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.

The premise is simple enough. Two guys (Tom Hardy and Chris Pine), who are also best friends, inadvertently fall for the same girl (Reese Witherspoon). But because these best friends are also CIA agents, the stakes are raised to be both hilarious and, at times, life-threatening. Reese Witherspoon brings a sex appeal to her character of Lauren that we haven’t seen in her work since “Walk the Line.” Of course, she kind of has to as the romantic foil for both Tom Hardy’s Tuck and Chris Pine’s FDR, because the three of them together are probably the best looking trio of leads in a movie ever.

What works best in “This Means War” are the things that appeal to both sexes — the humor, the characters and their relationships to each other, particularly in the sweet bromance between Tuck and FDR. What doesn’t work, aside from a video store meet-cute scene that seems almost anachronistic, are the big action set pieces, which is pretty surprising considering that the movie is helmed by director McG. One-time music video auteur McG made his directorial debut with two silly “Charlie’s Angels” flicks that were more fun than they had any right to be. Despite having more plot holes than a pair of fishnets, “Charlie’s Angels” created big action set pieces that were exciting to watch, which is why the ho-hum spy action of “This Means War,” and in particular the opening sequence that felt like a deleted scene from “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,” felt disappointing. By the time the spy action centers around FDR’s and Tuck’s attempts to sabotage each other’s chances with Lauren, the excitement definitely picks up, but I can’t help feeling like the intro and the rest of the spy storyline was a missed opportunity for greatness.

Overall, “This Means War” is pretty much the best Valentine Hollywood has given us yet — hot people falling in love, kicking ass and, the most romantic of all, making us laugh.

2) If you’re feeling a little broken-hearted this Valentine’s Day, we won’t blame you if you cry along with this gorgeously intimate cover of the cheeseball “Pretty Woman” soundtrack staple “King of Wishful Thinking” as performed by Time Travels (via SYFFAL):

King of Wishful Thinking by SYFFAL

3) If you’d rather spend your V-Day three sheets to the wind, we recommend blaring Fun. and Janelle Monae’s “We Are Young”:

4) If you’d rather just look at hot guys, definitely watch the Oscar-nominated French star of “The Artist,” Jean Dujardin, doing some villainous auditioning in this Funny or Die video:

And then there’s this banned poster for his next film, “Les Infideles.” Sacre bleu!

5) And for those who appreciate a Chuck Norris joke, Happy Valentine’s Day from America’s Sweetheart herself:

2) For those who were bummed about the uncertain fate of “Community” and its group of delighfully comical Greendale College misfits, it’s absolutely coming back this season, though Season 4 is still, unfortunately, unconfirmed. The darkest possible timeline will not prevail!

3) If you’re running out of things to watch on Netflix Instant, Pajiba’s got you covered with a list of 20 underrated gems just waiting for you to stream them. We heartily endorse the recommendation of Happythankyoumoreplease, which, from its description, seems designed to bludgeon you with its hipster quirk, but actually wins you over with its romantic charm.

4) We’ve obvi been guilty of totes LOLing from time to time, but we wholeheartedly agree that Internet shorthand should be banned in 2012. What specific words would you <3 to never see again on your computer monitor?

5) Before we retire Internet slang forever, can we just say that nothing made us LOL and LMAO as much this week as this story about NASA’s new space shuttle engines?

Watch Downton Abbey I Wonder Preview on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

2) If after watching “Downton Abbey” you find yourself in a period-piece marathon, make sure and choose wisely, namely from the films and miniseries including the chaps who landed on Pajiba’s list of their favorite cravat-wearing Brits.

3) Could “Twilight” be better or worse? Find out by reading io9′S imaginings on “If Famous Authors Had Written ‘Twilight’…”

4) We couldn’t get enough of the trip back in time afforded to us by “The Artist,” undoubtedly the most unique film we saw in 2011. With two winning leads and a charming love story, this black-and-white silent gem will make you long for quieter times at the cinema and heartily root for its chances come Oscar season.

5) We’re also rooting for Chelsea Gill, who posted a gutsy and adorable song on YouTube to ask her biggest celebrity crush (and ours), Jason Segel, out for a drink. We hope she gets her drink!

