Austin360 blogs > Austin Movie Blog > Archives > 2010 > March
March 2010
Competition wants your short films
This year’s Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival isn’t until October, but the fest is taking entries for its short film contest:
Win up to $500 in either the high school or college/emerging filmmaker category. Finalists in this competition will have their films featured on the big screen at the Alamo South during the seventh annual Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival. No fee for early registration.
Everything you need HERE.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
Casting call: One-armed woman
Joe O’Connell got the scoop on this weird one (his link HERE):
Paramount Pictures is seeking a WOMAN MISSING HER LEFT ARM to be a photo double in the film, TRUE GRIT, a new film by Joel & Ethan Coen.
Character description: Photo double for adult Mattie Ross: This woman must be MISSING HER LEFT ARM. Optimally, she would be around 5’8”, 138 lbs, slender to medium build. However, we are open to various looks.
To submit: Please do so asap! Send photos, measurements & contact information to texascasting2010@gmail.com. Photos should be non-glamorous, simple snapshots (incl face and body. It’s best to wear a tank top & shorts). Measurements should include height, weight, bust, waist & hips. Include age, phone numbers & place of residence. Approrpriate candidates may also call our office at 512-637-6775.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin Movies Inc.
Alamo expanding its digital screenings to classics
The Alamo Village will start showing contemporary classic movies on their spanking new digital projectors. They begin with John Carpenter’s (awesome) remake of “The Thing,” playing Monday through Thursday at the Village. Tickets and all HERE.
Here’s the Alamo’s enthused announcement of the new series, worth reading:
When we installed the cutting-edge Sony 4K Digital projectors at the Village and South Lamar, we really only had new digital (3D) films and HDTV in mind. But then our friends at Universal called to tell us about their project to transfer restored classics to the new Digital Cinema Package format and something inside of us clicked. We will always be champions of glorious 35mm, but after seeing what our projectors can do for cinema resolution and clarity, we had to check out some our favorites from years past given the modern digital treatment. Well, the experiment starts next week at the Village with John Carpenter’s brilliant THE THING! Monday through Thursday. Look for ANIMAL HOUSE and SCARFACE coming soon.
Imagine this in crisp, shiny digital.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/30/10
PICK OF THE WEEK:
“An Education” (Sony): One of last year’s highlights, this coming-of-age tale set in ’60s London backed a breakthrough performance by Carey Mulligan up with fantastic supporting turns by Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Alice” in Reissue Wonderland: Moviegoers who were disappointed with Tim Burton’s version have more choices this week, including a “Special Un-Anniversary Edition” of the classic Disney cartoon (not available on Blu-ray? off with their heads!) and a “Classic Film Collection” from Infinity that offers film versions of the tale going all the way back to 1915.
“Kenneth Anger’s Complete Magick Lantern Cycle” (Fantoma): Collecting two out-of-print discs into one package, this set offers some of the most influential (and taboo-tweaking) experimental films ever.
“The Baader Meinhof Complex” (MPI): Last year’s German import starts with a rush and gradually turns morose in its depiction of real-life leftist terrorists.
