Lance Hammer's Ballast, which will compete with 15 other films in the Dramatic Competition at this year's festival, has a certain familiar alt-weekly publisher in its credits. The Jackson Free Press' Todd Stauffer was production manager for the film, which is described by Sundance as "a riveting, lyrical portrait of an emotionally frayed family whose lives are torn asunder by a tragic act in a small Mississippi Delta town."

Continue ReadingFilm Up for Sundance Grand Jury Award Has Alt-Weekly Ties

Portland's city auditor Gary Blackmer (pictured), angry about his treatment in a story in the Portland Mercury, approached reporter Matt Davis in City Hall, called him "despicable," and threw in a "fuck you" for good measure, according to the Mercury. Blackmer's beef comes down to the question of whether or not he provided comment for Davis' story on racial profiling by the city's cops. The story noted that Blackmer "declined to comment," yet he and a colleague both seem to think they provided enough comment by quoting from an earlier report. "To say [they] declined comment is fair, and I would challenge them to state publicly, here, why they did not," Davis writes. The Willamette Week's Ian Gillingham thinks that Blackmer's explosion was inspired by the newly released film The Bucket List, "in which two geezers start doing all the things they want to do before they die."

Continue ReadingPortland Official to Reporter: ‘I Think You’re Despicable’

In 1987, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, who started Phoenix New Times in 1970 and bought Denver's Westword in 1983, "bought a South Beach rag named The Wave for $50 and a hot dog with plenty of relish," and Miami New Times was born, managing editor Chuck Strouse writes as the paper celebrates its 20th anniversary. "Miami is a city that reinvents itself every few years," he writes. "Indeed between the time I left town in 2000 to edit New Times Broward-Palm Beach and my return two years ago, the place went from cultural wasteland to visual arts mecca. Miami New Times, though, has become a constant -- brassy, iconoclastic, and, well, sometimes tasteless."

Continue ReadingMiami New Times Turns 20

Ted Rall and Matt Bors, whose strips appear in many AAN papers, are releasing cartoons this week ridiculing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for returning to their TV shows without making a deal with the striking Writers Guild of America. "The stakes are too high, the issues too important, the hypocrisy too hypocritical for us to just put down our pens and tune in to their union-busting, albeit highly amusing, programs," Rall and Bors say in a joint statement. They both say they will not be available to appear on either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report while the strike remains in effect. "We'd rather fight in Bush's wars than cross a picket line," they say. The cartoons go live today at TedRall.com and MattBors.com.

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Cartoonists Declare Jihad on Comedy Central “Scabs”

The predatory pricing suit against SF Weekly and Village Voice Media asserts that the Weekly sold ads below cost to push the Guardian out of business. (The suit also names former VVM property East Bay Express as a defendant.) VVM executive editor Michael Lacey thinks Bay Guardian publisher/editor Bruce Brugmann is using the Weekly as a "scapegoat" for his own problems in dealing with new challenges in print media. "[The lawsuit] is how he's hoping to maintain his business in a really tough media market," Lacey tells The San Francisco Daily Journal, a local legal publication. But Brugmann disputes this notion. "From our point of view, the fact that the economy is not good and there are other problems in this business only makes this problem more acute," he says. Jury selection is set to begin tomorrow in San Francisco County Superior Court. Legal experts tell the Daily Journal that predatory-pricing cases face different odds depending on where they are filed, adding that California superior courts are generally seen as more friendly to plaintiffs than federal courts.

Continue ReadingBay Guardian/VVM Trial Scheduled to Begin Tomorrow