Here’s a couple of reviews of the taping that were posted right after it happened from Austin 360 and TwoFeetThick along with an outtakes addendum from Austin360 as well.

Speaking of ACL tapings, if you’re a fan of Pearl Jam, set your calendars for February 13th when the Them Crooked Vultures taping will air.

To find the most stressful cities we examined quality of life factors in the country’s 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas, or metros — geographic entities defined by the (OMB) for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics. We looked at June 2009 unemployment figures provided by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics and cost of living figures from the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER). We examined median home price drops from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009 that were provided by the National Association of Realtors. Population density based on 2008 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and ESRI also factored. Last, we examined the number of sunny and partly sunny days per year, based on 2007 data from the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, as well as air quality figures, based on 2007 data from the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Feel free to begin the debate of whether or not any of these measures is a good predictor of stress level for an entire city.

I took this during an evening shower (a rare evening shower this summer as we’re about to beat the record of number of days over 100 degrees) heading east on 45th street near Burnet Rd. I was at a full stop at a light. I’m guessing that if the new “texting while driving” ban that the Austin City Council approved this week eventually gets passed, I could get ticketed for doing this. They’re going to have a difficult time enforcing that one fairly.

The cast includes Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Mila Kunis and Gene Simmons as a smarmy ambulance chasing lawyer.  It’s also filled with a raft of scene stealing performances by the cast in smaller parts. The opening scene in a music store is hilarious and sets up the character of Cindy very well. I was pleasantly surprised to see T.J. Miller as the character of Rory, the heavy metal forklift driver. My wife and I were big fans of his character Marmaduke on the short lived ABC comedy, Carpoolers. J. K. Simmons continues his run of scene stealing performances (Spider Man, Burn After Reading) as Brian, the supervisor who can’t be bothered to remember any of his employee’s names. David Koechner plays the annoying neighbor, Nathan. Matt Schulze is great as the atypically aggro stoner boyfriend of Cindy and Brent Briscoe is amusing as a Pepsi swilling couch potato. Judge makes a cameo near the end as one of the factory workers.

The movie was followed by a Q&A session with Mike Judge and Jason Bateman and was moderated by Alamo Drafthouse founder, Tim League. I haven’t been to an Alamo Drafthouse screenings with League in quite some time, but he’s taken on a game show host persona to moderate the questions and answers. He didn’t used to do this, so I guess it’s evolved over time in an attempt to get better questions out of the audience?

As I tweeted last night, one of the things that struck me early in the film was the similarity of the Reynold’s Extract plant to the Adams Extract building just south of town. I wasn’t the only one because one of the first questions was whether the Adams plant influenced the script. Judge said that he’s always wondered what went on in that building and that it did, in fact, serve as inspiration for the movie. Members of the Adams Extract family were in attendance and Judge had them stand up at one point. The Austin Chronicle did a story on Adams Extract in 2001 before they moved to Gonzales. Boneyard Media has a photo of the iconic building.

Bateman fielded a couple of interesting questions. Apparently, there’s still an Arrested Development movie in the works. They’re just having scheduling problems getting all of the cast in one place. He also was asked about the awesomely awful PSA “How Can I Tell If I’m Really in Love” (YouTube)that he did in the mid 80s with his sister (and Ted Danson!?!). The really amusing thing is that Bateman didn’t realize that League’s Alamo Drafthouse dredges up all kinds of obscure videos to play prior to its feature screenings and has been running the PSA prior to showings of (500) Days of Summer. I just happened to see it this past weekend at Alamo South Lamar.

Filming locations for Extract include those in Austin and Los Angeles. The movie opens on Labor Day weekend. Stay for the credits to see an amusing epilogue with Gene Simmons.

No buffet last night, but we did have an unexpected treat. Tom Savini, well known horror movie makeup and effects artist, was sitting in the row in front of us during Forbidden Planet. I was pretty sure it was him, but opted not to bug him. I wondered if he might be in town for Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, which is filming here in Austin right now. Turns out I was right.

ACL Okkervil River Program

The past year for Okkervil River has been full of some pretty big milestones. They released their latest album The Stand Ins only a few weeks before playing the Austin City Limits Festival last September. They played The Late Show with David Letterman this past January and were at both the Coachella and Bonnaroo (where they apparently “killed”) festivals this summer. Their latest achievement is an Austin City Limits taping last night for Season 35 to air later this year.