“Red Cliff” (Magnolia): John Woo’s successful entry into the historical epic arena is now out in two separate editions: the 148-minute U.S. version and the nearly five-hour cut released overseas. (Both are offered on DVD and Blu-ray.)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” (Fox); “Sherlock Holmes” (2009) (Warner Bros.)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Collateral” (Paramount); “The Killer” (Weinstein Co.); “Tromeo & Juliet” (Troma); “Vampyres” (Blue Underground)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“High Kick Girl” (First Look); “Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa”(Criterion); “Once Upon a Time in a Battlefield,” “Voice of a Murderer” (Virgil Films)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Afghan Star” (Zeitgeist); “David Tudor Bandoneon! (A Combine)” (Microcinema); “Henri Cartier-Bresson,” “William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe” (Docurama); “IMAX: Under The Sea” (Warner Bros.)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Savage Drums” / “Jungle Hell” Double Feature, “Sea Devils,” “Spaghetti Western Collection” (VCI); “Separation” (Microcinema)
BEST OF TV
“The Abbott and Costello Show: 100th Anniversary Collection” (E1 Entertainment); “Deadliest Catch” Season 5 (Image); “The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty,” “Jesse James’ Hidden Treasure,” “Steven Seagal: Lawman” Season 1 (A&E); “Judge John Deed” Season 1 (BBC); “Legacy: The Origins Of Civilization,” “Lord Peter Wimsey” Collection 1 (Acorn Media); “Rhoda” Season 2 (Shout! Factory); “Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction” (HBO); “The Best of Soul Train” (Time-Life)
CULT CORNER
“Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge” (Well Go USA)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Danny DeVito in “Housebroken” (Image)
KIDS’ STUF
“Alvin & The Chipmunks: Cinderella, Cinderella” (Paramount); “Backyardigans: Escape from the Tower” (Nickelodeon); “Ben 10 Alien Force” Volume Six (Warner Bros.)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: DVDs
Kyle Henry’s UT cautionary tale screens April 6
Austin filmmaker Kyle Henry’s now-classic and suddenly timely all-over-again doc “University Inc.” gets a special screening at 7:30 p.m. April 6 at the Texas Union Theatre at UT. It’s free.
Here’s an informative note from Henry about the show:
Ironically, ‘UNIVERSITY INC.,’ a documentary about the corporatization of higher education at the University of Texas-Austin, will screen at The Texas Union Theater, the very theater that the Union Film Program ran. The film documents the program’s demise as a paradigm for corporate mismanagement at the university. The screening is sponsored by the Student Friends of the Cactus Cafe and the TSEU. Should be a rabble rousing good time, proving yet again that the more things change in the Austin, the more UT’s power arrangement stays the same. Perhaps this time the kids at UT and the citizens of Austin will figure out the right pressure to apply to make the Tower and the Union Board accountable.
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Henry, members of Student Friends of the Cactus Cafe and others.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Austin Movies Inc.
More SXSW Audience Award winners
We thought it was over. But, oop, there’s one more bit of news trickling in, and it’s this: “Additional 2010 SXSW Film Festival Audience Award Winners.”
And they are …
In the SPOTLIGHT PREMIERES category: “Richard Garriott — Man on a Mission,” director: Mike Woolf.
In the EMERGING VISIONS: “NY Export: Opus Jazz,” directors: Henry Joost and Jody Lee Lipes.
In 24 BEATS PER SECOND: “When You’re Strange: A Film about the Doors,” director: Tom DiCillo
In LONE STAR STATES: “Thunder Soul,” director: Mark Landsman.
In MIDNIGHTERS: “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil,” director: Eli Craig
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
‘Beeswax’ DVD comes with cool marketing sting
Andrew Bujalski’s indie sleeper-hit dramedy “Beeswax” — an all-Austin affair, as we’ve said many times — is heading to DVD on April 6.
And they’re promoting it with a celluloid-lover’s wit. First, buy the DVD. Then, enjoy the game that’s involved. You can win something fantastically singular (and yummy).
What IS this cryptic cartoon? Read on …
On April 6, Cinema Guild will release Andrew Bujalski’s film “Beeswax” — one of Manohla Dargis’ (NY Times) picks for Top 10 of 2009 … Everyone who purchases a DVD from this initial run will receive a strip of 16mm film from an original laboratory print of the film in a collectible card. Each of these pieces of film is unique — yours could come from any shot or shots in the film, but there won’t be another like it out there.
One shot in the film features what those of us who grew up with up cable movie channels knew as “brief nudity” — a shot of the character Scott (played by Austin’s David Zellner) naked from behind just as he’s pulling up his shorts — and one lucky DVD consumer will find that arresting image when they open up their DVD box. While we believe that that is quite a prize in and of itself, we’ve decided to make it a “Golden Ticket” and offer you another prize if you can demonstrate that you’re the one that’s received that special piece of film!
