Short Cuts

Reel Women's first annual festival is coming up next weekend, August 20-22, so look in these pages next week for more details on what's screening. In the meantime, the Reel Women Production Group is holding a Mega Garage Sale Extravaganza at Cafe Mundi (1707 E. Sixth St.) on Saturday, August 14, 9am-2pm, to raise money for their short film "Deal of Fortune." Rain date is Sunday, August 15 -- same time, same location. The Reel Women Production Group is a training ground for women who want to learn the nuts and bolts of moviemaking. Twice a year, the group produces a short video or film project, from script to screening. No prior experience is needed; free workshops and training are provided. Contact Reel Women at [email protected] about participating in the next project...

On Friday, August 13, 7pm, the Independent Film Channel premieres Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance, a documentary profile of the maverick British filmmaker whose first, and most notorious, film was 1970's Performance. Cammell's unconventional career is outlined by those who knew him. The only other films he directed were Demon Seed, White of the Eye, and The Wild Side (which was re-cut by the producers before going straight to cable). Cammell's career is the story of one who was thoroughly unsuited for working in Hollywood but unable to give up trying. He committed suicide in 1996. The documentary is a bit scattershot but includes fascinating interview material with Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, Kenneth Anger, Nicolas Roeg, Cathy Moriarty, and Barbara Steele. The network also included the late-breaking news that it will present Performance following the documentary at 8:15pm Friday, an event that will mark the cult film's first airing on TV in over a decade. The current TV listings don't reflect this update, so I'm not sure what to expect -- only that I'm certain that the jump cuts won't make any more sense at this late date...

Another strange cult filmmaker, Canada's Guy Maddin (Tales of the Gimli Hospital), will make an appearance in Houston next Friday, August 20, 7:30pm, at the Museum of Fine Arts, to present his recent movie Twilight of the Ice Nymphs starring Shelley Duvall. He will also appear on Saturday, August 21, to present his third feature, Careful. Maddin's movies are indescribably weird and unique. For more details on this rare opportunity, call the museum's info line at 713/639-7515 or see http://www.mfah.org...

It seems that one of the latest methods of getting a foot in the Hollywood door is to make a spoof or film parody that's wicked enough to circulate through Tinseltown's inner sanctums. Trey Parker and Matt Stone's "The Spirit of Christmas" was one of the first to catch this wave. There was also "Swing Blade," a delicious splicing of Swingers and Sling Blade (which also aired on John Pierson's Split Screen show on IFC). Now there's "George Lucas in Love," an eight-minute send-up of Star Wars and Shakespeare in Love that imagines Lucas as a creatively blocked film student in the Sixties. Its director, Joe Nussbaum, caught the brass ring with this one: a directing deal with DreamWorks. The short film will air this Sunday, August 15, 11pm-midnight,.on my favorite local cable access show, The Show With No Name, a good place to discover all sorts of unknown goodies.