A scene from To the Ends of the Earth

Not the most productive South by Southwest Film Festival for local filmmakers: The best story coming in and going out of Austin remains that of 15-year-old R.L. Turner sophomore John Gordon III, whose five-minute movie To the Ends of the Earth played the fest in the Texas High School Shorts competition. In the movie, Gordon's father and little brother play, well, father and son who get separated at the airport; the trailer's available here.More >>

No doubt, a thousand other bloggers will provide you with a far better photo of Mark Cuban, on stage at left, and Michael Eisner, speaking today at SXSW.

A true South by Southwest film fest first: a waiting line to get into a panel. Course, this was the Mark Cuban-Michael Eisner panel, which just let out -- releasing, oh, some 300-plus sweat-soaked badge-wearers who stuck it out for an hour in the Austin Convention Center humidor in which the New Media Mav and the Old Media Meh talked mostly about concepts and content. Eisner, ex of Paramount and Disney, is too much a pro to spark much controversy or make much news at an event like this; said critic Elvis Mitchell, about to moderate a conversation with Billy Bob Thornton, "It's like trying to bait Dick Cheney at this point."More >>

A few notes from the South by Southwest Film Festival and its attendant events -- chiefly, for now, the Texas Film Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Friday night at the Austin Studios, where Dan Rather tore tail through the proceedings like a burning hyena running through a meth lab during a springtime twister. Normally an Oscar-length event that climaxes with a stoner has-been's 49-minute ramble-on, this year's event played like a pro-style back-pat, with local gal Patsy Ann McClenny, Mariska Hargitay (on behalf of her Dallas-bred mom, Jayne Mansfield), Debra Winger (on behalf of Urban Cowboy), one-time Richardson resident Mike Judge and, yup, ZZ Top accepting awards for .. um ... being Texans with SAG cards.

In all, a painless affair -- though, really, how Morgan Fairchild gets in before, oh, Forest Whitaker, Aaron Spelling, Stephen Tobolowsky, Spanky or, jeez, Mr. Peppermint remains a mystery. Nicest moment: Hargitay's tear-stained acceptance speech on behalf of her mom, to whom Rather referred as "the most bodacious of the bombshells," how sweet, y'all. Said the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit co-star, though choked-back tears, "I didn't know her for a very long time, but I meet her again and again through the people I meet [who remember her]." And for those on the Star Map tour, she revealed the exact location of her grandparents' former home at the intersection of Amherst and Boedeker streets. After the jump, a video of Fairchild's speech -- alas, I didn't grab the tribute clip reel, which is a shame for those who've never seen an episode of the ahead-of-its-time Paper Dolls. But ... wait, what's this? --Robert Wilonsky