It makes sense that a multihyphenate like Jon Langford - a musician-storyteller-radio star-artist - would create work that blends pop culture, symbology, and the roots of musical history in rich living color. Yard Dog Gallery, after decades working with Langford, now has a completely new batch of originals to share. His work depicts musicians like Hank Williams and John Prine combined with punk-rock detailing surrounding them: a high-class zine aesthetic. When not featuring saintlike musical icons, the paintings and prints focus on nature or skeletal figures. It's a reminder of the world around us and the world to come. - Cat McCarrey
Thursday 21, The Chronpound
Ever wanted to stand like two feet from a band playing tunes while the sun sets? You're holding a pleasantly - and legally - THC'd seltzer and chewing a pork-perfect hot dog. Around you run kids, adults, dogs, all fellow supporters of the newspaper arts. This reality exists, and it's available to those who donate to this ol' Chronicle. Catch this month's band, Texas soul slingers Soulectors, by poppin' over to austinchronicle.com/support. See ya at the Chron campus! - James Scott
Thursday 21, Eastside Cinema
Inside the screenplay for Demolition Man - 1993's gonzo sci-fi action crime flick - there are two wolves. One is a script by the then-unknown Peter Lenkov, who pondered how a world without crime would contend with our modern plague of violent crooks and equally trigger-happy cops. The other is a tacky crowd-pleaser from Hudson Hawk writer Daniel Waters, bereft of political insight but filled with product placement, baffling humor, and a lumpen Sylvester Stallone completely oblivious to Wesley Snipes vamping like a maniac. Is a star-making turn from Sandra Bullock enough to save it from getting the three-seashells treatment? Join hosts Eric Samaniego and Wright Sulek as they ask whether this bafflingly beloved film should go back into cryojail. - Richard Whittaker
Thursday 21, Hyperreal Film Club
Taste can't be bought. That's quickly apparent in Peter Greenaway's visually intoxicating and stomach-churningly cerebral riff on grisly Jacobean tragedies. With costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier and meals designed by Michelin-starred chef Giorgio Locatelli, Greenaway serves up a debauched drama in which a gangster and self-described gourmand (Michael Gambon) bullies his way through a color-coded and formalist environment, oblivious to his uncultured ways as his wife (a glacially scalding-hot Helen Mirren), her book dealer lover (Alan Howard), and the cook at his favorite restaurant (Richard Bohringer) are enslaved by his violent boorishness. - Richard Whittaker
Thursday 21, Laguna Gloria
There's no such thing as an Oscar snub. The Academy members just vote the way they vote, and it's far less deliberate than anyone thinks. The exception to this rule, of course, is the fact that Godfrey Reggio's unmatched journey into insightful abstraction was not even nominated in 1983. Inspired by the Hopi word meaning "life out of balance," Reggio set a standard that documentarians are still chasing to this day. Modern life may remain out of balance, but Reggio's directing is in perfect harmony with the score by Philip Glass and Ron Fricke's cinematography. - Richard Whittaker
Through December 7, McLennon Pen Co. Gallery
Ashley Swarts' "Waiting for a Sign" debuted at Do Right Hall during Chinati Weekend in Marfa and will now have a more permanent showing at McLennon Pen Co.'s space next to Nixta Taqueria. It's a fitting journey, seeing as Swarts lived in Marfa for seven years before moving to Austin to open Slowpoke, a hand-poke tattoo studio that she owns and works out of in East Austin. Swarts grew up in Las Vegas, and all three locales figure heavily in her show, which focuses on commercial signage in each city. Southwestern street art found in vintage light box and neon signs to painstakingly hand-painted typography is an aesthetic that fascinates Swarts, whose process involved collecting magazines and fitting cutouts into sign stencils layered into clear resin and suspended "like rare bugs under glass," she writes. The opening reception is Thursday, November 21, from 6-9pm. - Lina Fisher
Friday 22, Hyperreal Film Club
