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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
SXSW Film Festival winners
The jury and audience award-winners of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival were announced Tuesday night at the fest’s closing awards ceremony.
Check them out here.
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Find out what’s ‘Pulling John’
How does one confront his hero?
How about with hand chalk and a curled bicep, because that’s what the world’s most promising arm wrestlers need in their battle to dethrone John Brzenk.
Brzenk serves as the centerpiece of the arm wrestling documentary “Pulling John,” which debuted at SXSW. His prowess in pulling (the term commonly used by competitors when referring to the actual arm wrestling) has made Brzenk a legend, the Jordan or Gretzky of his sport. He tussled with Sly Stallone in 1987’s “Over the Top,” he’s held off all challengers for 25 years, and pullers across the globe speak of Brzenk in almost worshipful tones.
But time has crept on Brzenk, and a pair of promising pullers (Russia’s Alexey Voevoda and West Virginia’s Travis Bagent) seeks to take advantage during the 2004 world championships. Filmmakers Vassiliki Khonsari and Sevan Matossian delve into the background of Voevoda and Bagent during their hunt for glory, but they never stray too far from Brzenk. He shows humility compared to Bagent’s bluster; his grounded persona contrasts with Voevoda’s vaguely spacey Slavic spirituality.
To their credit, Khonsari and Matossian avoid favoring Brzenk and villainizing his competitors, although Matossian admitted after the film that they had grown fond of Brzenk and were rooting hard in the shadows.
Brzenk’s toughest foe is a familiar one for any athlete. Times change, and age saps away the ability. Brzenk’s strength hasn’t slipped since he took over the sport, but his cat-quick reflexes have dulled in the film. He relies on his will and wiliness as much as his muscle, and that makes for some anxious times during the tournament.
The filmmakers culled “Pulling John” from more than 600 hours, but they do not delve into the circumstances that made Brzenk particularly vulnerable in 2004. Tendonitis had plagued the champ for several years and had triggered thoughts of retirement. Brzenk admits during the film that he was “seeking a second wind.”
That second wind has apparently blown in. After struggling for a few years, Brzenk currently again sits comfortably atop the world of arm wrestling. It’s a fitting postscript but not one revealed in “Pulling John.”
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Tension aplenty in ‘That Evening Sun’
The layers of tension that envelop the brilliant “That Evening Sun” could suffocate the hardiest of men.
And that’s what ultimately dooms Abner Meecham (portrayed by Hal Holbrook, an octogenarian experiencing a most impressive career Renaissance), a proud landowner of salty Southern stock who “escapes” a nursing home and returns to his acreage in East Tennessee. Problem is, that land has been sold by Meecham’s lawyer son to a redneck clan fronted by a lazy parochial type named Lonzo Choat (Raymond McKinnon) who perks up just enough to torment his family and animals with equal aplomb.
But such stereotypes exist only on the surface, and that’s why the adapted screenplay by director Scott Teems vibrates with nervous energy.
Sure, Meecham has whipped a piece of remote Tennessee land into a successful farm that produced enough bounty to send a son to law school. But his productivity doesn’t make him a saint; he takes great pleasure in demeaning Choat (“you even walk like white trash,” Meecham sneers) and admits to “meanness” to both his son and deceased wife.
Choat, too, ultimately suffers from Meecham’s darker instincts.
Choat’s no sympathetic character, certainly, but McKinnon and the sturdy script give him enough depth to draw some compassion, especially from those familiar with the traditional class divisions which tend to run deep in the South.
The chemistry between McKinnon and Holbrook helped “That Evening Sun” win the Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast Tuesday, and it makes the film one of the festival’s most pleasant surprises.
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‘The 2 Bobs’ packs Paramount
Ashamed to say it, but I missed most of Tim McCanlies’ bodaciously Austin comedy “The 2 Bobs” on Monday at the Paramount. Theater employees and SXSW crew agreed that audience and cast-crew turnout was atypically crazy, and that’s a good thing for McCanlies (“Secondhand Lions”) and Austin film.
Broad comedy, gaming geekdom, R-worthy naughtiness and popping candy colors captured by cinematographer PJ Raval infuse the movie with charm, laughs (the house roared) and accessibility. Local bands, local scenery, local faces make this a thickly Austin affair.
McCanlies and cast during the Q&A
Read our recent interview with McCanlies about the making of “2 Bobs’ HERE.
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‘Observe and Report’s’ rowdy Monday premiere
The Paramount was stuffed with giddy fans. The cast and crew were there, sitting among we plebians.
Many people, including the cast, laughed their blanks off for what was finally a hit-and-miss hard-R comedy about an overzealous mall cop (Seth Rogen) and his sundry, raunchy misadventures. Sex, drugs, a full-frontal flasher, crunchy violence — a cocktail both fizzy and flat.
