Watch Rare Texas-made Indies at the Bullock Museum

The Bullock Texas State History Museum will screen six rare Texas-made indie films as part of their Texas Focus Film Series this Thursday, January 14 at 7pm. Created by UT Austin film students, these short films were first compiled and screened in 1981

More info

when director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia) introduced them at the Collective for Living Cinema in New York City. Under the guidance of SXSW and The Austin Chronicle co-founder Louis Black, these films have been newly restored and are now being presented together as a package for the first time in Jonathan Demme Presents Made in Texas. UT Press is distributing the DVD.
Following this Thursday's screening, Louis Black will moderate a Q&A with Tom Huckabee (The Death of a Rock Star), Sandy Boone (Invasion of the Aluminum People), Paul Collum (Speed of Light) and other talent. We asked Rachel Manning, the Film & Theater Coordinator at the Bullock Museum, to introduce their Texas Focus film series and explain the significance of these films and local filmmaking.

Don't miss this! An opening reception with a cash bar starts at 6pm. Get your tickets here: Texas Focus: Jonathan Demme Presents MADE IN TEXAS

What is the mission of the Texas Focus Film Series?

Texas Focus aims to highlight the creative energy and wide-ranging, unique qualities of Texas through the art of cinema. This selection of films will bring Texas to the world through many lenses and visions of this great state.

Still from Fair Sisters
In this homage to Demme’s Caged Heat, things go awry when a rough girl gang busts in on a back room poker game.

Why are regional films like these important?

Regional film is important because it not only highlights aspects about a location that are often unseen in Hollywood films, but they also explore the creative nature and outlook of filmmakers from that region, which is unique in itself. 

Still from The Death of a Rock Star
Real life events of The Doors ethereal frontman, Jim Morrison, frame this experimental short film.

How do the Whole Shootin’ Match and the short films in Made in Texas characterize or capture our region — what makes them Texas? 

There is nothing in each of the films to signify Texas per se, except for a city street or skyline in a shot or two. What these films do is capture the aesthetic and spirit of early independent filmmaking, which was happening in and around Austin during this time. These films are not connected to a studio and do not have the look and feel of a studio production, but rather reflect the environs and locations that were available to the filmmakers. They are homegrown in that sense, and the DIY nature of how these films were made comes across. 

Still from Leonardo, Jr.
A tribute to the silent comedy master, Buster Keaton.

What is the legacy of these films; how have more mainstream filmmakers been influenced by these films?

Filmmakers such as Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez have been influenced by these films and their unique take on Texas filmmaking. Jonathan Demme of course was endeared to these films to point of curating them for the Collective for Living Cinema in 1981.

Still from Speed of Light
Reminiscent of Demme’s Crazy Mama, this story of an outsider searching Central Texas for her lost child is permeated by Cold War anxieties.

What’s the best way for local film enthusiasts to get involved and hear about screenings?

Great question! Film fans that want to follow what's going on in the world of cinema at the Bullock should keep an eye on the Bullock's Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook page, along with our Facebook film fan page. Additionally, film enthusiasts can follow us by signing up for email newsletters specific to the topic they're interested in, whether it be a specific film or everything we have to offer!

Still from Invasion of the Aluminum People
A contemporary and surreal take on science fiction horror of the 1950s.

www.utexaspress.com

Go with the Flow: Our Guide to Giving Books

We are all being bombarded with enticements to buy as holiday sales and the shopping season ramp up. Don't get overwhelmed! Get books for everyone on your list this year. Don't know where to start? Use this handy flowchart to find the best gift books for your family and friends (or for yourself! That is allowed.)

All books on our website are 33% off. Always. To ensure books arrive by Christmas Day, order by December 1 for international delivery and by December 15 for domestic delivery. Happy Shopping!

Zoom in here.

Zoom in here.