Get full, fun details, such as what you can win, HERE.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin Movies Inc.
Rodriguez’s ‘Predators’ trailer up and growling
Last Friday, kick-off night of SXSW Film, Robert Rodriguez and director Nimrod Antal provided a very special tease to their big summer action flick “Predators,” a sort of sequel/reworking of the original hit “Predator.”
They screened two versions of the movie’s trailer, and some more stuff, at the Alamo Ritz, with much fanfare — and fan-geekdom. Our coverage of the night HERE.
Anyway, the official “Predators” trailer is now open to the public. Watch it and gawp HERE.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW event: Cargo
Cargo
Despite competition from the first night of the music fest and some ancient holiday involving alcohol and green food coloring, the Paramount was fairly full for the U.S. premiere of the Swiss sci-fi film “Cargo.”
Writer/director/editor Ivan Engler was on hand, clearly nervous about showing the film, which involves years-long interstellar travel in a freighter with, as the title suggests, a mysterious shipment on board.
His worries were likely soothed after the screening, when the audience members who stayed peppered him with impressed queries about how he achieved such a massive look on a budget so small he’s not allowed to disclose it.
Technical details aside, some of the film’s portentous vibe surely came from the filmmaker’s having grown up watching Tarkovsky and Antonioni before he was allowed to see “Blade Runner” and “Alien.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Indie film to be shot at downtown courthouse
An independent film will be shot at the old jail on the upper floors of the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse downtown, following Travis County commissioners approval Tuesday.
Commissioners approved a license agreement with Irregular Media to shoot a film tentatively titled “The Interrogator,” which is about a police officer in Houston who is forced to defend his family from a vengeful ex-interrogator he once trained in the military, according to county records.
Filming at the courthouse, which is at the corner of 10th and Guadalupe streets, will take place next week.
The producer and director provided required proof of insurance coverage, a check for $100 to cover administrative costs associated with the agreement, and will hire off-duty security guards or sheriff’s deputies to be with the crew during the film shoot, according to a county memo.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
SXSW event: NY Export: Opus Jazz
Folks lined up in the rain Tuesday to glimpse a unique take on dance/cinema history at the Alamo Ritz. “NY Export: Opus Jazz,” like a long-lost sibling to “West Side Story,” takes a vintage ballet by Jerome Robbins and restages it in the disused swimming pools and industrial spaces of contemporary New York City.
Audience members might have wondered why the visually gorgeous film, shot in a wider screen format than perhaps any other SXSW entry, was projected not on celluloid but on video, Â but the hourlong screening still felt like an event.
