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2011 TEXAS FILM HALL OF FAME AWARDS TO HONOR JOHN HAWKES & SPOON

Posted Monday, February 21st, 2011 - 1 Comment »
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For Immediate Release
February 21, 2011

(Austin, TX)–The Austin Film Society (AFS) is thrilled to announce that we have added John Hawkes and Spoon to the line-up for the 2011 Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards. Academy Award-nominated actor Hawkes will receive the Rising Star Award; director Jeff Nichols will present the annual Soundtrack Award to Spoon. Journalist Liz Smith, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame its first year (2001) and served as emcee in 2007, will be on hand to present to Renée Zellweger. They join Rip Torn, cast from Friday Night Lights and emcee Wyatt Cenac at the Awards on March 10, 2011 at Austin Studios.

John Hawkes has made his home in Austin as an actor and musician, and this year his Hollywood star is on the rise. He is nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his role as Teardrop in the Oscar-nominated WINTER’S BONE. His chilling portrayal has already earned him Best Supporting Actor by the San Francisco and San Diego Film Critics Associations, the Virtuoso Award at the Santa Barbara Film Festival as well as nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Awards. The film and cast took home Best Feature and Best Acting Ensemble at the Gotham Awards and the movie also won top prize at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. Hawkes has a long list of film credits including ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, AMERICAN GANGSTER, THE PERFECT STORM, IDENTITY, WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY, A SLIPPING-DOWN LIFE, BUTTLEMAN, in which he starred and co-produced, and fellow Texas Film Hall of Famer Robert Rodriguez’ FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. Notable television credits include starring roles in the critically acclaimed HBO series Deadwood and Eastbound & Down among others.

In its 17 years, the enigmatic Austin-based independent rock and roll outfit Spoon has gone from underground press darlings to one of the genre’s premier commercially and critically acclaimed acts. Spoon songs have been featured on TV shows such as The Simpsons, Shameless, Friday Night Lights, ER and Scrubs.  Spoon has also contributed songs to movies including THE SAVAGES, STRANGER THAN FICTION, 21, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, and 500 DAYS OF SUMMER. Spoon will be presented with the Texas Film Hall of Fame Soundtrack Award by film director Jeff Nichols. Nichols directed the music video for Spoon’s “Don’t You Evah”, produced by Wired Magazine and shot on location in Tokyo.

Liz Smith calls herself “The 2000-year-old gossip columnist.” Arriving in Manhattan from the University of Texas journalism school in 1949, she has worked in celebrity/show biz for 57 years. She has written for seven different NYC newspapers and for almost every magazine. She was a CBS radio producer for Mike Wallace, then an NBC-TV producer in the 50s. Later she went on camera at NBC and won an Emmy reporting from the Battleship Intrepid on the 40th anniversary of World War II. Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame its first year (2001) and served as emcee in 2007.

Jeff Nichols is a writer and director born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. His feature film debut, SHOTGUN STORIES, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2007 and was released theatrically in 2008. It was nominated for a 2008 Independent Spirit Award, won the Grand Jury Prize for New American Cinema at the Seattle International Film Festival, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Austin Film Festival, and won the FIPRESCI International Jury Prize at the 2007 Viennale. Nichols directed the music video for Spoon’s “Don’t You Evah”, produced by Wired Magazine and shot on location in Tokyo. Nichols second feature, TAKE SHELTER, debuted in competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was bought by Sony Pictures Classics. Nichols lives in Austin, Texas.

AMD, a leading provider of technology solutions for HD media production including Troublemaker Studios’ recent MACHETE and PREDATORS, will sponsor this year’s Red Carpet at the Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards. Charlie Boswell, AMD Director of Digital Media and Entertainment said, “Every day AMD’s CPUs and professional Graphics are being used by film and digital artists around the world, and once a year we bring it all home to Texas and celebrate our home grown talent.”

The Austin Film Society’s programs and services are funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

Austin Film Society promotes the appreciation of film and supports creative media production by screening rarely seen films, giving grants and other support to emerging filmmakers, and providing access and education about film to youth and the public. Through Austin Studios, which AFS opened in 2000 in partnership with the City of Austin, AFS helps attract film development and production to Austin and Texas. Gala film premieres and the annual Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards raise funds as well as awareness of the impact of film on economy and community. Austin Film Society is ranked among the top film centers in the country and recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts and Directors Guild of America. For more information on Austin Film Society, visit www.austinfilm.org

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Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | 1 Comment »

One Response to “2011 TEXAS FILM HALL OF FAME AWARDS TO HONOR JOHN HAWKES & SPOON”

  1. Summer Films says:
    February 27, 2011 at 6:11 pm

    What a great wy to get those raely seen films noticed

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon