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A tent full of celebrities and movie executives in a beautiful setting gave hope for filmmaking this weekend. No, not the Indie Spirits — this was another tent, 1,300 miles away.

The Texas Film Awards took place March 3 on Willie Nelson’s famous Luck, Texas ranch, outside Austin. Under its canopy, open to the crisp Hill Country air, Jonathan Majors, Margo Martindale, John and Janet Pierson, and Mike De Luca were inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame by presenters including Luke Wilson, “Justified” creator Graham Yost, and Kevin Smith. It was a remarkable evening that defied the Red State vs. Blue State tropes that dominate cultural discourse — even as politics makes Texas filmmaking more challenging.

Earlier that day at the Film Awards press conference, DeLuca praised the state as a source of “new voices, underrepresented voices, new stories to tell, because LA can be a very bubble community. That’s...

When Ivanka Trump asked Cecile Richards for a private meeting earlier this year, the Planned Parenthood president’s hopes won out over her deep differences

with the White House this First Daughter represented.

“Like her father, she knew Planned Parenthood did a lot of good. I felt she was incredibly sympathetic,” Richards recalls of that early-winter sit-down over coffee. “I hoped she would use her influence and her role to speak up for women in this country. But it’s not about talk. It’s about action.”

You might call that a life mantra for Richards, a marathon-running, passionately committed...

The Tribeca Film Festival began as a way for New York to rebuild culturally after the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. For the first time since then, the area around Ground Zero is dominated by a sparkly, newly finished Freedom Tower, which represents so much more than the city’s resilience and recovery. The Tribeca festival played a small, but not insignificant, role in that recovery, inviting artists and film lovers to the city and reassuring New Yorkers that life can be beautiful even in the darkest of days.

After more than a decade of growth, Tribeca is also entering...

The 13th Tribeca Film Festival begins Wednesday, April 16 with a lineup featuring over 50 world premieres and even more must-see films.

This year’s Tribeca line-up begins Wednesday, April 16 with a screening of Time Is Illmatic, a documentary celebrating the 20th anniversary of Nas’ 1994 album Illmatic. After the screening, Nas himself will perform songs from his legendary album.

Features Premiering At Tribeca

TV comedies collide in About Alex, which stars Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza and New Girl’s Max Greenfield – not to mention Jane Levy (Subergatory), Max Minghella (The Mindy Project, The Social Network), Jason Ritter (Parenthood), Nate Parker and Maggie Grace (Taken, Lost). Written and directed by Jesse Zwick, this The Big Chill homage takes place during a weekend away, as old friends in their mi-twenties come together to help one in the group who is suicidal.

Another TV-star driven film premiering at Tribeca is Life Partners, starring...

Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

SXSW Film announced its 2014 jury award winners. Former Austinite Margaret Brown's documentary The Great Invisible (Elizabeth's review), about the Bp oil spill and its effect on Gulf states, won the documentary feature competition. Local filmmaker Kat Candler Texas-shot Hellion (Debbie's review) received special mention in the Gamechanger Award category, and Richard Linklater's film Boyhood (Debbie's review) won the Louis Black "Lone Star" Award. Anne S. Lewis's short Some Vacation took home the Texas Shorts award, and the Texas short Krisha won special jury recognition in the short film competition.In more SXSW Film award news, the festival's audience award winners were announced over the weekend. Before I Disappear (Don's review), based on the Academy Award-winning short Curfew, won in the Narrative Feature Competition; audiences voted the San Marcos River documentary Yakona (Jordan's dispatch) as the best in the Visions category...

The 13th Tribeca Film Festival has announced its complete lineup for next month’s New York celebration, which runs April 16-27. Culled from more than 6,000 submissions, Tribeca 2014 includes 55 world premieres, 37 first-time filmmakers, and 22 female directors. Half the slate had been announced on Tuesday, with Spotlight, Midnight, and Storyscapes films unveiled today, as well as special screenings. “Spotlight and special screenings are an especially dynamic aspect of this year’s program, both in range of styles and stories,” said Genna Terranova, Tribeca’s director of programming. “Many films feature real-life personalities who’ve accomplished extraordinary feats, while in other films we...