"It's a pretty simple story about a guy going from zero to hero, and mascots falling down and getting hurt." That's how star and writer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews describes Hundreds of Beavers. Because what other way is there to explain a movie about a destitute applejack distiller who sets off on a path of revenge against the colony of beavers who destroyed his still? A mix of silent, black & white frontier flicks and Looney Tunes action, the movie's beavers are also all played by friends of Tews and director Mike Cheslik in mascot costumes. So grab your furs and watch the heroic and inept Jean Kayak get whammed repeatedly in the nuts in this snowstick masterpiece. - Richard Whittaker
Friday 22, We Luv Video
Austin's nonprofit video store continues its commitment to giving small, locally made movies a night on the big screen. The creative trio of Nate Wilburn, Sebastian Saavedra, and Justyce Padilla reunite after their short "All Loud on the Eastern Front" for their (per American Film Institute rules about length) 43-minute debut feature about two scammers running a less-than-legit business. - Richard Whittaker
Friday 22, Cloud Tree Gallery
Garage rock beboppers the Ugly Beats once had their special magic described by Chronicle writer Greg Beets as the "ability to capture the hip-shaking teen canteen vibe in a fresh, immediate way that never sounds like canned nostalgia." To the best of that ability, they'll be opening up the pit ahead of a supremely Sixties screening over at Eastside art gallery Cloud Tree with the help of roving kino curates Rocket Cinema. Bikini Beach double-bills teen heartthrobs Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello for its particular flavor of fun-in-the-sun antics. The weather may be getting chilly, but this movie - and the Ugly Beats - will have you going beach-mode, no problem. - James Scott
Friday 22 - Saturday 23, AFS Cinema
Ever looked at Ben Stiller and thought, "Yeah, he's funny. But he's no Charles Grodin"? Well, Stiller's 2007 remake of this 1972 anti-rom-com proves your point. Luckily, AFS is screening the original to remind you that no one comedically captured suburban rage and ennui like Grodin. Adapted by Neil Simon from Bruce Jay Friedman's 1966 short story "A Change of Plan" and directed by Elaine May, it ruthlessly attacks the nebbish Lenny (Grodin) for dumping his Jewish wife (Jeannie Berlin) in pursuit of a shiksa (Cybill Shepherd). Where the Stiller version traded on gross-out comedy, May, Grodin, and the Oscar-nominated Berlin center Jewish identity in WASPy America in a fashion that remains acerbic and hysterical. - Richard Whittaker
Friday 22 - SunDay 24, AFS Cinema
It seems that in nearly every country the animated-cat-film canon goes irrationally hard. The U.S. kicked off with silent film star Felix the Cat in the 1920s and led to the family classic Aristocats; France gave us a cat burglar in A Cat in Paris; and even Hayao Miyazaki blessed the world with Animorph-esque adventure The Cat Returns - and those are just off the dome. This weekend, AFS serves up a hidden feline classic from Germany in Felidae, a neo-noir animated feature that shares its title with the scientific name for cats. With a theme song by Boy George, this adaptation of Turkish author Akif Pirinçci's 1989 novel follows Francis, the pet of a romance writer who discovers a cat death cult living in his owner's attic, leading him down a sordid path riddled with cat sex, murder, and mad scientists. Imagine the classic Nineties 2D animation style of Don Bluth (Anastasia, Thumbelina) set to a Cronenberg plot. Purr! - Lina Fisher
Saturday 23, The Plaza at Zach
When you think of a Victorian Christmas, what comes to mind? Snow, Scrooge, and street markets. Well, Zach Theatre can't guarantee a flurry in Austin's fake winter, but with the 10th anniversary of their signature seasonal production of A Christmas Carol, now they're adding their own version of an outdoor market with this gathering of local vendors and food stalls, a petting zoo for the youngest ones, specialty cocktails and, of course, caroling. - Richard Whittaker
Saturday 23, Fallout Theater