Writer-director Jody Hill introduced the movie by thanking Warner Bros. “for letting us make a weird-ass film.” He described it as “a comedy, I guess,” to which Rogen, sitting in front of us, hoisted a can of Shiner in the air.
The red carpet scene was Hollywood-fat:
Rogen
Co-star Anna Faris
Co-star Michael Pena
Recognize these guys? They’re brothers John and Matt Yuen, who have sizable roles in the movie. They used to work at the Arbor Cinema in Austin.
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Seth Rogen meets his twin
I’ve been spotting a writer from The Hollywood Reporter out and about at red carpet gatherings for the past few days during SXSW film. He resembles Seth Rogen enough that I kept falsely exciting other carpet-baggers by pointing and gasping, “There’s Seth Rogen!” They would turn, cameras ready, then deflate. A lame gag, but you get bored standing around like herded barn animals.
At Monday night’s teeming red carpet for Rogen’s comedy “Observe and Report,” Rogen and the reporter finally came face-to-face. The first words out of Rogen’s mouth: “Hi, me!”
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Interview: Seth Rogen, star of ‘Observe and Report’
I caught up with “Observe and Report” star Seth Rogen today, the morning after the world premiere of the new comedy written and directed by Jody Hill (“The Foot Fist Way”). The Canadian-born star who has risen to fame as part of Judd Apatow’s comedy clan discussed his new movie, improvising on the set and the upcoming movies “Funny People” and “The Green Hornet.”
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Noteworthy DVDs released 3/17/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Elegy” (Sony): Penélope Cruz won the Oscar this year for her movie with Woody Allen, but odds are good that voters were also thinking of her performance here, in a role (opposite the very fine Ben Kingsley) allowing her to draw herself in as much as she cut loose in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Dodes’ka-Den” (Criterion): Akira Kurosawa’s first color film, from 1971, in an improved edition including documentary features on the director, cinematographer Takao Saito, and esteemed composer Toru Takemitsu.
“Murnau” (Box Set) (Kino): Though not nearly as showy as last fall’s huge set from Fox, this collection offers some of German auteur F.W. Murnau’s best known work (restored versions of “Faust” and “Nosferatu”) alongside material that hasn’t been available on disc before.
Eclipse Series 15: Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu (Criterion): The little-known Japanese filmmaker is represented by three films from the ’30s and one from 1941 in this no-frills box.
“The Cake Eaters” (Universal): In time for “Twilight“‘s DVD release and the upcoming “Adventureland,” this well reviewed but little seen Kristen Stewart film gets a video release.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Princess Bride” (MGM); “Quo Vadis” (Warner Bros.); “The Robe” (Fox)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Azur and Asmar” (Weinstein Co.); “Lost Souls” (1980) (Image); “Yella” (New Yorker)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Punisher: War Zone” (Lions Gate)
BEST OF TV
“Barney Miller” Season 3, “Married…With Children” Season 10, “The Nanny” Season 3, “The Three Stooges” Collection #5 (1946-1948) (Sony); “Degrassi: The Next Generation” Season 7 (Echo Bridge); “J*A*G” Season 8 (Paramount)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Bob The Builder On Site: Skyscrapers” (Lions Gate); “The Velveteen Rabbit” (2007) (Anchor Bay)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Beautiful Truth,” “Cafe Chavalos” (Cinema Libre); “Portrait of Petula Clark” (Infinity)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“My Zinc Bed” (HBO); “Walled In” (Anchor Bay)
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SXSW: We Live in Public
‘We Live in Public.’ Few people soared as high as Internet pioneer Josh Harris during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, and few fell so hard after the bust.
Early on, Harris understood the potential of the Web to replace television as a broadband entertainment medium, founding Pseudo.com, the first Internet ‘network.’
He boasted to ‘60 Minutes’ that he would soon be bigger than CBS. And he set up one of the most bizarre live broadcasts in history: the 24-hour recording of 100 people who were living in a New York City bunker.
When they showered, their images were broadcast. Same thing when they went to a bathroom, made love. Everything was fair game, and the private lives became public. After a police raid in early 2000, the project shut down. But Harris continued to ‘live in public’ for six months with his girlfriend on the Internet. When they fought, each one would run to his or her laptop to see what the public thought: Did he win the argument, or did she?
And throughout it all, Harris began to see some holes in his theory that people would be willing to trade their privacy for public recognition.
Director Ondi Timoner, who spent more than a decade tracking Harris, shows not only his prescience but also his startling cluelessness.
‘We Live in Public’ won the top documentary prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
4:30 p.m. today, Austin Convention Center; 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress Ave.
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