2) New York Magazine’s Vulture also gave us this delightful clip of the “Community” cast playing the Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture Edition. We wish we could be on their teams.

3) Alison Brie, “Community”‘s Annie Edison, will soon be on the silver screen in “Five-Year Engagement.” In addition to two of our other beloved TV actors (Jason Segel and Chris Pratt) and Emily Blunt, this trailer offers romantic comedy fans like us hope for the future. And in our book, co-writers Segel and Nick Stoller are two-for-two after “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “The Muppets.”

4) Another dearly departed TV favorite, “My So-Called Life,” received the where-are-they-now? treatment, courtesy of an imaginative writer over at HelloGiggles. They sooooo pegged Brian Krakow.

5) Wondering what to get us for Christmas? We’ll take anything from Brookish, a lovely Etsy shop full of handmade goods inspired by the great Jane Austen herself.

Released in the UK in 2009, “Nativity!” stars the perennially perfect Martin Freeman (“The Office,” “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”). No one does adorable sad-sacks better than him. He is basically the British Charlie Brown. In “Nativity!”, Freeman stars as adorable sad-sack Paul Maddens, a primary school teacher whose Christmas spirit (and heart) is broken because his girlfriend (the luminous Ashley Jensen, best known stateside for “Ugly Betty” and “Extras”) dumped him on Christmas five years prior and is now charged with putting on the school’s nativity play, very much against his will. While that setup could in fact easily be turned into a crappy American cable movie, in the hands of these British filmmakers, it turns into something funny and sweet that marries sharp satire with tear-inducing warmth. I mean, the villain, a rival Nativity-play producer at a ritzy private school, is named Gordon Shakespeare, which is just awesome. And he is played by the great Jason Watkins (Herrick from “Being Human”). The kids are also delightful, and the original songs from the Nativity production will be playing in your head even days later. And there are donkeys!

2) And on the other end of the November movie releases, this reviewer sums up exactly how we felt about “Breaking Dawn, Part 1″:

3) So many great movies will be coming out in the next four weeks, but one of the ones we are most excited about is Chickster favorite Cameron Crowe’s “We Bought a Zoo,” which comes out Dec. 23. The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Crowe in a great cover story that also includes the mix tape (what else?) he made to convince Matt Damon to sign on for the project. We were happy to see our all-time favorite Ryan Adams song (and Crowe knows from Ryan Adams songs), “If I Am a Stranger,” on the playlist. Here’s a video a fan recorded of Adams playing the song solo at a show in Ireland this summer. As usual, his vocals are heartbreakingly gorgeous:

4) The Hairpin has added another great installment to our beloved Scandals of Classic Hollywood series, this time focusing on the fascinating and tragic story of the beautiful Rita Hayworth. Long, but well worth the read.

5) It is officially December, which means it’s time for one of our favorite music genres — Christmas music! Over on HelloGiggles, they’ve assembled a pitch-perfect mix of retro holiday jams, including one of our absolute musts, Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)”:

(photo via Yahoo/Kevin Winter, Getty Images)

But among all the coverage of “Breaking Dawn: Part 1″ this week, perhaps the funniest has been this Pajiba post that posits “I’m convinced that no one hates ‘Twilight’ as much as Robert Pattinson,” and then goes on to detail some of the actor’s choicest sound bites about the series, including this spot-on summary of “Breaking Dawn”:

“Have sex, demon baby. No, they get married first, demon baby, Jacob falls in love with the little baby [laughs], then everyone tries to kill each other, but nothing happens. Oh, that’s the second one [laughs even harder].”

2) Now that sparkly vampires are almost behind us, it’s time to move on to a teen heroine who is truly kick-ass. This week, we got a good look at Katniss Everdeen and the tributes competing in “The Hunger Games,” the first film adaptation of the best-selling young adult trilogy. Check out the awesome trailer below, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

3) If you’re tired of all this teen-centric fare at the cineplex, catch up on the Hollywood of yore through The Hairpin‘s fantastic Scandals of Classic Hollywood series. This week’s column broke from its scandalous traditions to lovingly profile the late Paul Newman. It’s a great read devoted to a great humanitarian and actor, and well, the photos definitely don’t hurt.

