For most Sundance festivalgoers, the opening-night film was In Bruges, a hitman slice-of-life story directed by playwright Martin McDonagh that stars Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleason, and Ralph Fiennes. It’s scheduled to open in Austin in a couple of weeks on Februray 8. For me, still in Austin, the opening-night film was U2 3D, which press-screened on Wednesday night at the IMAX Theater at the Bob Bullock History Museum. The feature-length film is premiering on Saturday at Sundance, but it is also due to open at the Austin IMAX next Friday, January 25. For me it served as my kickoff to Sundance.

And what a kickoff – not only for a celebration of film but for the new year as well. It’s certainly the most fun I’ve had a movie in a long while. It may also be the best concert film since Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense.

Sure, it's a lot to shell out, but 10 grand buys you not just dinner, but dinner conversation at the Nobelity Artists and Filmmakers Dinner on Sunday, Jan. 27 (inspired by the Nobelity Project, itself inspired by Turk Pipkin's documentary, Nobelity, about Nobel Prize winners). A $10,000 donation will net you a table of ten hosted by celebrities, artists, and thinkers like Owen Wilson, Kinky Friedman, Mike Judge, Dixie Chick Martie Maguire, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright. Smaller spenders can get individual seats for $500 and $1,000. Proceeds support the Nobelity in Schools program and the filming of Pipkin's followup, One Peace at a Time. Interested? Contact [email protected] or call 512-263-7971.

Pure visuals, the kind once ruined by “talkies,” never met the Edge.

Or Larry Mullen Jr. for that matter.

Okay, the singer too. And when “Where the Streets Have No Name” closes the main set with Adam Clayton’s dazzled grin and red tunic melting into a digital flare on the enormo screen behind him, sound and vision become F.W. Murnau.

Opening in multiple dimensions at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum IMAX next Friday, Jan. 25, U2 3D isn’t quite the German expressionist’s Sunrise, one of the first silent films to sync music and image. And yet, hovering over one of Edge’s slide guitar solos or floating disembodied above Mullen Jr. pounding his beat are singular cinematic sensations. Kleenex on the drummer's kit side table, and what appears to be a glass of ice tea, speak to the detail 3-D allows viewers. Wearing those special Mr. Magoo glasses and having this 85-minute South American pit stop on U2’s Vertigo tour end on “The Fly” are a small price to pay for theatre audience's practically getting to play “New Years Day.”

Do you really want to root for the same team Adolf Hitler does? I sure as hell don't. As seen on Kissing Suzy Kolber (if you are an NFL fan and you aren't familiar with this blog, get to it).

Margaret Cho and Adelina Anthony in one weekend! How about in one ring?? God, we wish. Would that be a hot match or what?

No, these lovely ladies of comedy will not be duking it out. They won't even be in the same city. But both of these comic genius babes will be ba-rrrringin' it to Texas this weekend. Adelina Anthony as La Angry Xicana in Austin and Margaret Cho trying out her new material in Houston. And if you live the fabulous life, why choose? You could make an entire weekend of it.

So in case you haven't seen the Statesman, Fox7News, Joe.My.God, or any of the growing number of media outlets covering lecturer Uri Horesh's hunger strike for the recognition and extension of partner benefits for the University of Texas' sizable population of GLBT employees, let me put you in the loop.

Now in his fourth day of the hunger strike Horesh sent this missive to his colleagues:

The NBA Development League announced that they will be streaming all of their league's games for free on their website as of right now. This is awesome news for fans who can't make it to all of the home games or would like to keep track of the Austin Toros while they are on the road. “This is the first time any professional sports league – minor or major – has enabled free online video streaming of all of their games in their entirety,” said D-League President Dan Reed. Register at NBA.com and lay back and enjoy the D-League action.

The Toros next game is on the road versus the Iowa Energy this Sunday at 4pm.

Lucky us: It looks like Austin’s a pretty good place to have a head injury.

At an open house at UT’s J.J. Pickle Research Campus in North Austin this morning, officials announced plans to conduct brain imaging research on combat soldiers in hopes of better understanding traumatic brain injury (TBI) and one of its most debilitating resulting conditions: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They’ll be using a state-of-the-art brain scanner and $4.2 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to address a growing population of veterans surviving the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with brain injuries.

The Austin City Council is moving ahead with plans to hold a national conference on plug-in hybrid vehicles, which can be charged from electrical outlets. Mayor Will Wynn has been aggressively promoting the technology, and Austin Energy hopes the cars will provide a way to make use of electricity from wind energy, which is available mostly at night. The council members approved a contract in December with Platia Productions, who will run the conference with Austin Energy. Platia runs conferences for the Alternative Car & Transportation Technologies Exposition. The conference will be free and open to the public, and is scheduled to take place Oct. 17 and 18, 2008.