Talk about bad timing. Yes, we need the rain, but this is a pretty unfriendly welcome to our visitors in town for SXSW and the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo.  In fact, the weather was downright miserable Friday, and will be only slightly less so Saturday–only because winds will be lighter and temperatures may be a few degrees warmer, but it may actually be even wetter. Additional rainfall totals of 1.5 to 2.5 inches are possible before the rain ends Sunday morning.

A storm system has become nearly stationary over New Mexico, and will continue to feed moisture and waves of instability over the top of the colder airmass that settled into the area Thursday. As a result, we are likely to experience another day and a half  of low clouds, drizzle, fog, periods of rain, some thunderstorms. It will continue to be about 20 degrees colder than normal Saturday, but some sun Sunday afternoon may warm temperatures back to 70 degrees.

The good news for SXSW music fans is that next week looks warmer than normal.  Though we might see some rain return toward the end of the week, we’re not expecting anything like what we’ll see this weekend.

Here’s a look at current radar:

Show Descriptions

I’m really excited about this year’s film selection at South By Southwest. I’m busy choosing which ones to review. Stay tuned!

Partying with Perez

CONGRATULATIONS! You and One Guest have won tickets to Samsung Focus Presents Perez Hilton’s “One Night in Austin” during SXSW!

10,000 SXSWers got this message for the celeb gossip blogger’s party at the W Hotel. When I got it, I screamed and called everyone in my phone log that new of my obsession.  Admittedly, I read Perez like I ready the morning paper. At the time, I didn’t know 10,000 were sent out. I felt special. Next up, get in line to get a wristband, all while knowing that this doesn’t guarantee admission.

Just to get a wristband!?!

Jetting over before my nightside shift Saturday, I scored two wristbands.  I later found out that only 1,000 people would get in the door. Prepare for a stampede of crazy thoughts in my head. Would I make it in after getting off work at 11 p.m.? Would the party be packed? Would my Perez dreams be dashed?

Grabbing my change of clothes, I transformed from TV reporter to a SXSWer after my last live shot.  There was no parking near the party. As my friend and I drove around, I could see there was a mob of people at the door waiting to get in. Would we make it?

Well, we did. By the time we parked and got up to the door, they security guard said, “Girls, you made it.”  It is like he knew this was the biggest deal of my day. Walking up the steps to the W Hotel, there was the welcoming sign displayed in lights:

PEREZ HILTON

I was like a tourist taking snapshots of everything inside. Thank goodness for camera phones and flipcams!  We did go inside the auditorium and heard a few sets of music and danced (if you can call my moves dancing).

Perez was only 4 ft. away...

I will say that the highlight of my night was being within arm’s reach of Perez. I wanted to scream out his name and get a picture, but I thought ‘keep your composure’ and was  just be happy to be there. So, I just took far away shots of him that turned out horrid due to lighting. But, oh well. I had my moment.   He had on a funky red top hat, black shirt and multi-colored pants that looked like they were plastered with ads.

A lot of people do not understand the hype surrounding Perez.A lot of people looked at me wondering why I was excited about a blogger? I get that Perez isn’t breaking hard news.  He does have the skinny on every celebrity scandal and has his finger on the pulse of pop culture.  Some people go home and their secret indulgence is a great cocktail or some television show, for me, it is the salacious gossip of Perez Hilton.  You could call it my secret shame.

I also applaud Perez for seeing a multimedia opportunity that no one else did and taking it. He blew the celebrity world up and changed the way magazines like People distribute their news.  He made himself an industry and the empire is still growing. So, laugh and chuckle at my indulgence and going to ‘some’ blogger’s party. Perez isn’t just a blogger, he is an entrepreneur  and there will undoubtedly be much more to come from this man!

You’ve driven by that street a million times. Or unknowingly passed that island in the middle of Lady Bird Lake. But you’ve never noticed how green the hills are on a summer day in front of the Long Center. Or how downtown’s skyscrapers look like skeletal fingers rising up out of the ground.

Luckily, this is how Austin director Anlo Sepulveda sees the world: as a complex series of achingly beautiful moments that go otherwise unnoticed. In his view, the shadows cast from a moving train or how a white sheet billows in the wind can say more than ten pages of scripted dialogue.

It is with this tranquil approach that Sepulveda made OTIS UNDER SKY, an undeniably Austin-centric independent film about two loners finding friendship that will premiere this March at the world-renowned South by Southwest Film Festival.

As a selection in the Lone Star States category of the Film Festival, OTIS UNDER SKY will play at the Long Center’s Rollins Theatre on Sunday, March 13th as well as on the big screen at the thousand-seat Paramount Theatre on Friday, March 18th.

“We had no idea this film would get so much attention,” said Sepulveda at his home. “We got the call from South by Southwest, and we couldn’t be more excited. This is huge.”

More like a series of complimentary art pieces connected by human interaction, OTIS UNDER SKY is Sepulveda’s love letter to the city that he lives in with his daughter and wife/producer, Mandi Sepulveda.

“I was pregnant the whole time we were filming Otis,” she recalls, jokingly. “It was the middle of summer, we were outside for several hours at a time, and I was holding a boom mic for some of the scenes. Bystanders would sometimes offer to help me out, not wanting to watch the pregnant lady sweat so much.”

The cast of the movie also shares strong Austin ties. Anis Mojgani, who plays the titular character, is an internationally-recognized spoken word poet who resides in Austin when he’s not touring the country. Mojgani’s wide eyes and quiet sense of wonder perfectly capture Otis’s simultaneous curiosity and distrust of this world that does not make it easy on sensitive, orphaned loners.

Otis senses a kindred spirit in a stranger, Ursula, embodied by the impressive Roberta Colindrez, and they spend a too-short period feeling less alone while together. Colindrez is a graduate from Texas State’s acting program and has since gone on to perform with the Neo-Futurists in New York City.

The major character in OTIS UNDER SKY, however, is the city of Austin itself. Set largely on the South and East sides of the city, the film captures Austin through new eyes. Familiar streets like Cesar Chavez and South Congress are cleverly anthropomorphized with the locally-produced soundtrack and camera angles. And part of the joy in the movie is juxtaposing your own memories in to the street corners and locales as Otis and Ursula do the same.

OTIS UNDER SKY is a melancholy piece, beautiful in its quiet contemplation and implied hopefulness for each one of us. But every Austinite will delight in seeing their city so masterfully displayed on the big screen.