4) Speaking of scandals of years past, a new theory that alleges Jane Austen was actually the victim of (possibly intentional) arsenic poisoning was featured on Yahoo this week. We’re not sure what to make of it, but we are sure we need to watch “Pride and Prejudice” again while we think about it.

5) The weather today makes for perfect scarf-weather. Thanks to this clever tutorial, we now know 23 more ways to work a scarf:

While the idea of a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost living together may sound like the setup for a joke, this show (and I’m patently ignoring the existence of the American SyFy Channel remake) is smarter, funnier, sexier and scarier than “Twilight” or “True Blood” could ever even dream of being. With a distinctly British sensibility, “Being Human”‘s title tackles exactly what the characters’ main dilemma is – how supernatural beings work to unearth, and stay connected to, the humanity buried within them. The main key to these characters’ humanity lies in their friendship with each other, through which George the werewolf (Russell Tovey), Annie the ghost (Lenora Crichlow) and Mitchell the vampire (Aidan Turner) have forged their own family, one that supports them and constantly encourages them to live on the right side of morality. The trio ends up fighting all manner of creatures and evils over the three seasons, but no evil is ever as great as their own interior demons, which results in much more affecting and compelling drama than manufactured love triangles and straw-man villains. And if you require your vampire addictions to have eye candy and romance, “Being Human” has both those too (especially in the Irish-accented, tormented and lethal Mitchell). Although in this show, the romance always feels earned.

The BBC commissioned a fourth season that should be airing next spring and hopefully added to Netflix Instant soon after. In the meantime, catch up on all 24 episodes, so you’ll be ready.

2) Check out the latest and greatest in Austin’s craft scene at the annual Austin Craft Riot Holiday Show, which is FREE and held this Saturday and Sunday at the Marchesa Hall.

3) Diablo Cody’s Red Band Trailer series resurfaced recently to feature an interview with the delightfully smarmy Joel McHale. Our favorite basic-cable television host/”Community” star delivers all the sarcastic charm you’d expect, but fair warning — when he starts holding that baby toward the end, your ovaries may just kick into overdrive.

4) If you’re feeling old, read up on this comforting advice Cracked offers about leaving your 20s behind.

5) Who knew Batman was actually an idiot? These College Humor sketches present a new, but not necessarily improved take on Batman interrogating the Joker, battling wits with the Riddler, trying out new voices and, as you’ll see below, unsuccessfully vanishing from a rooftop:

Centered on the Braverman clan in Berkeley, California, the show stars TV favorites Lauren Graham (“Gilmore Girls”) and Peter Krause (“Sports Night,” “Six Feet Under”) as adult siblings Sarah and Adam Braverman, respectively, alongside their younger siblings Crosby (Dax Shepard) and Julia (Erika Christensen). Each of the four Braverman kids has their own kids now, but even if you don’t have kids yourself (and I don’t), you will recognize yourself in at least one of the relationships on this show, whether it is in Sarah’s rebellious daughter Amber (poignantly played by Mae Whitman, she of Ann “Her?” Veal fame from “Arrested Development”) struggling to connect with her mom or having a creatively eccentric grandmother like Braverman matriarch Camille (Bonnie Bedelia). From the inane strife that always accompanies family holidays to asking yourself how you could be related to so many crazy people, “Parenthood” effectively touches on truths universal to all families.

There isn’t a single main character on “Parenthood” I don’t adore, and the show is just unceasingly warm and touching. I’m sure a lot of that is due to showrunner Jason Katims, who previously served as the showrunner of the amazing “Friday Night Lights” and also wrote for the emotionally resonant “My So-Called Life.” From the pitch-perfect choice of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” as the theme song to the rich production design of every character’s home, “Parenthood” does exactly what good TV should do — create a space where you want to be for however long you’re watching, whether it’s one 40-minute episode or a day-long marathon.

The first two seasons of “Parenthood” were added to Netflix Instant last month, and the third season is currently airing on NBC and available on Hulu.

