Austin Director Richard Linklater Appears At Blockbuster

Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater made several personal appearances recently to promote his new documentary about University of Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido, Inning By Inning: A Portrait of a Coach, now available on DVD.

His most recent appearance was yesterday at the Blockbuster store in Pflugerville, Tx. Linklater met with fans and signed autographs for a couple of hours, giving plenty of time to each person. He followed up the event by playing catch with a fan behind the store.

Linklater has gained somewhat of a cult following for his independent films since the early 90s with the releases Slacker (available as a Criterion Collection DVD) and Dazed & Confused.

He has since enjoyed mainstream success with films like School of Rock and Bad News Bears.

Linklater co-founded the Austin Film Society in 1985, which has since proved invaluable to independent and mainstream filmmakers in Austin.

Austin Fans Given Surprise Showing Of Star Trek

Last night Paramount pulled off one of the coolest stunts in fan history.

A free screening of the film Star Trek II-The Wrath Of Khan was scheduled at the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin. Promoted to appear after the film was a 10 minute preview of JJ Abram's new film Star Trek, which opens May 8. Read what actually happened from TrekMovie.com:

According to our man on the scene, the evening started off normally at the Fantastic Fest Star Trek event at the Alamo Draughthouse Theater in Austin, Texas on Monday night. Star Trek filmmakers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof kicked things off by telling the crowd of around 200, that they would be seeing the Star Trek preview after Wrath of Khan. Two minutes in to the showing of TWOK, the film appeared to have ‘melted’ and the guys came back out on the stage and appeared to be stalling for time while the film was fixed…and then, wearing a ball cap, Leonard Nimoy came out in front of the audience holding a film can.
Nimoy noted to the crowd that it just didn’t seem fair that people in Australia were the fist to see the film and asked them "wouldn’t you rather see the new movie?" And apparently the crowd went wild. After that they showed the entire new Star Trek movie. Nimoy stayed for the entire event as did Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof.
According to a friend who called in to TrekMovie after the event, the audience reaction was very positive. There were "genuine laughs" at the jokes and "quiet moments" with the serious character stuff. And apparently the crowd applauded at the introduction to each character. The film ended with a standing ovation.

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Cinematic Titanic Tonight In Austin

Cinematic Titanic is the new movie riffing show from the creator and original cast of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, live on-stage at the Paramount Theater in Austin!

Like MST3K, the show was created by Joel Hodgson and features the same team that first brought the award winning cult-classic series to life: Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein, Frank Conniff, and Mary Jo Pehl.  Cinematic Titanic continues the tradition of riffing on ‘the unfathomable’, ‘the horribly great’, and the just plain ‘cheesy’ movies from the past.

Tonight the movie being riffed will be The Dynamite Brothers. Fans of MST3K and stuff like Alamo Drafthouse's Weird Wednesday will not want to miss it.

I just checked and you can STILL buy tickets for tonight's show at GetTix.net!

Below is an example of what to expect:

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Office Space 10 Year Reunion Event

Mike Judge, Stephen Root, and Gary Cole were among the stars that showed up last night at Austin's legendary Paramount Theater for a unique event: a 10th anniversary screening of Judge's 1999 film Office Space.

Fans started gathering outside the Paramount around 6:30pm for the 8pm showing. Local news as well as G4TV were there interviewing fans beforehand and filming the red carpet arrival of the cast.

Judge and his family were the first to arrive at 7:30 to a crowd of cheering fans. Shortly after, the remaining cast arrived in a separate limo. This included David Herman, Ajay Naidu, Gary Cole, Stephen Root, John C. McGinley, Diedrich Bader, Paul Willson, Kinna McInroe, and Todd Duffey. Several cast members re-enacted the printer smashing scene from the film right there on the red carpet.

Vendors hawked Office Space swag inside including Initech t-shirts, bags of flair, and Office Space Blu-rays. The screening was met with wild applause to a packed theater. Mike Judge and the cast fielded questions after the showing.

Judge and a few other cast members milled about the lobby after the show signing autographs and talking to fans.

Office Space 10th Anniversary from Dallas Observer on Vimeo.