Here’s M83 playing “Reunion” while headlining Fun Fun Fun Fest here in town last November:

2) UK-based Snow Patrol also rocked Stubbs this week. In between songs new and old, singer Gary Lightbody earned some local (and TV fan) cred by shouting “Texas forever!” Coach Taylor would be proud. Lightbody also mentioned that the band would return to Austin in October, which likely means ACL. Check out the title track from their latest album performed live at the BBC:

3) And speaking of ACL, just a few more days until the entire 2012 Austin City Limits Music Festival lineup is released, but like last year, the ACL powers-that-be have been passing out sneak-peek scratch-off tickets confirming some of the performers who will be at Zilker Park Oct. 12-14. Those acts revealed so far include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Steve Earle, LP (who we loved at SXSW) and the always enjoyable Childish Gambino (btw, does this disappointing news mean we’re in the darkest possible timeline?). Here’s Childish Gambino’s single “Heartbeats”:

4) We’ll have to wait until Tuesday to find out whether or not that ACL lineup will include Alabama Shakes, who tore it up on their home turf at the Hangout Music Fest in Gulf Shores, AL, this weekend. Frontwoman Brittany Howard is certainly an inspiration for aspiring girl guitarists like us:

5) Finally, we’re looking forward to kicking back to the sweet sounds of Great Lake Swimmers next Wednesday at Stubbs. Here’s their video for “Easy Come Easy Go”:

I’ve actually been intrigued with this movie since the first trailer, but held off because I couldn’t get anyone to see it with me (“it looked too depressing”) and because a fellow Chickster warned me that von Trier also directed “Dogville” and “you don’t want to see ‘Dogville.’” Based on what I’ve heard, I think that’s true.

But I wasn’t afraid of “Melancholia” from the get-go. I guess I admired its honesty. From the trailer, you have no doubt that the world will end, but this movie seems to be more about the complex emotions about accepting the end of the world or not being able to. For sisters Justine and Claire, it’s a rather bare and sad end, but isn’t that to be expected? I don’t mind if a movie’s depressing if it’s honest and interesting. And I will say that after just reading a description of “Dogville” I was expecting much worse.

It’s also visually striking, well-acted (Dunst received the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival and Kiefer Sutherland is always good), emotionally absurd—rendering it very honest—and masterful in it’s cinematography.

But it wasn’t without flaws either. The beginning was really slow, literally. There were about 10 minutes of painfully unnecessary slow motion, though almost everything captured was visually pleasing and well-executed special effects. And I did have a hard time being on Dunst’s side when she couldn’t enjoy such a beautiful wedding. Sure, I know that deep depression renders you unable to feel happy when you should and that’s why it’s so demobilizing, but I couldn’t help sighing every now and then and thinking “Geez, chick. Just take a freakin’ Prozac.”

But again, it also makes me wonder if von Trier had a deeper meaning there (likely). Women are physically affected by the moon, so maybe the movement of an entire planet could really screw up the chi of one who’s already depressed, beyond mood stabilizers. If that is what he meant to imply, he did hint at it a little when twice in Justine’s part of the story (when the approach of the dark planet wasn’t yet known), she pointed out the strange behavior of the stars and seemed to see a meaning that no one else did.

Overall, I would not avoid this one if you have an interest. But be prepared for some slowness and some inevitable sadness.

WriteByNight has so many events coming up it’s just ridiculous. You may as well just bring a sleeping bag and crash at WBN for the next couple of weeks. And bring toilet paper. Not that we don’t have any, but … you know. Who couldn’t use more toilet paper?

First, the new Deadliners panel is officially a go. Join us at WBN on Tuesday, April 17th, for Lessons from Kony2012. Panelists Maira Garcia, Reeve Hamilton, and David Krug will explore the phenomenon that is/was Kony2012, and what journalists can learn from it. As usual, moderator Alex Hannaford will keep everyone on task, there will be opportunity for a Q&A following the panel, and then you’re welcome to stick around WBN for a glass of wine and to hobnob with the panelists. More info at the Deadliners website.

Two nights later is Leah Kaminsky’s Blackmail Party. (See WBN’s blog post.) Join us at 7 p.m. to see some (maybe) head shaving, as well as to learn about an exciting new WBN writing accountability tool.

