Short Cuts

Make a Film in a Weekend proclaims the Cinemaker Co-op. That's this weekend, Friday, April 9 - Sunday, April 11. Participating filmmakers will have just two days to make a one-reel, in-camera-edited, Super-8 film. The catch? Each film must feature a mystery prop, the identity of which will be revealed at the "starting line" at 5pm on Friday before shooting begins. Participants then have until 5pm on Sunday to return a cartridge of film. The films have no bounds -- they can be about anything, in any style, as long as the prop appears somewhere in the film. All films will be shipped out to the lab on Monday by the Co-op and returned by April 15. Filmmakers must also submit soundtracks for their films (without seeing the finished product!) by this date. All films will be viewed for the first time April 19-20 at the Ritz Lounge upstairs. This "prop film project" is open to everyone, including first-timers. Entry is free to Co-op members or $5 for nonmembers, plus a $12 processing fee. Filmmakers must provide their own film (although due to the long turnaround time Kodachrome will not be accepted. All necessary equipment can be rented at the Cinemaker Co-op, but no one gets to see their film prior to the public screening. Call 236-8877 or stop by Cinemaker's new space in the Artplex Building (1705 Guadalupe, Suite 231) for more info...

Hands on a Hard Body: A Panel Discussion is being presented this Friday, April 9, 7:30-9pm, by the Austin Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology. Not exactly sure what topics are under the microscope here, but I know the movie has a wealth of rich veins for the study of aberrant psychology -- like, what makes someone loco enough to stand around for days with their hands on a pickup truck, is this something that only truck-lovin' Texans would do, and why has the film's Austin run at the Dobie (where it premiered) lasted longer than most pregnancies? Austinites are in love with this movie, which has theatrical bookers and documentary makers throughout the country looking to Austin for the secret of its success. The panel discussion's speakers include Sabrina Barton, professor of English at UT; Virginia Eubanks, psychiatrist; Sherry Dickey, psychologist/psychoanalyst; and Paul Stekler, RTF production head at UT. The discussion takes place in the North Austin Medical Center Auditorium (12221 N. MoPac)...

As a special treat this Tuesday at the Austin Film Society screening of the Lillian Gish classic The Wind (as part of the "Women Screenwriters of the 1930s" series), the silent film will be presented with live musical accompaniment composed and performed by Graham Reynolds of Golden Arm Trio. This event combines the best of the eclectic AFS programming and the ongoing live music and film series that the Alamo has been doing. (My head is still reeling from the fabulous and well-honed, two-and-a-half-hour performance Kamran Hooshmand and the 1001 Nights Orchestra put on last week behind The Thief of Bagdad.) The Wind screens on Tuesday, April 13, at the Alamo Drafthouse, 7 and 9:30pm; admission is 35¢...

Cable access show The Show With No Name (Sundays, 11pm-midnight, channel 10), wrote in to say that featured this Sunday will be Jim Henson's first movie, the Academy Award-nominated short"Time Piece" (1965). It's a trippy live-action piece that showcases a youthful Henson. Also, next Sunday the show will air the notorious Frat House. Controversy about the veracity of the project's filmmaking methods has kept this scandalous SXSW.98 fave from its appointed broadcast dates on HBO, but sometimes there's just no stopping those frat boys.