The premium channel has a pair of dramas bowing this month in True Detective and Looking, and now it has confirmed premiere dates for a dozen documentaries. Along with Herblock: The Black And White — about the political cartoonist Herbert L. Block, which it picked up and scheduled in October — HBO has cemented dates for programs on topics ranging from terminally ill prison inmates and a study of the working poor to bios of former Texas Governor Ann Richards and painter Robert De Niro Sr. It also slated YoungArts Masterclass programs featuring Josh Groban and Anna Deavere Smith for HBO Family. Here’s the release, which includes descriptions of each docu: Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2014 – HBO will debut an array of diverse, timely and thought-provoking documentary films in coming months, including: Paycheck To Paycheck: The Life And Times Of Katrina Gilbert, executive produced by Maria Shriver, a look at the complex issues...

It’s curtains for Ann, the play written by and starring Holland Taylor. The show will close June 30, ahead of its planned Sept. 1 date, after playing 19 previews and 132 regular performances, producers announced Wednesday.

Taylor was nominated for a Tony for Best Actress in a Play for her work on the show, but she lost to Cicely Tyson (The Trip to Bountiful) at Sunday’s show.

“It has been an honor to work with a truly remarkable playwright and a magnificent actress to bring Ann to Broadway and, happily in this case, they are one and the same,” said producer Bob Boyett in a release.

It's a little weird to watch a trailer for an upcoming Disney cartoon like "Planes" and hear among the characters the voice of Dane Cook. What's a typically adults-only comic like Cook doing in the G-rated world of a Disney animated feature?

Well, maybe it's not that weird. After all, the family-friendly studio has a history, going back 60 years, of casting performers from the world of grown-up entertainment in its cartoons, and most have proved they can be fun and kid-safe in fantasy worlds far from smoky nightclubs. In fact, Disney and Pixar's classic cartoons are full of unlikely voice actors -- not just blue comics but also performers cast radically against type, and even people not considered actors at all.

Cook, then, joins a distinguished list of stars you'd never have expected to find in a Disney cartoon feature, as you can see from the gallery below.

Gallery | Unlikely...

It's a little weird to watch a trailer for an upcoming Disney cartoon like "Planes" and hear among the characters the voice of Dane Cook. What's a typically adults-only comic like Cook doing in the G-rated world of a Disney animated feature?

Well, maybe it's not that weird. After all, the family-friendly studio has a history, going back 60 years, of casting performers from the world of grown-up entertainment in its cartoons, and most have proved they can be fun and kid-safe in fantasy worlds far from smoky nightclubs. In fact, Disney and Pixar's classic cartoons are full of unlikely voice actors -- not just blue comics but also performers cast radically against type, and even people not considered actors at all.

Cook, then, joins a distinguished list of stars you'd never have expected to find in a Disney cartoon feature, as you can see from the gallery below.

Gallery | Unlikely...

New York – In her television and film work, whether it’s Two and a Half Men or Legally Blonde, Holland Taylor’s delicious specialty has been distilling Wasp acerbity into the driest of human martinis. Her squillionaire art patron on The L Word was a pearl. So it’s a fun change of pace to watch this wily pro tackle a salty, straight-shootin’ Texan gal in Ann, Taylor’s affectionate memorial to the late Governor Ann Richards. What this bravura display of comic timing and character immersion is missing, however, is a play – let alone one with some conflict. While being

read more...

One of my favorite documentaries this year, "Searching for Sugar Man," received top honors at the 2012 Ida Documentary Awards winning the Best Feature prize. The documentary about the search for the elusive musician, Rodriguez, is truly a brilliant film illuminating failed dreams and eventual redemption.

