As you may have noticed, Rejects HQ is located in beautiful Austin, Texas. Austin is a town of many pleasures, from the survival of two local video rental stores, to the shit-ton of bats the live under one of our bridges, to the best movie theater in the world. But that’s not all Austin has to offer. It’s also home to some damn creative folks and a few of them have banded together once again to assault your eyeballs with awesome. You may have heard tell of the Old Murder House theater, a group of crazy people transplanted to Austin from parts unknown, who take major motion pictures and turn them into live stage plays. They made a name for themselves with previous shows like Back to the Future Live, Robocop Live, and last year’s incredible spectacle, Aliens on Ice! But they’ve come up with a whole new ballgame for this summer, an epic 10-city tour (thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign) that stretches from coast to coast to bring you Jurassic Park like you’ve never seen it before with their Jurassic Live: Dino Action Show.

Right now you might be standing in line at your favorite retailer trying to beat throngs of other people to the deals that only come around once a year. You may also be one of those non-conformist anti-consumerists who are sitting on your couch, secretly participating in Black Friday sales on the web. Either way, we know one thing: you’re a person of taste, because somehow you ended up here. And if you are one of our neighbors in Austin, TX, you’re about to be glad you did, as we’ve got a sweet little giveaway for you. 

Steve McQueen is not the first established director to get the bug to direct a highly sexual film for adults, and he certainly won’t be the last. Sadly, most directors who have actually made bold films about sexuality ended up with sub-par movies. Verhoeven’s Showgirls is a punch-line, Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut is an interesting mess, and Cronenberg’s Crash is maybe the best example of these experiments. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Lars Von Trier do an adult film in the next few years; he’s already expressed interest in the subject. While McQueen’s Shame does a lot of things right, it stumbles just before the finish line. Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a normal guy. He goes to work, goes out for drinks with co-workers, goes home. But every waking moment he has is devoted to sex. Thinking about it, watching it, paying for it, sex pervades his every thought. This goes beyond the normal human desire for and fascination with sex and actually consumes his life. When his sister, Cissy (Carey Mulligan), shows up for an unannounced and open-ended visit, it puts a cramp in his style. His normal evenings of watching porn, paying for webcams, and inviting prostitutes over don’t really work with his sister sleeping on the couch. Then he gets in hot water with his boss when IT checks his work computer and finds all kinds of pornography filling his hard drive. But he can’t stop. His is a true addiction and Brandon can’t stop himself.

As the summer of 2011 creeps to a close, there are now just a handful of stand-outs waiting to earn your almighty dollars. And as the old saying goes, sometimes the best things are saved for last. Such is the possible case with Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens. It’s a concept that has been on our radar for a long time, complete with a cast assembled perfectly for maximum awesome. Our hopes are high and our hats are 12-gallon, and we’d like to bring you along for the ride. If you live in Austin, Texas, that is. We’re co-hosting an advance screening on the evening of July 26th, and we’ve got your chance to win yourself a pair of tickets. Just click on through, pardners…

Like any relationship that includes some sex with Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, we’re going to make this easy. We’re co-hosting an advance screening of Friends with Benefits in Austin, TX on the night of Wednesday, July 20 at 7:30p CST. And we’d like to have you come along. We don’t require that you love us, we just want your friendship. We don’t even have to do the casual sex thing, unless you’re really interested. In order to get one of our coveted passes, you’ll need to follow a few simple directions, which I’ve conveniently located just after the jump.

We would like to take you to a movie. We see plenty of movies in advance so that we can review them for you, so why shouldn’t you get some early watching, as well? Next week we will be co-hosting an advance screening of Richard Ayoade’s Submarine in Austin, TX. It’s one of the most buzzed about films from this year’s Sundance Film Festival and it’s the directorial debut of the guy who played Moss on The IT Crowd. Those two factors led to it ending up on our list of the 15 must see films of summer 2011. So let’s go see it together, okay? All you have to do is email screenings@filmschoolrejects.com with “Submarine” in the subject line and if you’re one of the lucky ones who gets to us before we run out of spots, we’ll put you on our list and send you a confirmation. The screening takes place on Wednesday, June 1 at 7:30p at the Regal Arbor Cinema in Austin.

Late yesterday evening I received a text from my loving girlfriend. Just walking out of an advance screening of Joe Wright’s Hanna, she was ecstatic. Great action, emotional depth, and a killer score from The Chemical Brothers were the order of the night. I was instantly resentful of the experience she’d had, as I too wanted to see Hanna badly. But I adore my girlfriend, so the feelings faded quickly. Later on, I vowed not to miss my opportunity to see this movie. And I shall do so next Thursday night in Austin. Would you like to come along, as well? Here’s your chance.

One of my more praised, but lesser known Sundance 2009 favorites is coming to town — and with it comes writer/director John Krasinski, who you may know as Jim from The Office.

We’ve been training all our lives for this, and it’s finally here. Fantastic Fest 2009 promises to remove our eyeballs, pour blood, sex and ninja moves all over them and then shove them right back in our face. These are the 20 films that have us most excited about that upcoming amateur surgical procedure.

Trick ‘r Treat is a film of various, entwined Halloween-related vignettes that unfold into one small town’s ultimate nightmare. This is the story of its trailer.

Attention Austin Rejects! Relocate your ass and go watch some British TV at the Drafthouse next week. Capital idea, govnah. It’s free, you say? Jolly good!

The living legend is going to be celebrated at this year’s Austin Film Festival in late October. Hopefully, there’s an Opie retrospective.

Need something to do Wednesday night? Of course you do. If you live in Austin, we’ve got you covered. If you live anywhere else, you’re sadly on your own. Start taking night classes or something.