Our next exciting seminar is called The Art of the Sentence, and will take place at WriteByNight on Tuesday nights in May. WBN instructor Joel Weinbrot will lead attendees on an exploration of the magic and mystery of the sentence, the writer’s frenemy and the building blocks of prose. This offering is part seminar, part workshop; in Sessions 2 and 3, participants will get the chance to have their fiction workshopped by Joel and by their peers. May 8th, 15th, and 22nd (all Tuesdays) from 6:30-8:30 at WBN HQ.

See our events page for more details on The Art of the Sentence, and for a full listing of WriteByNight and Professional Writers of Austin events. Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook to stay up-to-date with new events, seminars and workshops.

2) Second, WHY CAN’T THIS BE A REAL MOVIE???

3) Did you say you wanted even more drama than Stormtroopers, gratuitous lens flares and many, many explosions can provide? If you live in Belgium, you’re in luck:

4) If that doesn’t put a smile on your face, how about this fun little ditty (with improvised kazoo) from Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter April Smith and her band The Great Picture Show? Their first studio album, “Songs for a Sinking Ship,” was funded by fans through Kickstarter.

5) If you found nothing to amuse you in this list, take comfort that this otter (and the rest of his friends in Buzzfeed’s 33 Animals Who Are Extremely Disappointed In You list) agrees:

Don’t worry, they also have The 25 Happiest Animals in the World to comfort you after.

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This web series follows a guild of gamers Codex, Zaboo, Clara, Bladezz and Tinkerballa that make up The Knights of Good as they attempt to balance addictive online gaming and harsh reality. Clara (Robin Thorsen) for instance, is the mother of three, not that she considers that a priority next to gaming. She’s not exactly an attentive mother, which is hilarious and disturbing at times, but I choose to find it funny. The morally apathetic Tink (Amy Okuda) wouldn’t make a good mother either, since the one time she babysits Clara’s kids she puts them in a giant dog crate and refuses to change them. Again, some will likely find this offensive, but I just choose to find it funny. Those two are certainly my favorite characters, but all the actors who play guildies do a phenomenal job, from the socially unconcerned Jeff Lewis (Vork) to the charmingly awkward Felicia Day (Codex), who’s won a 2009 Streamy Award for best actress. 

In fact, the show has pulled in a slew of awards including Series Awards from SXSW, YouTube and Yahoo, and more Streamy Awards for best comedy and best web series.

This isn’t bad for a show that was paid for by PayPal donations from loyal fans in its first season. But since season two, it took one giant step up to being distributed by Xbox Live and Microsoft and sponsored by Sprint. Each webisode is about 3 to 8 minutes long, but if you watch them on Instant, you can watch a whole season at once in about an hour and half.

Driving an iconic London black cab literally from sea to shining sea, Fry stops to chat with personages famous (Morgan Freeman, Ted Turner) and mostly not, all while unearthing some truly fascinating American stories. He makes all the requisite stops at famous landmarks like Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon, but also mixes in less familiar sights like a body farm in Tennessee, hunting sasquatches in Oregon, a Nevada whorehouse, the most notorious prison in Louisiana and many others.

Even with the gorgeously shot scenery and the educational fun, the best part of the series is easily Fry himself. For those unfamiliar with him, a few minutes into the show will be more than enough to demonstrate why his combination of intelligence, politeness and warmth has made the the man so beloved on both sides of the Atlantic. You can see an example of his bewilderment, frustration and admiration for America in this clip, taken from an Auburn-Alabama football game:

And here’s a trailer for the series:

2) And scarier than kids killing kids for food is this super-creative mash-up some dude named Pablo made of movie monsters and villains:

All You Need Is Love from whoispablo on Vimeo.

3) Speaking of SXSW, we are kicking ourselves that we slept through Glen Hansard’s early morning set for KUT at the Four Seasons. The Frames and Swell Season frontman is the most charming storyteller around.

4) Forget Peeta and Gale. We’re Team Brandon all the way.

5) So after all the hubbub of SXSW, maybe it’s a good time to embrace the philosophy writer Pico Iyer soulfully espouses in the New York Times. What’s the longest you’ve ever unplugged for?