Christmas came early for us this year! See if you can spot our incredible cookbook in Barnes and Noble's holiday ad.

www.utexaspress.com

Frederick Aldama on Meeting Robert Rodriguez

Part of the fun of Halloween is the opportunity to embody favorite characters from film and pop culture. For most of us, that's the closest we'll get to experiencing the fictional worlds that have inspired and entertained us, but for scholar Frederick Luis Aldama, meeting and interviewing filmmaker Robert Rodriguez for his latest book immersed him in the movie magic he'd admired for decades. We asked him what that was like. Enjoy his guest blog post and some bonus Halloween costume ideas inspired by the cinema of Robert Rodriguez:

More info

Meeting Robert Rodriguez
By Frederick Luis Aldama

Like all the books I’ve written, The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez had its fair share of scary and even physically painful twists and turns. Like those rollercoaster rides of my younger days, there was a lot of joyful exhilaration thrown into the mix.

Ever since watching El Mariachi and then his short “Bedhead” and then writing a review of Rebel Without a Crew way back when still wet behind the ears, I’ve been fascinated with Rodriguez: his just-do-it approach and his comic-book (or more specifically, his Tex-Avery Cartoon) worldview. He would get the film done, often learning new film techniques in the process and he would go to places that straight-up realist films didn’t. Social mores went out the window and, like the wolf in Tex-Avery’s Droopy cartoons, his characters often defied all natural laws. He was hands-down the most exciting and productive Latino filmmaker out there.

As I wove my way through undergrad and grad school then became a college professor, he was churning out films of all sorts and that had us going to places never before imagined. To date, he’s made over 18 feature films, published a comic book, and runs a Latino-content cable network (El Rey).

Fall 2014 Preview

This fall and winter, UT Press will publish very important works in photography, food, film and media studies, architecture, Latin American Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, including two new translations of provocative Lebanese texts by Rashid Al-Daif: Who's Afraid of Meryl Streep? and What Makes a Man?

More info

Not only do we have a memoir from a former Miss America, we're also publishing the first comprehensive examination of the Mr. America Contest by an acclaimed sports historian. Also this fall, a Cuban exile ponders the meaning of Mayberry, a veteran reporter for National Geographic and Newsweek provides a how-to handbook for aspiring journalists, and distinguished screenwriter and producer Bill Wittliff tells an engrossing tale of a Texas Huck Finn.

  

Below is a preview of our fall books, with videos and other goodies. Browse our full catalog here.

[ Film & Media Studies ]

The Making of Gone With The Wind

By Steve Wilson

More than 600 rarely seen items from the David O. Selznick archive—including on-set photographs, storyboards, correspondence and fan mail, production records, audition footage, restored costumes, and Selznick’s infamous memos—offer fans and film historians alike a must-have behind-the-camera view of the production of this classic movie on its seventy-fifth anniversary.

More info

The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez

By Frederick Luis Aldama

With insightful analysis of films ranging from El Mariachi to Spy Kids 4 and Machete Kills, as well as a lively interview in which the filmmaker discusses his career, here is the first scholarly overview of the work of Robert Rodriguez, the most successful U.S. Latino filmmaker today.

[ American Studies ]

More info

Being Miss America
Behind the Rhinestone Curtain

By Kate Shindle

Kate Shindle weaves an engrossing memoir of her year as Miss America 1998 with a fascinating, insightful history of the pageant to reveal why confident, ambitious young women still compete in a beauty contest that struggles to remain culturally relevant.

“Kate Shindle’s sharply observed, smart, and heartbreaking take on Miss America will be embraced by pageant super fans and should be required reading for everyone who’s thought about what it takes to be America’s ideal.”

— Jennifer Weiner, author of Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, and All Fall Down

More info

Becoming Belafonte
Black Artist, Public Radical

By Judith Smith

Spotlighting a vibrant episode in the evolution of African American culture and consciousness in America, this book illuminates how multitalented performer Harry Belafonte became a civil rights icon, internationalist, and proponent of black pride and power.

“I thought I knew Harry Belafonte pretty well, but Judith Smith’s book has given me deeper insights into him. A wonderful portrait of Belafonte and his times.”

—Robert DeCormier, musical director for Harry Belafonte, 1957–1961

More info

[ Photography ]

Aaron Siskind
Another Photographic Reality

By Aaron Siskind, Introduction by Gilles Mora

The first true retrospective of a towering figure in American photography and the only book on Aaron Siskind currently in print, this volume features important, rarely published work and an authoritative text by noted photo historian Gilles Mora.

Also forthcoming in photography, Beyond the Forest by Loli Kantor.