Here's the complete winners list of the 2012 Ida Documentary Awards:

Career Achievement Award

Arnold Shapiro

Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award

David France

Pioneer Award

Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program And Fund

Best Feature Award

Searching For Sugar Man

Director/Producer/Writer: Malik Bendjelloul

Producer: Simon Chinn

Executive Producer: John Battsek

Red Box Films, Sony Pictures Classics

Best Short Award

Saving Face

Director: Daniel Junge, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Producers: David Coombe, Daniel Junge, Alison Greenberg, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Sabiha Sumar

Co-Producers: Aaron Kopp, Fazeelat Aslam

Senior Producer: Lisa Heller (HBO)

Executive Producer: Sheila Nevins (HBO)

HBO Documentary Films, Milkhaus, LLC, and JungeFilm, LLC

Best Limited Series Award...

Jack Lofton and Keith Patterson's documentary hearkens back to happier times (at least for liberals), the years before George W. Bush entered the political spotlight. I am talking about those glory days when Texas had one of the most liberal governors in the United States, a female governor to boot. Considering where Texas politics stand today (in the far right corner), it seems utterly unfathomable that Ann Richards was the governor of Texas less than twenty years ago. Ann Richards' Texas begins like a Cliff Notes' version of Richards' personal history; but once it arrives at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, where Richards delivered the keynote speech for presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis, Lofton and Patterson's documentary begins to hunker down into the nitty gritty. Richards' keynote speech was extremely critical of the Reagan Administration and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush; it not only set the tone for her...

By Sam Negin

Theater Editor & Columnist

***

This year’s Best Actress in a Play race got a jolt from yesterday’s announcement that Emmy winner Holland Taylor will be coming to Broadway this spring. She will perform in a one-woman play that she wrote about late Texas Governor Ann Richards.

There are a couple of factors that bring this show into that race. First is the intended timing of its opening, which is scheduled for March 7, 2013. The next is that the show is being produced by Lincoln Center Theater, a large and powerful theater company that will definitely throw campaigning dollars behind Taylor. Third, the show is a one-woman show and is unlikely to be nominated for any other category. Considering the show is being performed on the largest stage of the most powerful theater company in New York, how could Taylor not be nominated?

The show will play at...

It's time to stop recuperating from SXSW and venture back into the world of Austin moviegoing. Fortunately, plenty of options are available. The Austin Jewish Film Festival starts tomorrow night -- read Chale's preview for details. And one of my favorite movies is screening at Alamo Drafthouse Ritz this week: catch Harold and Maude nightly Saturday through Tuesday. Or you could head over to the Blue Starlite Drive-In on Saturday night for a double feature of Back to the Future and The Goonies.

This is also a good week for indie film-watching. Boston-to-Austin filmmaker Andrew Bujalski will be at Alamo Ritz on Sunday night for a 10th anniversary screening of his film Funny Ha Ha. And on Tuesday night, the Texas Independent Film Network hosts a "beer and bbq" documentary double-feature at Violet Crown Cinema: Chris Elley's Barbecue: A Texas Love Story (narrated by Ann Richards) and Mike Woolf's Something's Brewin' in Shiner.

Mike Huckabee supposedly "misspoke" when he said Barack Obama grew up in Kenya. The potential 2012 candidate and other Obama bashers need to accept that the president was born in the U.S. and is Christian-and try to beat him with ideas, argues Mark McKinnon.

Mike Huckabee has really stepped in it. I only wish I could believe it was entirely accidental. But, boy, there sure is a lot on his shoes. People like Mike Huckabee. I like Mike Huckabee. Or, I did anyway. But just because he can be charming and self-effacing doesn't mean we should excuse him from appropriate standards of conduct and character assassination.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Obama's War on Schools

Huckabee said in an interview this week that President Obama grew up in Kenya. His spokesman tried to mop up by suggesting he misspoke and meant to say he grew up in Indonesia, which...