1) “Safety Not Guaranteed”: Have you ever had one of those experiences where you see a movie and then when it’s over, you kind of start sobbing and aren’t really sure why? Please tell me I’m not the only one. It’s really only happened to me a couple times before (during “WALL-E” and “V for Vendetta,” and I’m not sure what that says about me). But it happened again at the end of “Safety Not Guaranteed,” a hybrid comedy-drama-romance-fantasy flick that I fell head over heels for, and it was a particular shame given that they were filming my screening to show audience response for an upcoming trailer. So if you see a sobbing dork on the left side of the screen, that would be me. This movie, which stars Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson and Mark Duplass (who, along with his brother Jay, had co-directed and co-written the very funny SXSW entry “The Do-Deca Pentathlon”), sprung to life from a real classified ad that read “WANTED: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed.” I think what was so overwhelmingly wonderful about the movie was how it blended whimsy and sex jokes with dark emotions and a strong, irrepressible streak of hope. Although I couldn’t find a trailer for the movie online, here’s a brief interview with director Colin Trevorrow from Sundance, where the flick won a screenwriting award earlier this year. FilmDistrict snapped up distribution, so I hope it will be getting a release date soon.

2) Free Shows in Cool Places: I’ve never had a SXSW wristband or badge, but I love getting to see some free music. I think Auditorium Shores in March is a lovely place to spend an evening, but I haven’t found the best live music to be there. Instead I’ve found music I’ve loved at much smaller places. Like the Whole Foods rooftop. Can we just have ACL there next year? It’s so pretty! And you can buy beer and wine downstairs and bring it upstairs, which is amazing. Also amazing was the live show put on by one of my favorite bands of the past couple years, the Las Vegas-based Imagine Dragons. After accidentally stumbling (literally) across one of their live shows in Vegas back in January 2010, I’ve been avidly following their career and am thrilled they’ve been signed to Interscope. I hope to hear more big things from them in the future. Here they are doing an acoustic version of “It’s Time.”

South Congress is a good place to be during SXSW – plenty of food options, opportunities to create your own shopping montages and the free shows over at South by San Jose. And if the crowd at the stage behind Jo’s gets to be too much, you can pop next door to the Hotel San Jose, where things are always chill. Over at SXSJ, I caught one act I can’t wait to hear more of, LP, and her huge gorgeous voice. Check out “Into the Wild,” and if you’re anything like me, you’ll be sad you never learned to whistle.

3) Randomness: When you’re winging it, you start to appreciate the utter randomness of SXSW. Whether it’s celeb-spotting, celeb-spotting by proxy (“My friend just saw Joseph Gordon-Levitt on East Sixth!”), a new favorite food trailer (sweet potato fries with truffle mayo at The Peached Tortilla) or a last-minute invite to a party, SXSW never quite ends up where you think it will. For me, it ended up front row at Timbaland at the Perez Hilton party. Sup.

So thanks, SXSW! I’ll try to remember to hydrate next year if you promise to keep being awesome.

Brown Bag Delivers aims to fix an issue present in most offices these days: easily available, free junk food. Though I never visit donut shops myself, if someone brings a bag of donuts into work and leaves them on the counter for everyone, I will absolutely eat some out of sheer desperation and cheapness. But if my company were to provide a healthier option on a regular basis instead, I’d lose 20 pounds in no time.

Well, that is the mission of this new company—to deliver homemade, healthy food to homes and offices for an amazingly low cost. They even have a two for one coupon going on right now for personal meals. (Contact them at moreplease@brownbagdelivers.com.) 

But if you’re thinking of incorporating healthy eating into your work environment, they also have corporate packages of 10 meals for $90. That’s only $10 per homemade meal! This isn’t much more than what you pay to pick-up a fatty fast food meal chalk full of preservatives. Plus, the food comes to you.

So how did this idea come about? Well, basically a French-trained chef, Joram Tapiero, and Mexican restauranter, Ben Mendoza, teamed-up with former technology exec Aaron Bollinger and chef Justin Trapani to create this revolutionary concept.

“We wanted to bring back the nostalgia of taking your brown bag of homemade, healthy food to school, but on an adult level,” said Ben Mendoza, CEO.

“Every meal we create is made from scratch and is custom-designed,” said Aaron Bollinger, CMO.

The personalized menu for our rendezvous consisted of spinach and feta empanadas, lamb tagine, penne with Bolognese, and small walnut brownie bites for dessert. It was indescribably delicious. I also had a light guiltless feeling after, since I knew what I was eating was healthy. This is much better than the usual heavy feeling you get after stuffing yourself with whatever sustenance you can find during a mere one-hour lunch break.

I gladly recommend this company to any Austin foodie for personal or business meals, catering, etc. (they have vegetarian and vegan options as well), and I have no doubt anyone would like their food. In fact, I’d say it’s “in the bag.”

