SXSW

SXSW is cracking down on invited bands that play elsewhere during the annual Austin-based music showcase, leading to a cancellation by at least one act.

SXSW really isn’t slouching with this year’s film festival programming (they rarely do), and today brings even more exciting additions to the lineup, including a pair of our most highly-anticipated films of 2017: Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver and Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire. The latest programming announcement also includes several intriguing indies, new films from Joe Swanberg and Evan Katz, and documentaries featuring beloved icons like Bill Nye and the Muppets.

Austin, Texas native Terrence Malick shot his latest movie in and around the Austin music scene. And earlier this week, news broke that the film, freshly retitled Song to Song, was ready for release and coming to theaters in March. So we probably should have seen this announcement (via The New York Times) coming: Song to Song will open the 2017 South by Southwest Film Festival. So you know what this means: A glitzy opening night red carpet, complete with Terrence Malick posing for lots and lots of photos and interviews. Or the exact and total opposite of that.

Paul Feig’s The Heat took a genre that has traditionally belonged to men — the buddy cop movie — and gave it a female twist. Feig’s new movie, Spy, does much the same thing, this time for spy films, a world that has long been by, about, and for dudes and their power fantasies. Spy explicitly subverts the genre’s typical gender dynamics by casting Melissa McCarthy as a lowly, desk-bound CIA analyst named Susan Cooper, who has spent her entire career in the shadow of a glamorous James Bond-esque spy (Jude Law) and then finally gets her opportunity to step into the spotlight and become a full-fledged field agent.

Individually, Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart are undeniably hilarious guys. Bringing two major comedic forces together on the big screen just makes sense on both a commercial and entertainment level. Unfortunately, Get Hard largely squanders the talents of Ferrell and Hart on an outdated premise with tired jokes, delivering what essentially amounts to one overlong joke about the terrors of prison rape.

For 20 years, Nate Mendel's bass has been the tugboat to Foo Fighters' alt-rock supertanker -- an integral, driving force, but it's not the captain's seat.

There are few mysteries more grim than that of a suicide, particularly of such a beloved and iconic celebrity. That death can blur the line between fandom and the entitled urge to know more about their private lives — as was and still is the case with Kurt Cobain, guitarist and frontman of prolific ‘90s grunge outfit Nirvana. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck gives us unprecedented access to the mind and soul of someone who never took interviews seriously and resented his overnight rise to fame.

Diffuser arrived to Austin, Texas, early Tuesday afternoon (March 17) for this year's installment of the SXSW Music Festival.

During a recent visit to New York City, Houndmouth frontman Matt Myers and bassist Zak Appleby swung by the Diffuser offices.

If there's one thing we can all agree on when it comes to SXSW, it's that there is a little bit -- or sometimes, a lot -- of something for everyone.