Playdates, Secret Screenings, and More Events for Your Week

Apocalypse Now: Final Cut

Sunday 1 - Monday 2, Alamo Lakeline, South Lamar, Village

No director has ever launched on so many fool's errands as Francis Ford Coppola. Enraging the mafia to make The Godfather? Founding indie mega shingle Zoetrope Studios? Disappearing into the Philippines for months to make an abandoned George Lucas project? Okay, so they all mostly paid off, and that last one scored him three Oscar nominations for a little flick called Apocalypse Now. But he's also had a long history of spectacular failures: Zoetrope going bust, The Cotton Club and Tucker: The Man and His Dream flopping, the beautiful stupidity of Bram Stoker’s Dracula ... you catch the drift. So, while we all wait to see whether his latest and maybe last movie, Megalopolis, is masterpiece or disaster, catch his preferred version of his wild anti-war fever dream.   – Richard Whittaker

Adieu Philippine

Monday 2, AFS Cinema

If you had to guess the plot to a 1962 French New Wave film, what would it be? Right: a love triangle. In Adieu Philippine, the trio in question is made up of two best friends and a TV assistant looking for a good time before shipping off for mandatory military service in the hugely unpopular Algerian War. In 2022, when the film showed at MOMA as part of the series “Forgotten Filmmakers of the French New Wave,” New Yorker film critic Richard Brody suggested that Jacques Rozier’s gem was forgotten because it was ahead of its time: “It’s a film that belongs to its historical moment but also reflects it from the outside like a magnifying mirror.” It employs the signature techniques of the era – blending documentary and fiction, utilizing first-time actors and improvised dialogue – but feels prescient at the same time. “With his reliance on spontaneity and improvisation, Rozier created something like the primordial version of mumblecore,” Brody wrote. Now that’s a comparison you don’t often hear when you think of the French New Wave.   – Lina Fisher

Labor Gay

Monday 2, Austin Motel

Do you got that summertime sadness? Are you sizzling under the Austin sun? The cure, according to local legend, is dunking yourself in a big hole filled with chlorinated water. Austin Motel’s got you covered, as they play venue to Local Queer ATX and Lonestar Queer’s big Labor Day splash. Cast off capitalism’s shackles for one single day of fun. Enjoy exclusive Lonestar Queer merch benefiting sexual health clinic ASHwell, drag by Lawrie Bird and Owie, DJ sets by Boyfriend ATX and Lavender Thug, and NSFW pool games. Before you ask, I don’t know what will be not-safe-for-work about them. I’m literally at work right now, so I can’t look it up. All this, and it’s free with RSVP? What a way to beat the heat.   – James Scott

Write With Spike Writing Workshop

Tuesday 3, Hampton Branch Library

Austin writer Spike Gillespie is a force. We couldn’t not recommend a writing workshop presented by a former Chronicle contributor and multi-Best of Austin winner for Best Nonfiction Writer/Memoirist (plus a 2015 Critics Pick award for “Most Wonderful Wordsmith to Wow Your Vows”). But bona fides aside, Spike is the type of person you want as a spirit guide to lead you through telling your story, who will make you feel “safe, inspired, and eager to write.” So stop waiting to get started on that writing project! All are welcome to join, but space may be limited.   – Kat McNevins

The Store

Tuesday 3, Saturday 7 & Sunday 8, AFS Cinema

Documentarian Frederick Wiseman is interested in how things tick – training his unobtrusive, observational camera on the inner workings of institutions – and he’s refreshingly plain about it. Just look at some of his titles: Law & Order. Central Park. Welfare. Aspen. Model. Providing a terrific opportunity to see some of the less celebrated works of the prolific filmmaker (still making movies into his 90s), Austin Film Society’s new Essential Cinema series, Frederick Wiseman: Eight Systems, kicks off Tuesday with 1983’s The Store, about Neiman Marcus’ flagship department store in Dallas.   – Kimberley Jones

Hyperreal Film Club’s Secret Screenings

Tuesday 3 - Friday 6, 301 Chicon

No longer are they showing weeknight films at Hotel Vegas, where the door always swings open and the chairs creak. Hyperreal Film Club reveals their new Eastside clubhouse with a full-ish week of secret movie screenings. Pick a day that works for you and nab your ticket: Whatever you catch is sure to be a real classic, total headspinner, or new weird favorite you stump for whenever your friends call the movie’s honor into question. The new space has cushy seats, a front door that stays closed, and a bathroom that will definitely not have drywall holes by opening night. Definitely!   – James Scott

