Two local films are slated to debut at the South by Southwest film and music festival in Austin, Texas next month: Meghan Eckman's The Parking Lot Movie, about the storied lot on the Corner, and a film called Chris Farina's World Peace and other Fourth Grade Achievements. Both are showing in the festival's "emerging visions" category. World Peace will debut at the Paramount Theater on February 21, and The Parking Lot Movie will follow suit on March 27.

What other Charlottesville institutions deserve the full-length documentary film treatment?

The big story in television this week was that the Super Bowl outdid M-A-S-H's final episode in 1983 as the most highly-rated television program of all time. While about 105.97 million watched that episode some 27 years ago, fewer people had TVs, and most watched less than they do now. By contrast, the big game had 106.5 million viewers—that's a third of the U.S. population, mind you—but now everyone has TVs, and watches a lot of more.

Even Alan Alda weighed in: "If the `M-A-S-H' audience was eclipsed, it was probably due in large part to the fact that the whole country is rooting for New Orleans to triumph in every way possible. I am, too, and I couldn't be happier for them. I love that city." It may have had something to do with the fact that the whole region was snowed in. M-A-S-H is great television. I had a brief and wondrous love affair with the show a couple of years ago, when I discovered that reruns played around the time when I got home from school. The show has a nice, slow style, is based on an a Robert Altman film, and watching two episodes doesn't make you feel like you've just eaten two fast food hamburgers. Also interesting about the show is that it's a show about Americans in wartime, that began in a time of war—something modern day America hasn't done.

A UVA alum has been nominated for an Oscar in the "Live Action Short" category. Gregg Helvey studied English and French at the University before earning an MFA from USC's prestigious film program. He made Kavi as his graduate thesis, and it already won a Student Academy Award over the summer, and showed at the Virginia Film Festival in November.

The website says it's "about a boy in India who wants to play cricket and go to school, but instead he is forced to work in a brick kiln as a modern-day slave." Here's the trailer.

As Charlottesville gears up for the second winter storm of the century—in 2010 alone!— galleries around town have postponed their first Friday openings, Morgan Perkins, director of Sage Moon Gallery said. McGuffey Arts Center announced it'd be throwing in the towel and picking up the shovel. Second Street Gallery—they’re opening a cool exhibit called “Conflict/Interest” this week—boldly led the pack with a cancellation yesterday evening.

But before I go any further with the bad news, here's some people who appear to be braving the storm: A DJ set from Thomas Dean and Adam Smith, otherwise known as Lunatic and the Rascal, will go on at The Box will as planned at 10pm. Ditto, apparently, for The Garage on N. First Street, where you can see the opening of "It Was Real to Us," photographs by Sebastijen Jemec and Megan O'Hearn. (There will be hot chocolate there.)

Be safe if you're going out, folks. Now, onward with the bad news:

The sold out Amos Lee show at the Jefferson Theater has been postponed until March 21. Tickets will be honored.

The sold out Iron & Wine show at the Paramount Theater has also been postponed to a date that's yet to be determined because of the storm. Opera lovers are also out of luck, as the Met in HD presentation of Simon Boccanegra. The folks at Jefferson Theater will announce by 10am tomorrow morning whether the Amos Lee show, scheduled there tomorrow night, has been put off.

Over at UVA the Best of Both Worlds dance and step competition has been rescheduled for Valentine's day. And the Virginia's Got Talent? Competition is rescheduled for Sunday, February 28.

The Miller Center postponed two events, both of which looked pretty neat: Tomorrow's scheduled talk by Peter D. Hannaford, called "Presidential Leadership and the Nature of Change," and the most distant cancellation so far, Monday's talk by Susan Eisenhower—that's Ike's granddaughter—"America's Energy Future: The Promise of an Interstate Energy Grid." The good news? You probably wouldn't have been able to go anyway, since all of the Miller Center's programming happens at 11am on weekdays.

Perkins said that Mudhouse Downtown would remain open, but I’d be surprised if there are any other holdouts, as it seems the whole commonwealth shuts down whenever a bit of dandruff falls from the Big Man’s shoulder. As for the ten or fifteen dudes I last weekend racing down the hill at Washington Park on an AeroBeds, let’s hope you're ready for an early rematch.