Vote for the Cody Johnson Band in the FINALS of the TRRMA Music Awards

The Cody Johnson Band, Huntsville's own Texas County artist, has advanced to the FINAL ROUND of voting for the Texas Regional Radio Music Association's annual Music Awards. Johnson is in the running for New Male Vocalist of the Year and for Single of the Year for his song "Pray for Rain."

Cody and the band need your help to earn their first TRRMA Awards! To vote, register at the TRRMA website:

http://trrma.texasregionalradio.com/login.asp

Register for free as a Fan Base member and be sure to vote for The Cody Johnson Band!

Johnson is touring throughout Texas to promote his album "Six Strings and One Dream," and will be appearing at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo later this month, and at County Line BBQ in Conroe on March 4. For more tour dates and info on the band visit www.thecodyjohnsonband.com

Movie Review: 'Winter's Bone'

Check out Matt's review of Winter's Bone from today's edition of The Huntsville Item.

Winter’s Bone, the top winner at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival that recently garnered four Oscar nominations including Best Picture, is a startling, intoxicating blend of dark family drama, gritty crime thriller and coming of age tale dropped into the deeply impoverished Ozark Mountain region of Missouri. At first glance, it’s a combination of effects that seems to generate more despair than drama, more unease than entertainment, but if you have the stomach to keep watching, it will grab you and refuse to release.

Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is 17, and already dealing with the problems of a person twice her age. Her father is a meth cooker on the run from the law, her mother has withdrawn into a deep depression and doesn’t even speak, and she has two younger siblings to feed, clothe and educate with little food and almost no money. Things only get worse when the local sheriff arrives to announce that her father, Jessup, has skipped out on his bond and is likely to miss an upcoming court date. Because Jessup signed away his house as collateral for his bond, if he doesn’t make it to court, the house will be repossessed, leaving Ree and her family with nothing.

Determined to find her father, Ree trudges through a rural underworld of meth dealers and cookers, a kind of mountain mafia that includes her uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes) and the brutal Merab (Dale Dickey), gatekeeper for the area’s head honcho Thump Milton (Ron Hall), who may be the only person who knows where her father is.  With few resources, little hope and a gallery of shadowy figures who would rather beat her senseless than hand someone over to the law, Ree keeps fighting to run down the quasi-legendary spectre that is her father, and save her family in the process.

Though the undeniable symbolism of a girl searching for a father pervades the film, the thing that sets the tone, and holds it throughout, is the simple fact of ubiquitous poverty. Ree and her siblings shoot squirrels for dinner, feed questionable leftovers to their dogs and take any handouts from their family and neighbors they can get. Added to this is the simple desolation of the landscape. At times, as Ree walks through the hills from house to house in search of her father, it feels like she’s journeying through a wasteland, past burned mobile homes, rusted trucks and toppling barns. The beautiful photography of, director Debra Granik and cinematographer Michael McDonough only serves to raise that awareness that this girl lives in a kind of apocalypse, a place where the only escape for many is drugs, and the only redemption for her is to shoulder the burden of her family and carry them through the dark.

From beginning to end, the film is a battle for Ree, a battle against the simple-minded men who govern the region, against the drugs that cripple nearly everyone in one way or another, and against the unseen force of her father, who moves like a ghost through the landscape of the story. We never see Jessup, but everyone feels his influence, Ree most of all.

It’s this struggle, the struggle of a girl against every circumstance of her often pitiful life, that makes up the meat of the tale, but the tragedies of Winter’s Bone are highlighted and offset by the trappings of a classic film noir. There’s a man on the run through the darkness of a criminal underworld, but this time, instead of Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum on his tail, it’s a tough as nails teenage girl with no weapon but her own determination.

Without that determination, the film falls flat, and it’s because of Lawrence that Winter’s Bone soars. She has the strength and sensitivity of an actor far beyond her limited experience, and her quiet, intense, rock-solid interpretation of Ree is the thing that ties the movie together. Hawkes and Dickey add their own hauting, often terrifying performances to the mix, and the rest of the cast, largely a group of unknowns, make Winter's Bone one of the most naturally, effortlessly acted films of the year.

Despite its grim exterior, within Winter’s Bone is something exhilarating, something primal and energetic and even hopeful. It’s this unlikely mixture of sorrow and spirit that makes it a great film.

Matt’s Call: This film deserves every accolade it’s received. It’s under the radar, but it’s definitely worth seeking out.

Vote for the Cody Johnson Band in the TRRMA Music Awards!

The Cody Johnson Band, Huntsville's own Texas County artist, has advanced to round 2 of voting for the Texas Regional Radio Music Association's annual Music Awards. Johnson is in the running for New Male Vocalist of the Year and for Single of the Year for his song "Pray for Rain."