With the Wisconsin showdown at a fever pitch, Mark McKinnon says America doesn't need public unions anymore-they silence voters' choice, redistribute wealth, and clog the political system.

The manufactured Madison, Wis., mob is not the movement the White House was hoping for. Both may find themselves at the wrong end of the populist pitchfork. While I generally defend collective bargaining and private-sector unions (lots of airline pilots in my family), it is the abuse by public unions and their bosses that pushes centrists like me to the Gop. It is the right and duty of citizens to petition their government. The Tea Party and Republicans seek to limit government growth to protect their pocketbooks. Public-union bosses want to increase the cost of government to protect their racket.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Maine's Tea Party Governor Paul LePage to NAACP: 'Kiss My Butt'

1. Public unions are big money. Public unions are big money.

Instead of striving for party purity, Gop elephants and grizzlies must accept moderates and RINOs if they're going to have a prayer against Obama in 2012. Mark McKinnon on why Mitch Daniels and Haley Barbour are on the right track.

If the Gop is going to win the presidency back, we have to put more animals on the ark, not fewer. And that includes RINOs.

Related story on The Daily Beast: The Gop's Race Backslide

President Obama's proposed budget cuts offer little to thwart the deluge of debt that threatens the nation-with "endless deficit spending" and an unsustainable interest burden. While House Republicans are working furiously to stem the coming entitlement tsunami, potential Gop presidential candidates Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-in) and Gov. Haley Barbour (R-ms) are working to expand the size of the lifeboat. Having been at the helm of the ship of state, they recognize more hands on board can change the course faster.

Supporters are as exhausted as Velma Hart, the Tea Party has momentum, and Republicans are now more trusted. Mark McKinnon on why those issues, plus nine others, spell doom for the president's reelection hopes.

President Obama's State of the Union was strongly bipartisan and made smart moves to the center, although it missed a chance to really tackle tough fiscal issues like meaningful entitlement reforms. His Arizona speechwas terrific, his favorable ratings are climbing over 50, the economy is showing steady signs of improvement, and the stock market is up. So, how could he possibly lose his reelection bid? Just ask George H.W. Bush, who had an approval rating of nearly 90 percent two years out from his reelection. $#&! happens when you are at the helm of the free world. What could happen? Let us count the ways...

Related story on The Daily Beast: Palin Kills It in Gun Country

1. Velma...

The 21st century is barely into its teens, but it has already played host to a series of stunning political cataclysms. Mark McKinnon on the most momentous dates thus far.

Some of the most momentous days of the last decade seemed ordinary when we were living them. We were oblivious then to the many whose lives were lost, whose lives were changed, whose lives gained new meaning. Other dates we knew from the start were destined for the history books. In this new century, the country shifted right, then left, then right again, as November's rising crimson tide in November in the House, Senate, governorships and state legislatures proved the rumors of the death of conservatism to be wrong. A more engaged electorate, and balance brought by the middle seeking solutions not partisanship, led to the historic Republican resurgence and a re-centering of the nation.

Related story on The Daily...

Being a native Texan and a craft beer enthusiast, I feel the need to dispel a misconception about Texas beer -- Lone Star is Not the national beer of Texas. Former Governor Ann Richards unofficially declared Shiner Bock the "national" beer of Texas during her term, as it was her personal favorite hailing from the Spoetzl brewery in Shiner, Texas. Sure, Lone Star beer will quench your thirst when you're floating down the Guadalupe River on an inner tube, but if you have a palate for real hop flavor or a good malt backbone, Texas offers many more and much better beers.

With an increase in the number of microbreweries in Texas, The Texas Craft Brewers Guild has finally come to realization. Central Texas has three microbreweries that have been producing and distributing for several years -- Live Oak, Real Ale, and Independence Brewing. (512) Brewing just celebrated their second anniversary...