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Ryan Phillippe was honored for his involvement and support of the Innocence Project at City Winery in New York City on Nov. 15.

The organization works to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. The 42-year-old Shooter star explained to Et why he became an Innocence Project Ambassador.

Watch: Ryan Phillippe Opens Up About How He and Ex Reese Witherspoon Co-Parent During the Holidays

"I got involved about four or five years ago," Phillippe explained. "I reached out to them. It was on my heart after I read an article in the Texas Monthly about a man named Michael Morton, and I put myself in his shoes as I read it. I was near tears."

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Earlier in the month, Gerard Butler looked dapper as always at the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (Fidf) Gala in Beverly Hills on Nov. 3. The non-political...

 

I'll be out at Zilker Park this weekend for the second round of the Austin City Limits festival, but you can avoid the crowds (and potential thunderstorms) by hitting the movies. For those of you who missed out on Fantastic Fest this year, take note that several of this year's titles are opening or being featured with select screenings in town over the next week.

I am truly saddened that Acl is going to keep me away from Austin Film Society's 35mm booking of Peeping Tom, but it's one that you won't want to miss. It's the movie that basically destroyed Michael Powell's reputation upon release, but has since gone on to be recognized as one of the greatest thrillers of all time. It's playing tonight and again on Sunday afternoon at the Marchesa. An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story had its world premiere at SXSW earlier this year,...

The timing for An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story to premiere in Austin at SXSW could not have been more appropriate, if you know the news story it recounts. And how much you know about Michael Morton's life may dictate how much you enjoy this documentary from Houston writer/filmmaker Al Reinert (For All Mankind, Apollo 13). The film won the Documentary Spotlight audience award at SXSW earlier this month.

The short and incomplete version: Chris Morton, Michael's wife, was found beaten to death in their Williamson County home in 1988. Michael Morton was charged with the crime, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. But he continued to assert his innocence. If you've paid attention to Austin-area news in the last week, you know how this situation has played out.

An Unreal Dream is structured as though Michael Morton is casually telling the story of his life to us.

Academy Award nominated documentarian ("For All Mankind") and screenwriter ("Apollo 13") Al Reinert takes on a decidedly more earthly story with his film detailing the 1986 wrongful conviction of Michael Morton. What it's about: The true story of Michael Morton is heartbreaking and inspirational, the kind of journey that teaches hard lessons and rewards our attention. About the filmmaker: I have been a working journalist for decades, covering everything from pop music to presidential campaigns. I've been nominated twice for Academy Awards as a documentary filmmaker and a screenwriter, both about subjects that were well known long before I came along. It's a rare privilege for an old journalist to find a story this compelling that hasn't been covered to boredom beforehand. What else do you want audiences to know about your film? That they won't ever feel like they wasted ninety minutes. What was your biggest challenge in developing this project?...

 

Continued from earlier today, here are the rest of the SXSW 2013 films with Austin or Texas ties: documentaries and films that have already been hits at other festivals.

Documentary Spotlight:

An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story -- If you watch the local news, you are likely quite familiar with the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton in Williamson County. This documentary looks further into his story and the years of work by his attorneys to get him released.

Jette butts in: Filmmaker Al Reinert (screenwriter for For All Mankind, Apollo 13) lives in Houston. The film is produced by local filmmakers Clark and Jesse Lyda (who also own Monument Cafe) and Marcy Garriott -- all three worked previously on The Least of These (SXSW 2009). Jason Wehling (The Retrieval) is credited as a consulting producer. One of the composers is Chuck Pinnell, brother of the late Texas filmmaker Eagle Pennell. (screening...

South by Southwest (SXSW) is just one of many film festivals, we here at Sound On Sight cover yearly. The fest, which takes place every spring in Austin, Texas, began in 1987, and has continued to grow in size every year. The fest announced the first wave of films back in early January, and the lineup included some highly anticipated films such as The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Evil Dead, Downloaded and Spring Breakers. Now the full lineup has been announced, and it just might be one of the best lineups the festival has ever programmed.

SXSW takes place March 8-16 in Austin Texas. Here are just some of the films we are excited about.

Narrative Feature Competition – This year’s 8 films were selected from 1,191 submissions. Each film is a World Premiere.

Awful Nice

Director/Screenwriter: Todd Sklar, Screenwriter: Alex Rennie

Estranged brothers Jim and Dave must travel to Branson together when...

Betty Compson, Clive Brook, Woman to Woman Despite some confusion in various reports, the 1923 melodrama The White Shadow, half of which was recently found at the New Zealand Film Archive, is not Alfred Hitchcock's directorial debut. It isn't Hitchcock's first ever credited effort, either. That honor apparently belongs to Woman to Woman, which came out earlier that same year. The White Shadow, in fact, was a Woman to Woman afterthought. Both movies were directed by Graham Cutts, both were produced by future British film industry stalwarts Victor Saville and Michael Balcon, both were based on works by Michael Morton (the earlier film was taken from a Morton play; the later one from a Morton novel), and both starred Clive Brook and Hollywood import Betty Compson. (Compson plays two parts in both films as well; but whereas in The White Shadow she plays two actual characters, in Woman to Woman...

Betty Compson, The White Shadow About thirty minutes from the long thought-lost The White Shadow / White Shadows (1923), believed to be the earliest surviving feature with an Alfred Hitchcock credit, has been unearthed at the New Zealand Film Archive. Directed by Graham Cutts, and starring Betty Compson and Clive Brook, The White Shadow was found among a number of unidentified American nitrate prints safeguarded for more than two decades at the archive. Based on Michael Morton's novel Children of Chance, The White Shadow was written and edited by Hitchcock, who also served as assistant director and production designer. The future director of Blackmail, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca, Lifeboat, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds, was 24 years old at the time. Three out of The White Shadow's six reels have been found. In the words of National Society of Film Critics Chairman David Sterritt,...

Rain nightclub observed a moment of silence in honor of DJ Am on Friday night. DJ Am, aka Adam Goldstein, was the club's Friday night resident DJ for "Am Fridays."

The Las Vegas club's lights were turned off and the music stopped for 60 seconds at 12 Am in memory of the late DJ. The music started back up with Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You."

Earlier in the evening, the Palms Casino Resort sign darkened the...

Stars such as Lindsay Lohan, Sean "Diddy" Combs, John Mayer and Alyssa Milano are tweeting their heartfelt reactions to the report that celebrity club disc jockey Adam Goldstein (a.k.a. DJ Am) was found dead. First, we have the final message the late star posted on his own Twitter account. DJ Am’s final Twitter message, posted on August 25, reads: "New york, new york. Big city of dreams, but everything in new york aint always what it seems." The cryptic line comes from the opening lyrics of "New York, New York" by Grandmaster Flash. In reaction to the sad news, Lindsay tweeted, "i can't believe this.. i'm in shock. why? why? r.i.p. adam" “DJ Am Rest In Peace...” Diddy tweeted. Mayer first wrote, "In complete shock," then tweeted, "We're supposed to lose our friends to time, at an age when we're ready to agree to the terms...