One of the (hopefully) least-Googled phrases, but something that is all too easy to accomplish. Maybe you've managed to drive yourself crazy without even trying! This stage show by the hilarious Mimi Meier and Holly Hart Raiborn illustrates just how easy it can be thanks to the mixed messages of womanhood, with music and dance, sketches, and a Cosmo-esque "quiz that will tell you who is your Celebrity Eyebrow Twin Flame." Explore the absurdities, have a few laughs, and take notes because they will finally (finally!) be revealing the secret to perfect abs in 10 days. - Kat McNevins
Saturday 23 - Sunday 24, Waterloo Park
For the next five weeks, everyone is on shopping duty - although if you're a real deals-head like me, you've been doing the pop-up market rounds for months. Hitting a pre-Thanksgiving sweet spot for thoughtful gifters is the Front Market, autumn edition. Creative organizers Future Front TX curate over 150 vendors to take over Waterloo with homemade, vintage, edible, sustainable, etc. products you'll just love. Not only are there day-specific sellers as well as full-weekender vendors, but FFTX goes the extra mile in providing activities to keep even the stubborn anti-shoppers engaged, like a Queer Vinyl Collective platter swap, Drag N Draw and Silly Still-Lifes art classes from Sketchers Drawing Club, clay creations and demos by Anga Haus, and multiple local menus slinging their delicious wares. - James Scott
Saturday 23, BookPeople
Leave it to affable Canadian Matty Matheson to boldly cover the lunch trifecta: so basic, so taken for granted, yet so ripe with opportunity. For his latest cookbook, the chef/restaurateur/TV and internet personality (The Bear, VICE's Munchies) focused on these key items to create satisfying sustenance like a giant meatball soup in tomato broth, griddled salami panzanella salad, and banana bread French toast with a fried egg, peameal bacon, and maple syrup. Hungry yet? Grab a copy of the book, meet the chef, and be home in time for supper. - Kat McNevins
Saturday 23 - Sunday 24, AFS Cinema
The most dangerous car in 1980s movies was Christine's 1957 Plymouth Fury, but the second most dangerous was the green 1967 Pontiac GTO driven by Lulu (Melanie Griffith) that barrels into the life of yuppie Charlie (Jeff Daniels) to kidnap him for a weekend of life-wrecking fun. In a decade of rebellious cinema where every hip movie kid was trying to be John Waters, David Lynch, or Alex Cox, Jonathan Demme flipped the script in this crazy East Coast road movie by having the normies try to navigate rebellion in a corporate world. Is it actually hip to be square? Find out in this delirious screwball rom-com. - Richard Whittaker
Sunday 24, Captain Quack's Coffeehouse
A friend and I spoke recently about always being the presenter who goes too dark on an open mic reading night. Look: I'm never going to not be writing weird stuff, but I can appreciate that while everyone else brought an anecdote about seeing a ghost once, my zombie erotica appears out of place. As if listening to us bemoan this very occurrence, Austin Independent Book Fair brings back their horror story reading series, Night Reads, with a November edition. This time the theme is Knives, so come enjoy pieces from local horror writers centering on those shiny stabby icons. No zombie erotica, as far as I know, but maybe in the future. A boy can always dream. - James Scott
Sunday 24, 1009 Penion Dr.
According to the mythology wiki - yes, the general concept of myths has a Fandom Wiki - common gnome tropes include crafting and night vision. While you, as a non-gnome, cannot see at night, perhaps the skill of crafting remains in your ability. Somos Gnomos builds up in Slaughter Creek Acres with artisans, farmers, and other vendors a market that'll allow even non-magic folk to craft a more festive fall. Now, if only my feeble human body could master the gnome trope of "semi-immortality." - James Scott
Sundays & Mondays, the Tiny Minotaur
Adventurers in parties big and small (six people being the comfortable limit) are invited to join in this newest quest at LARP legend the Tiny Minotaur. At $45 per person, the quest runs about 90 minutes with complimentary snacks and a bevvie included for all the 21-and-above aged participants. From the Minotaur themselves: "It appears the Holy Circlet has sent an ill-experienced Cleric to the Rift to investigate and they are seeking the help of some Adventurers at the Tiny Minotaur! Will you and your party be able to help your new Cleric companion return to the Holy Circlet as a Hero or will you all perish on a mission ill-fated from the start?!" - James Scott