NY Times on the recent changes at Troublemaker Studios

Rumor flies around in every town, big or small -- Austin is no exception. So when Rose McGowan was on the arm of Robert Rodriguez in the place of Rodriguez' wife, Elizabeth Avellan, the city's film community took notice.

The New York Times doesn't lower itself to salacious details, thank goodness, but it does provide a solid article on what happens now for the team that produced Spy Kids and Desperado. I'm looking forward to seeing the individual output of both halves of the team. I'm hopeful it will be less like Spy Kids 3 and more like Planet Terror.

Read the full article on Rodriguez and Avellan at the NY Times web site.

Chris Magyar's interview with They Might Be Giants

The former Tuber diarist writes up a nice long piece about the two Johns for the Santa Cruz Good Times weekly. I kind of overdosed on TMBG in college (I think I went to two, maybe three shows in as many years?) and haven't mustered up a real enthusiasm for the group since then, but it's nice to know that they're doing so well. I particularly liked the Beatles and Monkees references.

Read it at gtweekly.com.

Stomp Tokyo Podcast, Bonus Episode #2

About three weeks ago we just had to talk about the new iPod announcements and so we recorded it. If you're not a fan of listening to us go fanboy all over the iPhone and such, this would probably be a good episode to skip. That's why we called it a bonus episode; it doesn't really have anything to do with cult movies and we'd hate for you to go in thinking we were going to talk about anything but technology in this ep. Stay tuned for a real episode about the new genre TV in the Fall season really really soon. Promise.

If, on the other hand, you dig the idea of an iPod with all the schmancy touch features and want to hear us talk about the ins and outs of the annoucement earlier this month, please! Click away and listen to Bonus Episode #2 now -- no iPod required.

MC Pee Pants disses Kingdom Hearts (NSFW)

Nikon D3 sports an amazingly high ISO setting

The bane of any halfway serious photographer is shooting in natural light that's too low to quite support your camera's ability to pull that light in and capture sharp images. My Canon Rebel XT does OK with an ISO setting that maxes out at 1600 (most consumer film sells with ISO ratings of 100 - 400), but the new Nikon D3 tops out at ISO 6400.

Check out some sample wedding photos here.

It's worth mentioning that the D3 -- without lens -- sells for $5000.

Fantastic Fest updates forthcoming ; "There Will Be Blood" closes festival

Since returning to Texas from Indiana and Ohio I've thrown myself
headlong into the last four days of Fantastic Fest. Austin's eight day
marathon of genre movie madness is as successful and geek-scented as
in 2007 as in its previous two years, as borne out by the fact that
the limited number of VIP passes for the 2008 festival that were put
on sale during this year's event dwindled to 25 by Wednesday
afternoon. A friendly Fantastic Fest volunteer mentioned this evening
that they have since sold out, but I haven't been able to confirm that
elsewhere. (One of the consequences of FF's increased popularity is
that the wifi network is completely overwhelmed, rendering it useless
for everyone.)

The only bit of news I have to relate is that, as rumored, "There Will
Be Blood" was indeed the secret screening that serves as the closing
night film. Upon hearing that I was relieved to have chosen to see
"The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" instead, since the chances of seeing
that on film in the future are much slimmer.

More soon, but there's much-neglected family and work and sleep to
catch up on this weekend first.

B-Fest 2008 dates announced!

This year's B-Fest will be held on January 18th and 19th, 2008. Same venue on the Northwestern campus.

Never heard of B-Fest? Visit the official web site.

Austin festival roundup for Fall 2007

Fall is a good time of year for movie geeks in Austin. Read my roundup of the big three film festivals in my town over at Slackerwood.

Dragon*Con 2007

I didn't attend Dragon*Con this year, but I was in Atlanta during the event this past weekend. I dropped in on Scott today (the con's final day) for lunch and it sounds like it was another year of record attendance and good geeky fun for the convention. Of course growth comes with growing pains and there was a bit of grousing about the way the guest appearances were handled but it sounds like they're learning a few things about crowd control.

One of the main attractions of the convention is the costuming. Hordes of enterprising and creative pop culture fans descend upon the hotel complex sporting their best gear (and, for the voyeuristically inclined, sometimes not much of it). The real-world manifestations of characters both beloved and obscure is one of my favorite reasons to go.

This year, however, I'll be watching the Dragon*Con group on Flickr. A small army of photographers (and an even larger number of casual snapshooters) captured the magic for all to behold. I can't wait to see what I missed.