Some of the filmmaking team, including dancers from the New York City Ballet, came out for a brief Q&A about the production, which will air on PBS’s “Great Performances” this year.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW Film award winners
FEATURE FILM JURY AWARDS
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Winner: “Marwencol,” directed by Jeff Malmberg (read our capsule here)
Runner-up: “War Don Don,”directed by Rebecca Richman Cohen
NARRATIVE FEATURE
Winner: “Tiny Furniture,” directed by Lena Dunham (read our capsule here)
Special Jury Award, Best Ensemble: “Myth of the American Sleepover,” directed by David Robert Mitchell
Special Jury Award, Best Individual Performance: Brian Hasenfus in “Phillip the Fossil,” directed by Garth Donovan
FEATURE FILM AUDIENCE AWARDS
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Winner: “For Once in My Life,” directed by Jim Bigham & Mark Moormann
NARRATIVE FEATURE
Winner: “Brotherhood,” directed by Will Canon
NARRATIVE SHORTS
Winner: “Cigarette Candy,” directed by Lauren Wolkstein
Runner Up: “Teleglobal Dreamin’,” directed by Eric Flanagan
DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
Winner: “Quadrangle,” directed by Amy Grappell
Runner Up: “White Lines and The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug,” directed by Travis Senger
ANIMATED SHORTS
Winner: “The Orange,” directed by Nick Fox-Gieg
Runner Up: “One Square Mile of Earth,” directed by Jeff Drew
EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS
Winner: “Night Mayor,” directed by Guy Maddin
Runner Up:“Kids Might Fly,” directed by Alex Taylor
MUSIC VIDEOS
Winner: Cinnamon Chasers, “Luv Deluxe,” directed by Saman Keshavarz
Runner Up: Grizzly Bear, “Forest,” directed by Allison Schulnik
TEXAS SHORTS
Winner: “Petting Sharks,” directed by Craig Elrod
Runner Up: “The Big Bends,” directed by Jason William Marlow
TIME WARNER CABLE & OVATION YOUNG FILMMAKER SCHOLARSHIP for TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL SHORT
Winner: “Give the Dog a Bone,” directed by Edward Kelley
Runner Up: “The Sleep Project,” directed by Whitney Bennett & Matthew Cunningham
SXSW FILM DESIGN AWARDS
EXCELLENCE IN POSTER DESIGN
Winner: “Feeder,” designed by Joseph Ernst
Runner Up: “Amer,” designed by Gilles Vranckx
Audience Award Winner: “Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission,” designed by Michael Anderson
Special Jury Award: “Equestrian Sexual Response,” designed by Martim Vian & Zeke Hawkins
EXCELLENCE IN TITLE DESIGN
Winner: “Zombieland,” designed by Ben Conrad
Runner Up: “earthwork,” designed by Stan Herd
Audience Award Winner: “earthwork,” designed by Stan Herd
Special Jury Award: “Enter the Void,” designed by Gaspar Noé and Tom Kam
SXSW SPECIAL AWARDS
SXSW WHOLPHIN AWARD
Winner: “Quadrangle,” directed by Amy Grappell
SXSW CHICKEN & EGG EMERGENT NARRATIVE WOMAN DIRECTOR AWARD
Winner: Lena Dunham for Tiny Furniture
Special Award, The Chicken & Egg Pictures “We Believe in You” Award: Martha Stephens for “Passenger Pigeons”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW live: ‘Lemmy’ rocks the Paramount
Motorhead frontman Lemmy arrives Monday at the Paramount. (Photo: Chris Garcia)
“How exciting is THIS?” asked Janet Pierson, SXSW Film producer, as she introduced the much-anticipated world premiere of the rock doc “Lemmy” on Monday night at the Paramount. The crowd, as it would a lot, roared.
From the black-garbed throngs waiting outside to see Lemmy and his Motorhead bandmates arrive at the theater to the actual movie and the post-show Q-and-A, this event was a prolonged rock ‘n’ roll fangasm. Adding to the rock-concert aura was a schwag table in the lobby offering “Lemmy” movie posters ($10) and an array of black Motorhead t-shirts ($35).
It was a packed theater of salivating devotees. Directors Wes Orshoski and Greg Olliver joined Pierson on stage, and one of the burly men boomed into the mike: “Who wants some rock ‘n’ roll! Lemmy’s in the house!!” Crowd roars. Hands making the devil sign rocket to the roof.
Fun as it is, the movie is unapologetic hagiography, too long at 123 minutes and fashioned for the die-hardest fans who don’t mind riffling through the Motorhead singer-bassist’s vast collection of antique war weapons, watching him hang out on an old German tank just for fun, or hearing (incessantly) what an unimpeachable, Olympian deity he is from ground-level fans and sycophantic musicians (James Hetfield, Henry Rollins, Dave Grohl, Slash, Joan Jett and, from a more sober peer perspective, Ozzy, Alice Cooper and others).
