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Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Early buzz on ‘The Hurt Locker’
If you’re planning your film viewing during the South by Southwest Film Festival, you’ll want to know about the area premiere of ‘The Hurt Locker,’ from director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal.
Bigelow needs no introduction to Texas movie lovers, but if you need your memory jogged, she directed 1987’s classic ‘Near Dark,’ starring Adrian Pasdar as a young Texan who falls for a girl who happens to be a member of a vampire gang.
Since then, she has gained a reputation as one of the nation’s most visually exciting directors, as she showed in 1991’s ‘Point Break’ and in 1995’s ‘Strange Days.’
‘The Hurt Locker’ premiered last year at the Venice Film Festival to widespread acclaim and has been making the rounds on the festival circuit before its official release this summer. The war thriller was shot on location in Jordan and deals with a bomb squad working in Iraq. It’s based on recently declassified information as well as personal observations by screenwriter Boal, who was an embedded journalist during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Jeremy Renner stars as the leader of the bomb squad, and supporting actors include Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes.
After the Venice premiere, ‘The Hurt Locker’ received a 10-minute standing ovation. Variety described it as a high-adrenaline jolt.
Bigelow and Boal will be in attendance at the Austin premiere at 6:30 p.m. March 17 at the Paramount.
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Raimi and Demme coming to SXSW
Sam Raimi is best known to those not in the know as the director of the “Spider-Man” franchise (still waiting for the apology for part 3, mister). But before that he displayed wondrous chops as a horror mastermind with the giddily inventive “Evil Dead” trilogy. (And before that, he worked with the Coen brothers, and they cooked up all sorts of cinematic tricks.)
Anyway, Raimi will screen his work-in-progress horror movie — yes, he’s back to his rotten, bloody roots! — “Drag Me to Hell,” which is not only what my last girlfriend told me but also might be the fourth best title ever. The movie stars Alison Lohman and Justin Long and is described as a “young woman’s desperate quest to break an evil curse.”
Raimi will introduce the film at midnight March 15 at the Paramount Theatre.
‘Drag Me’ right here …
On a less gory and gutty note … Jonathan Demme is showing his new Neil Young concert movie “Neil Young Trunk Show” on March 21 at the Paramount. And Demme will be there to chat it up.
Full info on these and every SXSW movie HERE.
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