Travis County Job Fair

Wednesday 4, 700 Lavaca

It’s easy enough to apply for job opportunities with the county (seriously – there’s more than 100 job openings right now: governmentjobs.com/careers/traviscounty). But how often do you have the chance to chat face-to-face with the folks doing the hiring? You’ll get just that on Wednesday at the Travis County Administration Building, where from 10am-2pm you can speak directly with hiring managers and human resources representatives who can tell you all about the jobs they’re looking to fill in the following departments (and more): Accounting and Finance, Attorney, Audit, Community and Social Services, Court Administration, Engineering, ITS, Maintenance, Medical, Administrative, Public Safety. Park at 800 Lavaca (entrance is located on Guadalupe); validation (for parking; we can’t guarantee the other kind) available to attendees.   – Kimberley Jones

Weird Wednesday: The Baby

Wednesday 4, Alamo South Lamar

Sometimes “weird” isn’t a strong enough descriptor for a movie, but unless the Drafthouse launches a new series called Fucked-Up Friday, then weird may be the best word for The Baby. It’s a film that poses more questions than it answers. Like, what was writer Abe Polsky thinking when he wrote a movie about four women fighting over a grown man who is being kept as an infant? How did veteran TV director Ted Post make this and direct Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force in the same year? And how quickly can you get a shower to wash this movie off you? Spoiler: You never can. That’s what makes it so awesome.   – Richard Whittaker

Playdates in the Park

Wednesday 4, Mary Moore Searight Metro Park

The weather should be cooling off (right? please? absolutely please?), so what better way to celebrate than a day at the park? The acclaimed park playdates return after a brief summer hiatus, kicking off fall with a bilingual bonanza. In addition to crafts and a movement session with Creative Action, followed by a family dance party, there will be a storytime with local illustrator Eliza Kinkz. Her latest book with Jesus Trejo, Papa’s Magical Water-Jug Clock, promises adventure as whimsical and zany as Kinkz's pictures. If you want to take some of that spirit home for the kids, the fun can continue with printables from her website. Music, games, and literacy? That's the full package, baby.   – Cat McCarrey

Artist Talk: KB Brookins & Sari Shryack

Wednesday 4, Dougherty Arts Center

Sari Shryack self-describes as an “artist, mother, and color connoisseur” on website “Not Sorry Art” (get it? Sari, not sorry). Expressing a love for color all the way to her brightly hued hair, the oil and acrylic painter brings vibrancy to artistic expressions inspired by a 1990s and early Aughts girlhood. Local Black trans author KB Brookins works with words, film, and digital collage to explore what freedom looks like in multimedia exhibit “Freedom House,” based on Brookins’ excellent poetry collection of the same name that “manifests a world where Black, queer, and trans people get to live.” Hear from both artists about their processes, inspiration, and techniques at this free talk.   – Kat McNevins

Genesis: Grimes x Cheer Up Charlies

Thursday 5, Cheer Up Charlies

Best case scenario: You attend this drag show hosted by Riotgirl. The drag is H-O-T hot, with performances by Louisianna Purchase, Ryan, Embry Officially, Iggy Bank, and the Queen Fantasia Wood. Behind the DJ booth, Salem Purchase spins all the best of electronica/indie/blue-light-removing queen Grimes. Then, as you look across the squirming Chups crowd, you see the long stringy hair and casual chainmail of the woman herself. Grimes catches your eye, too, and she invites you closer with one nickel-scented hand. Together you dance all night and through queer magic, you convince her to delete X from her phone. This is the happy ending I believe we all deserve. Let’s hope Grimes can get a babysitter.   – James Scott

Gen-X Presents: The Wild Life

Thursday 5, Eastside Cinema

Something of a spiritual sequel to 1982 classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1984’s The Wild Life never saw the same level of recognition but offers plenty of summer’s-end fun. Penned by Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous), the Southern California-set coming-of-age comedy/drama follows suburban teens played by Chris Penn, Eric Stoltz, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Lea Thompson, and others as they celebrate the freedom of a young summer. Bananarama provided the title song for a soundtrack that included Van Halen, Prince, Madonna, Billy Idol, and even our own Austin Music Hall-of-Famer Charlie Sexton, for a perfect back-to-school film at the very cool single-screen cinema.   – Kat McNevins

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Want to see all of our listings broken down by day? Go to austinchronicle.com/calendar and see what's happening now or in the coming week.