Cody and the band need your help to make it the final round of nominees and possibly earn his first TRRMA Awards! To vote, register at the TRRMA website:

http://trrma.texasregionalradio.com/login.asp

Register for free as a Fan Base member and be sure to vote for The Cody Johnson Band!

Johnson is touring throughout Texas to promote his album "Six Strings and One Dream," and will be appearing at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo later this month, and at County Line BBQ in Conroe on March 4. For more tour dates and info on the band visit www.thecodyjohnsonband.com

Aphrodite Cinefest International 2011

Gothic Films, Huntsville’s own independent film studio, will present Aphrodite Cinfest International, a two-day film festival dedicated to independent romance films, Friday and Saturday at the Smither Warehouse at 1405 University Avenue.

The festival will feature seven feature films, 14 short films, six music videos and three movie trailers by filmmakers from around the world, including Austin, Los Angeles, Toronto, Kansas City and Portugal. 

Screenings will be held from 3-10:30 p.m. Friday and from 12-10 p.m. on Saturday, with an awards ceremony following the final screening to honor films and filmmakers in more than 40 categories.

The festival marks a departure for Gothic Films, a company that has spent the past several years making a mark in the independent horror genre with films like Long Pig and Naked Horror. The festival is the second Gothic Films has hosted in less than a year, following up the City of Death International Film Festival in October, 2010. According to Gothic Films director and festival organizer Carlo Rodriguez, Aphrodite Cinefest grew out of a desire to bring a broader range of independent film to Huntsville

“We had met so many different filmmakers on the film festival circuit, and we had decided to try to host some micro-festivals, each one with a different genre, since so many independent filmmakers were hungry to have screenings, so we wanted to keep fostering those independent roots in Huntsville,” Rodriguez said.

The centerpiece of Aphrodite Cinefest is Snatch ‘N’ Grab, a romantic comedy by Austin filmmakers Twitchy Dolphin Flix that will have its world premiere at the festival at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

“It’s basically a female version of all those male-driven comedies like The Hangover and Superbad,” Rodriguez said. “It’s as if Sex and the City met The Hangover. It’s about four women who decide to play life by so-called ‘men’s rules,’ but the bottom line is they still end up falling in love. It’s sort of a gender bender in terms of romantic comedies.”

Rodriguez said he and Gothic Films founder and producer George Russell are planning a number of additional “micro-festivals” for the future if the events have continued success.

“We hope to do one that’s maybe fantasy/horror, one that’s sci-fi, one that’s action adventure and one that’s maybe inspirational documentary,” Rodriguez said. “Most of the festivals are weeklong huge events that span different genres, but we want to just capture the niche area. We meet so many people that think it’s a great idea so we try to accommodate.”

Admission to Aphrodite Cinefest is $6 for a day pass and $10 for a pass to the entire festival, including VIP areas and the closing awards ceremony. Some films include sexual content and may not be suitable for people under the age of 18. For a complete listing of films and events schedule, visit www.aphroditecinefest.com.

Harlem Globetrotters at Johnson Coliseum

Photo by DJ Shafer, ITZ Magazine.

After just 10 minutes of watching the Harlem Globetrotters do their thing on the court, you realize something: no matter how corny it sounds, they really are an American institution.

The Globetrotters performed a smooth, swagger-laden show for a crowd at Johnson Coliseum Monday night, and I'm happy to say I was among the crowd. The kind of entertainment these hoopsters bring to a venue is something unlike anything you're likely to see anywhere else. They're one of a kind, and that's why they've been touring for 85 years.

What I was most struck by, other than the simple coolness of having them here, was how funny the Globetrotters' show really is. Led by the team's designated showman, Special K Daley, known far and wide as the "Clown Prince of Basketball," the Globetrotters unleashed a performance that was part Michael Jordan, part Marx Brothers.

It might sound silly, a bunch of guys running around in shorts, pulling trick dunks and stopping every few minutes to crack wise with the audience, but the effect is really something quite astounding. It's a strange combination of supreme athletic prowess and surprisingly competent comedic skill, something LeBron James and Peyton Manning can't seem to pull off no matter how much money we pay them to do "funny" commercials for Nike and Gatorade.

The other thing that struck me was how few people were actually in Johnson Coliseum that night. There was a crowd, to be sure, but the place was far from full. At the risk of sounding like I'm chastising you, if you weren't watching the Harlem Globetrotters Monday night, you really should have been. It wasn't ridiculously expensive, and it wasn't hard to reach the venue. Or, at least, if you didn't want to come, you're now no longer allowed to complain when nothing cool comes to Huntsville. If and when the Globetrotters show up again, they deserve a warmer welcome, because they're a world class act.