The “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid” framework is also a metaphor for the competitiveness of the female relationship. If you release giant pythons into the everglades, fine. I’ll inject alligators with chicken hormones to make them even bigger to kill the pythons. How could this not be a good idea?

And they really pull out all the stops on this one. The effects…well. They’re certainly there. And the story is…very interesting. For instance, at one point, after the pythons have killed about seven people already including her fiancé, Tiffany rightly says in response to someone wanting to postpone a celebration in the everglades, “Why? It’s not like anyone has died.” Right.

And there is a character that the directors are so attached to that we get to see him die twice, at very different ends of the movie. (That’s right. They forgot they killed him already or possibly just didn’t care.)

Anyway, very entertaining. But good? Well…

Micky Dolenz also has a cameo….

2) We hope we’re this limber when we’re 90.

3) For all you coffee lovers out there, now you don’t have to feel guilty about those countertop stains you leave behind. They’re actually art:

4) We’re loving these retro inspirational prints from Etsy seller RockTheCustard. Our favorite:

5) And speaking of inspirational quotes, we can’t get enough of this charming video that explains the origins of one British gem:

I’ve never watched “One Tree Hill,” which I think is probably intelligent self-preservation (please, correct me if I’m missing out), but I heard they had a Sims episode so I had to, at least, check that one out, since I’m an avid Sims fan.

And I immediately regretted my decision to sit through this episode five minutes in. Maybe it’s just that I’m not familiar with the characters, but I’ve never met a crop of fake people that I’ve cared so little about. Nothing about it even remotely caught my attention or stirred my heart strings, which are honestly pretty easy to target and pull. (Okay, I admit I felt a little bit of something when the man, whose heart replacement got eaten by a loose dog at the hospital [Can we say gross and unlikely? And no one even tried to stop the dog.], yelled at the waves and dared God to come and get him. But if he suspected what happened was some kind of punishment, it makes me wonder what the heck he did. Apparently he killed someone, but I can’t figure out if it was a person or some kind of pet. Either way, I don’t like him.)

But overall, there really just wasn’t enough Sim stuff in the episode! In the last few seconds the little boy playing the game showed his mom the “Tree Hill” town he designed and all the characters he had made, but that was it. I’d say it was about 30 seconds worth of Sims. So instead of sitting through this episode, unless you’re into this show, I’d say just watch the YouTube clips online.

Their current slate of workshops offers something for all ages. Check it out:

Creative Writing Summer Camp
Three-week summer workshops are led by Austin’s best writers: award-winning poets, novelists, playwrights and essayists. Students write poetry and prose and learn to revise and edit their work for publication. The camp culminates in the publication of beautiful, library-quality anthologies and two public readings (one of these is followed by a book signing for student authors). Each student receives a copy of the published anthology, which is also donated to the Austin Public Library system and sold at BookPeople. Various locations around Austin, with a new location at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Westlake. Read the Austin American-Statesman’s inside look at Badgerdog’s Creative Writing Summer Camp.

Spring Break Workshops
Over one, two, or three days (March 13-15), writers will delve into what makes fiction tick and wade through the unstill waters of poetry to create their own new work. These workshops, led by professional, award-winning writers, will include multi-genre readings. Writers are grouped according to age. Location: Griffin School (5001 Evans Ave, Austin 78751) Open to students in grades 3-12. All writers will have the opportunity to publish their writing on our online journal, Unbound. And check out what the Austinist had to say about our spring break programs.

You can also check Badgerdog’s blog to get a behind-the-scenes look at their programs, including meeting their instructors.

If you decide to take a Badgerdog class, please let us know how it goes!

(photo: tonyhall/flickr)

It’s witty, funny and it has two very strong female characters, Abigail and Parker (Raven-Symoné and Joanna Garcia), whose side I am completely on when they decide to sabotage the wedding of Caitlyn (Virginia Williams), a girl who stole their best friend Rachel’s (Chryssie Whitehead) boyfriend and then had the audacity to ask her to be a bridesmaid in her wedding.

So they somehow place themselves as bridesmaids in this wedding and do everything they can to take Caitlyn down, including replacing the white wedding tent with a bounce house and putting the wedding dress through a wood chipper. They even enlist the help of a policeman/groomsman, who just happens to be into Parker, while they strive to reunite Rachel and her true love.