosted by Lars Nilsen at the Alamo Drafthouse. Every week, he showcases bizarre, rare and/or fantastic movies you might not otherwise see. And now, he's writing about them. Which is great, because I don’t get to go to Weird Wednesdays very often (they’re all Midnight shows), and Lars has a superhuman knowledge of cinema.
Watch Online, Through Your TV This is the appliance that lets you stream Netflix "Watch Instantly" titles right to your TV. For $99, it's beyond awesome. It's not HD yet, but Netflix says it's HD-ready, and they'll have some fancy high-def content up soon.
First, the biggest news in the watch online universe: Netflix has partnered with a third party company called Roku to develop a Netflix Watch Instantly appliance. Basically, you plug one end into the internet, and the other end into your TV, allowing you to play unlimited “Watch Instantly” titles through your boob tube (assuming you have a Netflix subscription).
This may not seem like huge news at first, but trust me, it’s an absolutely brilliant move on Netflix’s part (further expanding the functionality and value of their system), and it clearly signals the beginning of the end for standard VOD as it’s currently delivered by cable companies. Solid.
But what I really wanted to tell you about was this: the Paul Schrader-penned, John Flynn-Directed classic Rolling Thunder is now available to watch online. This is pretty big news, because it was previously difficult to find in any form at all. Also, because it’s fucking awesome.
The always brilliant Aphanisis Blog has a much better description of the film than I could ever muster, but I will tell you this: both William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones are at their absolute best, and I think I actually like Rolling Thunder more than Schrader’s more well-known scripts Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. And I completely love Taxi Driver, so that’s saying a lot.
The first and only time I saw Faces of Death was at a smoke-filled, beer-soaked party in ninth grade–so my terrified memories of it may be exaggerated. But despite the exotic thrill of watching something so utterly, obviously wrong, it definitely left a terrible, permanent, awesome impression on my brain.
So I’m both disappointed and relieved to find out that it was mostly fake.
Though I’m probably at least a year behind on this news (I usually am with these kinds of things), it just goes to show how hard it is to keep a secret these days, what with the internet and all. And though I can’t quite put my finger on it, there is something truly awesome about a world where a group of people can pull such an elaborate, brilliant, successful hoax for such an extended period of time.
**Note: this is the second in a series where I explore Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” archive looking for great movies. Recently, Netflix added a “Watch Instantly” queue alongside the regular DVD queue. It’s pretty fantastic.
If the name Tony Kaye doesn’t ring a bell, don’t feel bad–his only notable film is the 1998 drama American History X , which he publicly denounced before its release, asking the DGA to credit him as “Humpty Dumpty” (I hope he’s kicking himself now, because AHX is a great movie).
It’s a shame, though, that Kaye’s not better known for his latest film Lake of Fire, an unflinching documentary look at America’s pro-life and pro-choice movements.
Shot in black and white (in itself, a strong metaphor considering the subject matter), Lake of Fire features interviews with liberal academics and conservative zealots in near equal measure, as well as intimate conversations with the doctors, nurses and women involved in the procedures.
At two-and-a-half hours, Lake of Fire is as probing as a documentary can be, exploring the moral uncertainties surrounding abortion, as well as the pro-life movement’s connections to fundamentalist zealotry and institutional misogyny. But the film’s real strength is its steadfast unwillingness to let the audience off the hook–even going so far as to include graphic footage of actual abortions being performed.
I’ve gotta tell you–I went in to this film thinking I had an unwavering opinion about the issue. But facing the uncomfortable reality of the procedure itself is soul-rending, and it seems to me that after watching Lake of Fire, any sane person will be deeply saddened and utterly conflicted.
* As of this writing, Lake of Fire is available for instant viewing on Netflix
Scrolling through the list of nominees is a good time–though you’ll have to do your own searching on Youtube to find any actual videos, which is sort of frustrating.
Personally, I’m rooting for the Dark Knight trailer, partly because it’s badass, and partly because I’m a total nerd. On the other hand, the trailer that got me furniture Elhovomost interested in a movie this year was this one for Julia Loktev’s abstract thriller Day Night Day Night. I mean–wow.
If you have cable, you can catch the GTAs on Fox’s “MyNetworkTV” (whatever the hell that is) this Thursday May 8th. The judges include Jim Sheridan, Harris Goldberg and Austin’s own mega movie nerd Harry Knowles. And it’s hosted by Sinbad, which, in itself, is hilarious.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of trailers, watch this.
Austin’s 3rd Annual FunFunFun Fest has a kickass lineup this year. It’s kind of a strange hodgepodge of punk, indie, dance and hip hop, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The highlights for me include:
Back in March, I did an email 
First, the biggest news in the watch online universe: Netflix has partnered with a third party company called Roku to develop a 
**Note: this is the second in a series where I explore Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” archive looking for great movies. Recently, Netflix added a “Watch Instantly” queue alongside the regular DVD queue. It’s pretty fantastic.
I had no idea the 
