Photo courtesy Richard Foreman/Miramax There is dark humor, and then there is the kind of humor in which a bone sticking out of a man’s arm qualifies as one of the lighter moments. No Country For Old Men, a film of dark beauty and sharp formal precision, is not a comedy by any stretch of the imagination; but, like the best films, it proves that an element of absurdity is necessary to chart the best......

Image from www.loadedguntheory.comThe holidays are a busy time for theatre in Austin, with too many seasonal shows to choose from. As the glut looms, several fine shows are closing. Get to these while the gettin's good! Much-lauded director Karen Jambon helms Loaded Gun Theory's Little Murders. You can't judge a show by its artwork, but we think theirs is the best we've seen all year. This dark comedy about an overbearing daughter—played by the always-delightful......

On Thursday, a scholar named Randolph Lewis, of the University of Oklahoma, comes to the Harry Ransom Center to speak. Resolved: The recent explosion of documentary film has not helped the genre at all, instead causing it to conform to televisual norms, and pushing its filmmakers to use less "literary imagination" in their creative processes. We guess that means that in order to get on board with this argument, you kind of have to believe......

Upon arriving around 2:50pm, we found quite a bit of chaos. An unfortunate propane tank explosion had injured four ACL staffers, so fire trucks, EMS vehicles, and golf carts were buzzing everywhere. Our tickets were stuck with a friend inside, so we found a shady tree and hung out until the dust settled around 3:15. We entered to the wafting notes of Peter, Bjorn, and John, who had attracted such a huge crowd we......

An Austinist reader sent us pictures of what appears to be a "small" fire in the food area at the ACL Fest. More news to come... Update: KXAN reports that the fire was the result of a propane tank explosion behind the AT&T stage. Three people were injured, two seriously so.......

We just received a tip from a reader about a very recent explosion this morning:There was an explosion east of S. Congress near the Leland St. intersection. A large plume of smoke was clearly visible, and many emergency vehicles rushed to the scene. I was eating breakfast at Magnolia Café and could see the smoke rising across the street.If anyone has any more information, please send it on . . .......

JOSH RITTER What’s The Deal: Josh Ritter graduated from college with a major in American History through Narrative Folk Music, which makes the title of this folk-pop singer/songwriter’s recently released album, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, fitting as well as boastful. He can boast all he wants with those hearty lyrics fat with imagery and the voluminous songwriting of this, his fifth album. Comparisons to Bob Dylan as well as John Lennon immediately come......

Austinist recently had the opportunity to talk with Zell Miller III about his upcoming show Hip Hop Theater Explosion!. Miller was this year's winner of the Mark David Cohen New Play Award for his work My Child, My Child, My Alien Child. He received critical acclaim for last year's B-Boy Bluez, and packed houses the previous year for his phenomenal Evidence of Silence Broken. Now he's showcasing Austin's best and brightest hip-hop talent in what......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too—two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the city's Congonhas......

Darkest Hour Deliver Us (Victory Records) The constant shelling of everything that is optimistic and poppy by this metalcore howitzer is relentless, genuine and mysterious. Their sixth release is full of double bass drum thumping, throaty screams and metal guitar chugs and soloing. Eschewing sappy melodic breakdowns that come off making the whole thing contrived, this volatile DC quintet adhere to a steady diet of nitro-fueled scorchers. But somehow, the lyrics are still audible, which......

Friday night's Glorium reunion show marks the final pinnacle of Emo's 15th anniversary celebration. Glorium are one of the vital pages in Austin's long musical history. The band originally formed in San Antonio in 1991 and immediately began to make a name for themselves by using avant-garde aesthetics with lessons learned from the hardcore punk scene. The result was an explosion of emotional and musical creativity; pushing the boundaries of lyrical imagery and human......

[This post comes from Anna Hanks, who'll soon be joining the Austinist staff!] Oh how we love our brooding bad-boys, full of emotional conflicts and divided loyalties. From James Dean to Marlon Brando, we just adore our theatrical time-bombs ticking down to an eventual emotional explosion. Black outfits only accentuate their outlaw charms. Biblical bad-boy Judas Iscariot — beautifully and brilliantly portrayed by John Pointer in Zachary Scott Theatre Center’s new bilingual production of Jesus......

You’ve got to possess a certain amount of bravado or at least a total lack of giving a shit about current trends to bust out the white denim and strut down the street, or Mohawk Friday night. And that’s exactly how the band must feel about their music, taking long strides with their heads held high. Because White Denim has created something that is uniquely alarming in all its post-whatever, garage-ish experimentation. My comrades......

White Denim are sort of an anomaly in Austin: they aren't iPod dance-rock, they don't have a gimmick, and they haven't been consumed by the scene's self-conscious rock elite. They seem to be making it based on the purest of rock 'n roll fantasies: a live show that makes people turn around and smile at each other, and songs which catalyze that in more ways than one. But describing their sound can be difficult.......

What happens when you throw music, dance, poetry, photography, visual art, theatre, film, and -- why not? -- opera into a great big blue box and shake? You get an explosion of proportions that only the creative geniuses at Refraction Arts can contain. This year's Fuse Box Festival, featuring artists from Brooklyn to Portland and places in between, showcases works you've never seen before and aren't likely to see hence. Things start gearing up this......

*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors It’s not like they mean to get in harm’s way. They’re simply doing whatever it is that they’ve always done. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do at the time, and it was obviously popular, as evidenced by the results as they stand today. And those results are proof that......

Sometime this fall, the city is finally going to take steps to demolish that half-assed Intel building. The eyesore has been stagnant for so long, we can't remember what was there before it existed. Probably a Liberty Lunch or Armadillo equivalent that became prey to evergrowing corporate needs to just build something. Intel pulled the plug on construction in 2001 with no intention to complete it. Now we know there were a gajillion cool things......