I’ve heard a lot about the band (pronounced “awk”-ervil not “oak”-ervil as ACL producer Terry Lickona did introducing them last night) over the past few years both in the media and from friends. Their sound is somewhere between folk and pop and they’re often lumped in with bands like The Decemberists and Arcade Fire. It was a decidedly local crowd last night. We ended up sitting next to bassist Patrick Pestorious’s mother and father. Jonathan Meiberg, former Okkervil member who left to focus on his band Shearwater which started out as a side project for both he and Okkervil frontman Will Sheff, was on hand for “Lost Coastlines”, a songn they had to do twice for the taping due to some mistakes in the first attempt. They also added a horn section and a string section to the normal 6 member line-up. Okkervil River have backed Roky Erickson, another local performer and recent Austin City Limits artist, and are slated to go into the studio with him later this year.

I wasn’t able to get the song list before posting this, but I’ll update with it later. In addition to “Lost Coastlines”, they definitely played “For Real”, “Our List is Not a Movie (Or Maybe)”, “The War Criminal Rises and Speaks”, “John Allyn Smith Sails” with its segue into The Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B.” and “Unless It Kicks”. You can find mp3s for a few of these songs linked from Ultra8201’s spotlight post prior to their ACL 2008 appearance. They’re pretty catchy. I can’t get a couple of them out of my head as I write this.

Update – here’s the official set list via a pic from one of the producers:

1. “A Girl In Port”
2. “A Hand To Take Hold of the Scene”
3. “The Latest Toughs”
4. “Starry Stairs”
5. “A King and a Queen”
6. “The War Criminal Rises and Speaks”
7. “John Allyn Smith”
8. “A Stone”
9. “So Come Back, I Am Waiting”
10. “Lost Coastlines”
11. “Our Life Is Not a Movie…”
12. “Unless It’s Kicks”
13. “For Real” (Encore)

The Season 35 line up is pretty impressive. Once again this year, the ACL Festival is drawing in several bands for tapings, including Dave Matthews Band, Beastie Boys, Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth. There’s an encore presentation of the Bettye LaVette and Pinetop Perkins show tomorrow night. I saw that one live last year and it’s not to be missed. LaVette and her backing band are amazing. Since that taping, LaVette has received accolades for her performance of a Who cover at the Kennedy Honors and for her rendition of “Change is Gonna Come” at the Presidential Inauguration this year. She recently released a six song EP with that track on Anti Records. It’s available for $5.94 on iTunes.

We finally checked out Mighty Cone on Sunday. We were hungry and had to go grocery shopping at HEB Oltorf anyway. I’ve been passing the “food trailer park” that’s sprung up on South Congress for weeks and meaning to get over there. Hey Cupcake! started the invasion and now there’s a Roppolo’s Pizza, a popcorn trailer, a crepe trailer and an Armadillo coffee trailer in addition to Mighty Cone. The church that owns the lot has added electricity and port-a-potties to accommodate all of the businesses. A little bird tells me that the land has been sold and that there’s going to be a hotel on the lot. I’m not sure what this means for the vendors on the lot now or how soon that will take shape. I imagine they could just find another spot and move.

As for Mighty Cone, they’ve got a pretty nice setup. As you can see from the photo, the tables have been built with cone holders in the middle. They had a nicely shaded area with some hanging plants. I opted for the special of the day, The Purple Pig. Swine Flu be damned! I’m having revenge on Porky with their pulled pork and purple cabbage cone. It was good. The Wife went for the ACL tradition of the Chicken and Avocado cone. If you’re familiar with their ACL offerings, you can find them all here including Death By Chocolate. They’ve added shrimp to the choices along with a kid option which is served with plain chicken (no sauce or slaw) and french fries.

All in all, a pleasant Sunday afternoon lunch watching the people pass by up and down South Congress. I’m not sure how pleasant it’ll be in August, but it’s nice to have so many more local fast food options in that area.

My Bloody Valentine at the Austin Music Hall

You can view the whole set here.

Checked out the free stuff at the Convention Center for SXSW Interactive. The kids played some games at ScreenBurn and built a few things in the Lego Interactive Playpen. It seems like there were fewer Legos this year. A sign of the recession? Check out the video shot with an awesome Metblogs Flip cam.