To be fair, Lemmy cuts an impressive, even intimidating, figure, and, full disclosure, I’ve been a fan of him and Motorhead for almost 30 years. An authentic rocker who began in ‘60s British band The Rockin’ Vickers, worked as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix and fronted influential space-rock group Hawkwind before founding seminal speed-metal outfit Motorhead, Lemmy has never wavered or compromised from a bedrock integrity. Times and tastes have changed. He hasn’t.
A speed freak, chain-smoker and functioning alcoholic, he’s a survivor, stomping forth in his self-designed cowboy boots to his own thundering beat. As someone in the film notes, if a nuclear bomb drops, only Lemmy and cockroaches will remain.
Lemmy, who looks part-biker, part-pirate and all-outlaw, lives in a small, shabby apartment complex in Los Angeles. His homely pad is a mountain-scape of gold records, action figures, memorabilia, weapons, posters, trash and, disconcertingly, walls of Nazi regalia, including swastika banners. (He’s asked if he’s a Nazi. His denial is too simple-minded to be taken seriously. He doesn’t seem to get it, and the filmmakers and Monday’s viewers seemed to give him a pass, because, you know, he’s Lemmy. It’s bothersome.)
Lemmy, visibly indifferent to all the attention lavished upon him in the movie and at the Paramount, says he lives in the tiny apartment because the rent is fixed at $900 and is located one block from the Sunset Strip, where his second home, the legendary Rainbow room, resides. There, he will sit for hours, alone, playing a video game at the bar and drinking rounds and rounds of Jack and Cokes.
There’s plenty of energetic concert footage in the movie: Lemmy playing with Motorhead, Lemmy with Metallica, Lemmy with The Damned and Lemmy with his rockabilly pals in The Head Cat. But after all the excitement, an almost elegiac portrait of a solitary, aging man emerges. Lemmy lives alone. He’s never been married. And he erects ramparts around himself to keep people at a safe distance. He declares he has no regrets, life’s too short for rubbish reflection. But he doesn’t seem especially happy. (Then again, who really is?)
The official “Lemmy” tour bus, outside the Paramount.
During the Q-and-A, Lemmy, in trademark cowboy hat and black skinny jeans, indulged the audience with directors Orshoski and Olliver, and was eventually joined by Motorhead guitarist Phil Campbell and drummer Mikkey Dee.
Someone asked Lemmy what it was like to have cameras following him around for three years “I thought it was ridiculous,” he rasped. “But I think it turned out pretty well. What about you?” (The house exploded.)
Asked who he’d want to play him in a movie, Lemmy croaked, “Helen Mirren.”
Motorhead plays tonight at Stubb’s and Wednesday night at the Austin Music Hall.
“Lemmy” screens again at 9:15 p.m. Friday at the Paramount. Details and trailer HERE
Lemmy, the man, will be interviewed on a SXSW Music panel at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Austin Convention Center, Room 18ABC. Details HERE.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Panel wrap: ‘MacGruber’
Kilmer actually fired off the first question, asking someone in the audience if he liked the movie and what parts he liked. Forte humored the audience with a story about a “courtesy pillow” that was used, much to his dismay, during intimate scenes with Wiig. He joked that he didn’t want the pillow between them, but that Wiig had insisted. The adorable and quite blonde Wiig, did not do too much talking, but had a great line when she discussed the sweat of sex scenes as “body drool.”
Taccone, who said the film, which was produced in short time and on a budget of only $10 million said that he got inspiration for the film from the 80s vibe of the “Lethal Weapons” movies and “Die Hard.” All of the interiors were smoky, he said, while all these exteriors were soaking wet. He also discussed the nascent stages of what became Loney Island and confessed that in their early days in Hollywood, he, Schaffer and partner Andy Samberg lived off of the food he stole from the set of “Spin City,” on which he worked as a writers’ assistant.
Kilmer did digress from the jokes a bit with a nice nod to the creative process behind the movie and “SNL,” which he described as inspired and painstaking work, although he did joke that he thought “the entire script is kind of designed to ruin (his) career.”