Well this could be the last time. This could be the last time. May be the last time. I dont know. [07.22 in Music] Last chance to see A Scanner Darkly with composer Graham Reynolds [07.22 in Movies] Celebrating Slackerdom...Again: This Week's New Movie Releases! [07.21 in Movies] World War III, IV, or V? [07.21 in News] Austin Duo Brave Sharks and Sea Monsters for Vets [07.21 in Fitness+Outdoors] Lock Up the Children and......

Austinist was heavy-hearted to learn this week of the passing of Warren "Ryder" Schwartz. As has been much reported in the press, Schwartz was stabbed to death in south Austin last weekend. Ryder Schwartz -- a nickname that seemed to grow from "Red" (he had quite the coppertop), to "Red Ryder", to most casually "Ryder" -- was a juggler of unusual talent. In 1987, at the age of 21, when he heard that the......

After 18 bands in a weekend, Austinist is exhausted. Coachella 2006 was everything we thought it would be, only hotter, and with less alcohol (due to the scorching heat) and more drugs (since nobody could drink near the stages). We went in with no set agenda in terms of seeing particular bands - it seemed smarter to just hit whatever struck us right at the time. This strategy worked pretty well, and here's how......

The hip-hop references alone had us smitten… we would like to add our gyrating crotch to the many crotches already gyrating upon the leg of Gary Shteyngart. His latest novel, Absurdistan, kept us rapt for the past week. Goncharov's Oblomov and Biggie Smalls alluded to in one book, frequently... who does that? Absurdistan is the narrative plea issued by the extremely corpulent man-child Misha Vainberg, "son of the 1,238th richest man in Russia," to regain......

Austin is getting a new public Art Installation. Today at 11am, Mayor Will Wynn and Gibson Guitars will be part of a ceremony kicking-off the project in front of City Hall. Austin GuitarTown is going to feature guitars scattered around the city, placed in front of landmarks and significant businesses, that are painted by local musicians and artisans. NASA is planning to bomb the moon in order to study dust particles that come from......

When permit issues kept the TXRD Roller Girls out of their very own Thunderdome they went in search of the ultimate space for their next bout. Well, they've found it; the Austin Convention Center. Not only in the heart of downtown Austin, but during the heart of SXSW 2006. While they continue to work on issues with the Crockett Center so they can move home, they have been able to procure an awesome temporary......

M O N D A Y [20] [art] Sex Workers' Art Show comes to UT-Austin at Texas Union Showroom (RM. 2.208) at UT-Austin (Free, 7pm) (link) [music] Tammany Hall Machine, Impossible Shapes, and Red Hunter at Stubb's (link) [film] "The Outdoorsmen: Blood, Sweat and Beers" at Alamo South (Monday-Thursday, 10:05pm) (link) [film] "Penitentiary" at Alamo Downtown (7pm) (link) [film] "930 F" (a documentary about DC's 9:30 Club) at Alamo Downtown ($1, 9:45pm) (link) [film] "The......

T U E S D A Y [31] » [music] Ghetto Princess, Secular End, The Total Foxes, Tomorrow's Too Late at Emo's » [comedy] Live Comedy Happy Hour at Beerland (8pm) » [karaoke] Karaoke Explosion at The Peacock » [books] Galt Niederhoffer presents Taxonomy of Barnacles at Bookpeople (7pm) » [politics] Austin League of Women Voters puts on the State of the City dinner with Mayor Will Wynn as the evening's speaker at the Austin......

M O N D A Y [ 9 ] [film/music] End of an Ear Presents "Shield Around the K," which "profiles the birth and growth of influential Olympia-based punk rock DIY record label K Records," at The Drafthouse Downtown (9:45pm) [info] [film] Super Happy Fun Monkeybash DX Gaiden (Vol. 2) at The Drafthouse Downtown (7pm) [info] [art] Check out the new gallery exhibit, Liz Ward's Aqueous, at Women and Their Work (All Day) [info] [music]......

Frazzled by family? Consternated by coworkers? Bummed out about your bonus, or lack thereof? Perhaps what you need is a bit of holiday cheer - a tablespoonful, at that! Tonight, DT Magee and Jarvis A Tablespoonfuls take over the Peacock to host a special version of their weekly Tuesday songfest, "A Very Karaoke Explosion Christmas," with Christmas-themed karaoke songs, holiday drink specials, and "joy to the world" - we're not sure what that last bit......

M O N D A Y [ 2 8 ] film · End of an Ear hosts a free screening of Lee Ranaldo and Leah Singer's "Drift" at the Alamo South Lamar (Free, 10pm) [link] music · The Kingsbury Manx, The Standard and The Heavenly States at Emo's film · KOOP Radio's Monthly Film Benefit at MonkeyWrench Books - Gillo Pontecorvo's “The Battle of Algiers”, about the French occupation of 1950s Algeria. (Inc. Beer and......

-Keeping your cell phone on in London can get you kicked out of the theatre -Google aims to ease your holiday shopping ordeals -MTV's Real World: Austin ends tonight. Yawn. -The iTunes music store has become one of the top ten song sellers in the States -The hotly anticipated Xbox 360 hit stores today - and promptly sold out -Gary Glitter faces the death sentence in Vietnam after [allegedly] having sex with a 12-year......

Last year, Toronto's The Sadies released their fifth full-length album, Favourite Colours, to widespread acclaim. Blending together everything from surf rock to 60's psychedelia to honky tonk country, the foursome created such an eclectic musical tapestry that Paste hailed them as "masters of American musical idioms." Robyn Hitchcock, Greg Keelor and Joey Burns all contributed to this album, only adding to the considerable list of talented musicians that have shared the stage or studio......