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Along with some exclusive and really bloody new stills, we have a special guest blog on tap for you guys from director Spencer Parsons about his new film, Saturday Morning Mystery; old cartoons; and much, much more! Dig it!

Truth be known, I’m more of a Buford Files guy than a Scooby-Doo guy, probably because that one ripped off Smokey and the Bandit, and every episode took place in a swamp, with way more opportunity for moss monsters. But man alive, ‘70s TV barfed up a ton of these Scooby wanna bes about ghost-chasers-with-dogs. And all of them got repeated endlessly through the ‘80s in syndication, even the ones that didn’t last a whole season. Shows like Clue Club, Butch Cassidy and Goober and the Ghost Chasers, plus less dog-centric mystery team cartoons like Fangface, Speed Buggy, or The New Shmoo. There were more, and I could go on,...

 

Continued from earlier today, here are the rest of the SXSW 2013 films with Austin or Texas ties: documentaries and films that have already been hits at other festivals.

Documentary Spotlight:

An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story -- If you watch the local news, you are likely quite familiar with the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton in Williamson County. This documentary looks further into his story and the years of work by his attorneys to get him released.

Jette butts in: Filmmaker Al Reinert (screenwriter for For All Mankind, Apollo 13) lives in Houston. The film is produced by local filmmakers Clark and Jesse Lyda (who also own Monument Cafe) and Marcy Garriott -- all three worked previously on The Least of These (SXSW 2009). Jason Wehling (The Retrieval) is credited as a consulting producer. One of the composers is Chuck Pinnell, brother of the late Texas filmmaker Eagle Pennell. (screening...

When life drops a creepy old mansion into your lap, you've got no choice but to make a horror movie out of it. And so, within weeks of the fortuitous real estate deal, producer Jonny Mars and crew got to work on the Austin-produced, Scooby Doo-inspired horror film Saturday Morning Massacre (Jette's review), which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival earlier this month. The ornate, menacing mansion serves as not only the primary location for the film but is one of its biggest characters.

We sat down to chat with Mars (The Happy Poet, Hellion, America's Parking Lot), a local actor and filmmaker, about how the movie came together, and what it was like acting and producing Saturday Morning Massacre. Mars discussed the intricacies of "run-and-gun" filmmaking, gave us the lowdown on some of the other locations seen in the film and talked a bit about the plethora...

"…and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids!. Just how many episodes of "Scooby Doo" ended with that line? And did anyone ever wonder why the criminals were able to bamboozle the entire town and police squad with their schemes only to be foiled by a dog and four stoner kids who rolled into town two days earlier in a van that had to smell like malted hops, bong resin and dog farts? We’ve got some info on a new movie where the meddling kids don't necessarily fare so well.

Directed by Spencer Parsons and starring Ashley Spillers, Josephine Decker and Jonny Mars, Saturday Morning Massacrefollows some meddling paranormal investigators trying to make a buck. From the information we've managed to glean thus far, there is no talking dog in this film.

The film is currently in post-production and the official website titsandaxe.

A month or so ago saw the release of Crossing Over on DVD. The film was about multiple angles on the issue of immigration and how the United States handles it at its best and worst moments. The Least of These dwells in the worst. With only 62 minutes to get its point across, the documentary takes a sharp look at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Texas opened with the sole purpose of housing immigrant families together as they awaited their trial for either deportation or granting of asylum. The concept sounds noble doesn’t it? Giving a place to families who’ve braved the border cross who have nowhere to in between their day in court and their day of arrival? According to Clark and Jesse Lyda the center is an awful idea badly in need of change – or at least it was until its recent shutdown in...

Who's responsible for putting children behind bars? When the Us government announced its intention to stop the so-called "catch and release" program in 2006, it created an immediate need for more detention facilities to house illegal immigrants apprehended from countries other than Mexico while awaiting deportation hearings. Very soon thereafter, the T. Don Hutto Residential Center was filled with detained families.

The Hutto facility, a for-profit, privately-owned and operated facility in Taylor, a small town near Austin, Texas, had been quickly converted from a correctional center; conditions initially remained prison-like. Us Immigration and Customs Enforcement had directed that families should be kept together whenever possible, which sounds like a good thing. But the children were being treated like prisoners, with limited time permitted each day to bathe (five minutes), eat (20 minutes), play outside (10 minutes), or receive schooling (one hour). Upon hearing what was happening, three attorneys sought to change conditions for the detained families.