(courtesy Austin Film Festival/Jack Plunkett)

My favorite panel of AFF was, of course, “Script-to-Screen: Veronica Mars with Rob Thomas,” which delved into both behind-the-scenes trivia and the writing process behind bringing the best teen detective noir ever to grace the small screen. For my money, television doesn’t get much better than “Veronica Mars,” so hearing showrunner (and off-and-on-again Austinite) Rob Thomas (pictured above) tell how he came up with and developed the show’s central story, characters and perfectly plotted season arcs was a fangirl’s dream. (If you haven’t seen the show yet, it’s no longer available on Netflix Instant, but you can rent all three seasons on DVD. As we said before, Veronica Mars is a pint-sized, pop culture-spewing private investigator who packs a punch – and an oh-so-handy taser. First seasons of television shows only very, very, very rarely come as deftly plotted, suspenseful, funny, unflinchingly honest, swoon-inducing and addicting as the first season of “Veronica Mars.”) During the panel, Thomas played the pilot episode (including clips from both his cut and the network’s cut) while pausing often to share thoughts and stories. One of those stories included the casting process for the main male characters of Duncan Kane and Logan Echolls, and then it turned out that Jason Dohring, the actor who played Logan Echolls (the inciter of the aforementioned swoon), was actually in the room. Sigh.

As for the films, well, it’s easy to take shots at films with hundreds of millions of studio money behind them, but with more personal films, like the kinds that premiere at a festival geared toward writers, it feels wrong and mean-spirited to spend time pointing them out. So, rather than talking about films that were empirically good or bad, I’ll just share the five that I enjoyed watching the most, in chronological order. That being said, one of the bad things about living in the city where the festival is held is that life sometimes gets in the way of screenings you most want to see, which is why i missed both “The Artist” and “Jeff Who Lives at Home.” Before I get to my chronological countdown of new movies, I have to give a special mention to Friday’s screening of 1990′s “Metropolitan,” a comedy of manners I adore and that was such a treat to see on the big screen followed by a Q&A with its brilliant and elusive writer/director, Whit Stillman.

1) When a film is charged with opening an entire festival, it has a lot of expectations, including setting the tone and level for the next week of films. “Butter” more than rose to the challenge. The only things I knew about “Butter” before setting foot into the Paramount on AFF’s opening night were that it starred Jennifer Garner and served as an allegory of the 2008 Democratic presidential primary set in the world of competitive butter carving. The film, which also starred Ty Burrell, Olivia Wilde, Hugh Jackman, Alicia Silverstone and Rob Corddry, turned out to be all that and much more as one of the most enjoyable salty-and-sweet comedies this side of “Bad Santa.” And I never would have pegged Rob Corddry as the kind of actor that could make me cry, but he brought so much warmth to his role as the foster father of aspiring butter carver (and Obama surrogate) Destiny. Writer Jason A. Micallef was in attendance and participated in a Q&A after the panel, in which he talked about his smart and funny script, which previously had been on the famous Black List of the best unproduced screenplays.

(Bruce Robinson and Johnny Depp, courtesy Austin Film Festival/Jack Plunkett)

2)The Austin Film Festival certainly draws famous actors and filmmakers to our city, but when Johnny Depp came to town, every person with a badge or a film pass flocked to the Paramount to see “The Rum Diary”on Friday night. The film was introduced by saying that no other actor can play comedy and fear at the same time as well as Depp, and he certainly proved that once again with his performance in “The Rum Diary,” which was adapted by writer/director Bruce Robinson from the novel by the late great Hunter S. Thompson. Set in Cuba in the 1950s and also starring Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli, Austinite Amber Heard and Giovanni Ribisi, “The Rum Diary” is good fun and the perfect marriage of director, actor and source material, as anyone who has seen either Robinson’s famously gin-soaked “Withnail and I” or Depp’s appropriately gonzo performance as Thompson in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” can probably guess. After the film, Depp and Robinson (along with famed film columnist Elvis Mitchell) provided the most hilariously entertaining Q&A of the entire festival.

3) Heading into AFF, the film I was definitely most excited about was Sundance hit “Like Crazy.” Starring Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones as an American and Brit, respectively, who fall in love only to see their relationship torn apart by distance and visa problems, “Like Crazy” effectively creates that same feeling of love and longing that everyone can identify with. Beautifully shot and acted, the film was largely improvised from an outline from writer/director Drake Doremus, who said at the Q&A following the film that he wanted to write a story in which love was both the protagonist and the antagonist, because it caused Anna and Jacob to make decisions that ultimately hurt themselves and others. I’m not a fan of ambiguous endings, but I know that the heightened emotions of “Like Crazy” will stick with me for a long time.

4) Unfortunately, “Stuck Between Stations” was one of the few screenings I attended that didn’t have a filmmaker in attendance, and I enjoyed the film so much that I would have loved to hear more about its creation. Set all in one night, largely as a conversation between two twenty-somethings that kinda-sorta knew each other back in elementary and high school, “Stuck Between Stations” does an amazing job at creating one of those heady anything-is-possible nights when everything feels a little like a dream and you’re hesitant to do anything that might break the spell. (In that respect, it reminded me a bit of the also-great “In Search of a Midnight Kiss.”) In addition to bit parts with Josh Hartnett and Michael Imperiola, “Stuck Between Stations” stars Zoe Lister Jones and the film’s co-writer Sam Rosen as Becky and Casper, who are both a little bit lost. I was not a fan of Lister Jones’ tragically hip “Breaking Upwards,” but I thought she was great in this performance, although I think the MVP award has to go to Sam Rosen, who gave a three-dimensional, realistic portrayal of a soldier serving in Afghanistan that owed nothing to stereotype. In honor of the oft-unsung hero of “Friday Night Lights,” my husband and I have created the Saracen Award for QB 1′s specific brand of sweet, sad and earnest, and the character Rosen creates in Casper is a deserving recipient.

“Stuck Between Stations” Movie Trailer from Stuck Between Stations on Vimeo.

(Nick Kocher, Jason Dohring, and Brian McElhaney, courtesy Austin Film Festival/Tammy Perez)

5) With all that “Veronica Mars” and “FNL” love up there, I’m obviously a huge TV nerd. So is Andrew Disney, the NYU graduate who for his feature debut managed to assemble a cast that includes cast members from cult TV favorites “The Wire,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Heroes” and, yes, “Veronica Mars” and “Friday Night Lights.” You kind of want to punch him for having that kind of luck, but then he manages to win you over with his heavily stylized, self-labeled slacker noir “Searching for Sonny.” While I missed the Saturday premiere with actors Jason Dohring, Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney present, the Monday night screening included a Q&A with producer Red Sanders and writer/director Andrew Disney, who said he won over his stellar cast by sending them videos detailing the reasons why they should be in his movie. And it worked. Dohring stars as a twentysomething pizza boy who heads back to his hometown (which, although not named, is shot in Fort Worth) when one of his high school classmates (Masi Oka) goes missing. Between Logan Echolls, Colonel Tigh, Lyla Garrity and narrator Lester Freamon, you wouldn’t think anyone else would have room to shine, but Kocher and McElhaney of comedy duo Britanick Comedy (I suggest starting with the Joss Whedon-approved video “Teamwork”) demonstrate that they both have bright careers ahead.

(photo courtesy Austin Film Festival/Jack Plunkett)

2) In other movie news, let’s all toast some firewhiskey to the news that the Harry Potter cinematic journey isn’t quite over yet thanks to a new documentary that will be a special feature on the upcoming “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2″ blu-ray:

3) We’ve always secretly dreamed of dressing up as our beloved WALL-E for Halloween, and with this lovely new volume on “The Art of Pixar,” may give us some ideas on how to make that happen. Check out the cover:

4) If you still haven’t figured out your Halloween costume, check out this awesome guide to dressing like your favorite ’90s girl. We call dibs on Carmen Sandiego next year! (And now her theme song will be in your head FOREVER.)

5) We will try to lay off the Daleks for a week after this, but we couldn’t resist sharing this genius robotic Dalek pumpkin, created by the fittingly named Evil Mad Scientist. It has an oven thermometer and an egg beater as its arms! And it moves!!!

Happy Halloween, dear readers!