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Swimmer Simone Manuel was surprised when she took the gold in the 100-meter freestyle event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio last Thursday. But that was nothing compared to the shock on her face when returned home to Houston. Exiting the gate at 5:25 a.m. after her overnight flight from Rio, Manuel was met with a hero's welcome of cheering fans and family at George Bush Intercontinental Airport - all decked in their red, white and blue. "I didn't expect that," Manuel said about the homecoming celebration in video from the Associated Press. "But I appreciate all the love and support.

Every week, Shelf Life sees Tom White select and talk about a movie that lives on his DVD shelf, one he thinks we should all see. The third film from Richard Linklater, and the second after Slacker put him on the the map, 1993's Dazed and Confused is typical of the director, presented as a slice of life of a group of mostly directionless characters as they go about their daily lives. But this coming of age comedy, with it's ensemble of, at the time, soon to be stars, and an undeniable love for the 1970's, became, pretty much instantly, one of Linklater's most accomplished work. Like most of the director's work, his home state of Texas is the setting, as the last day of school sees a disparate group of Austin high schoolers looking to celebrate. The plot is as directionless as the characters it follows. They are just looking for a good time,...

What does it take for a gimmick-based show to rise above its gimmick?

The same things it takes for any series to succeed, I suppose: writing that avoids cliche, strong plotting, assured performances from actors playing fully formed characters. Still, a show like Faking It — one that’s designed around a purposefully shocking premise (“pretend lesbians!!!”) — might necessarily find it more difficult to grow past its pilot than, say, a show that’s about six pals just hanging out, or one that focuses on the minutiae of office life.

That said: There’s definite potential in Faking It, which takes the basic DNA of Awkward.

Hannah Fidell's 2013 indie "A Teacher" is on its way to becoming an HBO drama. Deadline reports that the film, which premiered at Sundance in 2013 and stars Lindsay Burdge as an Austin high school teacher who has an affair with one of her students, is being developed as a series on the premium network. Jay Duplass, who recently took a rare turn in front of the camera in Jill Soloway's Amazon pilot "Transparent," is executive producing alongside his brother and collaborator Mark Duplass as well as Michael Costigan ("Out of the Furnace," "Cyrus"). The project is also entitled "A Teacher" and is being written and executive produced by Fidell and Daniel Brocklehurst, who was the showrunner of the original UK "Shameless." If the project heads to pilot, Fidell will direct. Read More: Lindsay Burdge on Finding Compassion for 'A Teacher' Who Goes Too Far With One of...

The Austin-shot movie A Teacher, written/directed/produced by Hannah Fidell, colors outside the lines with its portrayal of a high-school romance gone awry.

Maryland native Fidell's follow-up to We're Glad You're Here (2010) takes a decisively different look at adulthood and loss of innocence. While the two films have the same star (Lindsay Burdge), A Teacher raises questions about the role educators have on a student's life, the idea of maturity and what constitutes an "adult." Burdge plays Diana Watts, an AP English teacher at an Austin high school whose consensual relationship with one of her male students (former Ut student Will Brittain) spirals out of control. 

A Teacher opens with Diana preparing herself to step in front of the classroom stage by going through her morning routine of jogging and driving to work. She loses herself in the motions of normalcy, with her reusable mug and J. Crewesque clothes,...

Stopping at Austin Film Festival on a festival circuit, Only the Young is a look at a relationship between three evangelical teens in suburban Southern California: two skaters who are best pals and their female friend (sometime girlfriend of one of the guys). Austinite Elizabeth Mims is one of the directors of this documentary, and answered a few questions I had before watching the film.

Slackerwood: What is your connection to Austin?

Elizabeth Mims: I grew up in Austin and my family lives here. I even went to Austin High. I adore this town and I'm thrilled the film is playing here.

You co-directed Only the Young with Jason Tippet. How did the two of you meet?

Mims: Jason and I met while going to CalArts. After showing our work to the class it was clear we shared some stylistic choices. Together at CalArts we developed a style first by making a short documentary,...

A few months ago, I wrote about a special type of show that treats movie geeks around Austin to a very special brand of comedy. Local audiences have witnessed The Old Murder House Theatre perform renditions of Die Hard, Home Alone, even a brilliant Aliens on Ice production. The theater company has a new show coming up, and it's part of their first national tour, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter. For their new show, for their biggest show -- Jurassic Live: Dino Action Show -- they've decided to take on one of the biggest movies in recent history, Jurassic Park.

The Old Murder House Theatre company is headed by local actor Sam Eidson, whom you might have seen in Austin movies such as My Sucky Teen Romance and Austin High. You might recognize some of the other cast and crew involved too from other local films. I had the...

Sometimes it can be a gift and a curse being a movie geek living in this great town of Austin, Texas. We do things our own way, we're weird, and we embrace that fact with open arms while the red counties look in cautiously at our liberal nature. We make films here. Sometimes they're awesome and sometimes they're not. Usually though, they fall in between. Austin High is one of those in-between films, and it's the type of movie most people in Austin will love, but others who don't "get it" won't really grasp and will therefore shun the film.

Austin High is a film that could be great. It's got funny moments, a good story, effortlessly good performances ... but as a film overall, it might be a little too Austin.

Samuel Wilson (Michael S. Wilson) is the principal of the high school he attended while growing up in here in Austin,...

It’s always nice to see a labor of love make its way to the big screen. More often than not, film festivals are the proving grounds where young filmmakers cut their teeth seeing their low budget passion projects play before audiences and critics. Austin is home to several film fests, and it’s always great to see a local production find a home at one of them. Austin High is the brainchild of Will Elliott and Kirk Johnson, and it’s having its world premiere at this year’s Austin Film Festival. They co-wrote the screenplay (from a story by star Michael S. Wilson), co-produced the shoot and then co-edited the footage to create the final product, a feature length comedy. While making a film is a collaborative effort that requires lots of hard work from multiple people, Elliott, Johnson and Wilson seem to be the main creative force and in a lot of ways the...

The 18th Austin Film Festival is almost here. To help celebrate all the locally connected movies at this year's fest, we've reached out to a number of filmmakers to find out about their Austin and Texas-tied films screening at the fest.

The world premiere of the stoner comedy Austin High will take place on Saturday, October 22 at 10:30 pm at the Rollins Theatre in the Long Center. The film screens a second time on Monday, October 24 at 9:30 pm at Rollins.

At fictional Ladybird High School, Principal Samuel Wilson's (Michael S. Wilson) clock is perpetually set to 4:20, that is, until a politician from an unnamed city to the north of Austin comes to town. The politician wants to build more condos, turn Barton Springs into a water park and strictly enforce federal marijuana laws.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

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By Sean O’Connell

Hollywoodnews.com: A handful of stellar titles with Oscar aspirations have been programmed into this year’s Austin Film Festival schedule, which begins on Oct. 20 with an as-yet-unnamed Opening Night selection.

In between, Aff audiences will get their first looks at Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants,” Steve McQueen’s “Shame,” Lynne Ramsay’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” Rodrigo Garcia’s “Albert Nobbs” and Sean Durkin’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene” – all films with awards hopes that will screen as part of the festival’s Marquee category.

“We’re proud to be taking our program in some exciting new directions while maintaining our focus on strong writing and engaging stories,” said new Film Programmers Stephen Jannise and Stephen Belyeu.

In addition, the fest has set up special screenings of “Toy Story” (presented by John Lasseter), an “Edward Scissorhands” screening, and a tribute to Polly Platt...