Although he did not say too much at the panel, and I continue to wonder if that is actually Ryan Phillippe’s real voice, Taccone said that the Ken-doll-handsome actor was one of the keys to the film because his straight character is “us watching the movie.” Taccone also gave great credit to Kilmer’s perspicacity regarding comedy.
Phillippe dodged a question from the audience about his involvement in a Captain America movie, but he did coyly say that he was “into it” and we’d just have to see what happens.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW live: ‘Lovers of Hate’ at the Paramount
For Austin filmmakers, showing your movie at the Paramount Theatre is a homecoming holy grail. As the Duplass brothers did Saturday night with “Cyrus,” Austin writer-director Bryan Poyser evinced excitement and awe at being inside the grand old palace, where he’s spent countless hours watching other peoples’ movies.
Bryan Poyser, at the Paramount at last.
Poyser was there Monday afternoon screening his sharp psychosexual comedy “Lovers of Hate” to a vocally supportive local crowd that seemed to fall hard for a movie steeped in Austin film.
“I’ve been fantasizing about playing the movie here,” said Poyser, who world-premiered “Lovers of Hate” in January at Sundance. From there, the movie was picked up by IFC Films for distribution.
“Those two words — ‘our distributor’ — are amazing to say,” Poyser said, beaming. (“Lovers of Hate” is now available on IFC Films video-on-demand and screens again 9:30 p.m. Thursday at the Alamo South during SXSW. Details and the trailer HERE)
Shot in Austin and Park City, Utah, and starring local actors Chris Doubek, Heather Kafka and Alex Karpovsky, the movie takes a skewed, shrewd and penetrating look at the complexities of desire and the cruel mutability of human emotions. It’s setting, a four-story mountain manse, is a narrative framing device, in which one loserish brother (the frazzy Doubek) hides, ducks and skulks as he watches his famous writer brother (Karpovsky) quite easily seduce his wife (Kafka). The unsettling premise plays out with creepy, voyeuristic kicks that are at once funny and painful and tense.
During the post-show Q-and-A, a viewer called the film “fun and twisted” and noted its tonal similarities to horror movies. Poyser said that some people had urged him to take his script in a horror-thriller direction but that he wanted it more real and grounded. His goal was “emotional and psychological violence” instead of physical violence.
Many familiar Austin names — Rebecca Campbell, Chale Nafus, the Zellner brothers, John Pierson, et al — popped up on the “Special thanks” part of the credits roll, and there was also a big thanks to the immeasurably supportive Austin Film Society, where Poyser is the director of artist services. Poyser, a UT film grad, co-founded the Cinematexas International Short Film Festival, wrote and directed the Austin feature “Dear Pillow” and co-wrote and produced “The Cassidy Kids.”
During the Q-and-A with Poyser and the cast, Doubek snatched the microphone.
“Part of why Austin film is so big is because of this guy,” Doubek said, pointing to Poyser. A loud ovation rumbled the house.
Read our pre-Sundance interview with Poyser HERE.
Poyser and his cast: Chris Doubek, Heather Kafka and Alex Karpovsky.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW live review: “When I Rise”
It was more than a little auspicious Sunday afternoon at the Paramount Theatre that opera singer Barbara Smith Conrad was greeted with waves of applause and standing ovations during the premiere of “When I Rise,” the intelligent, poignant and ultimately liberating documentary by Austin filmmaker Mat Hames chronicling Conrad’s life.
After all, when Conrad was a gifted young music student at the University of Texas in 1957 — part of the first group of African Americans to be admitted as undergraduates to Texas’ flagship university - she wasn’t initially allowed into the Paramount to see a film that her drama professor sent the class to see.
That was hardly the only injustice Conrad suffered in the still-segregated Texas of the 1950s.
Blocks from the Paramount Theatre, members of the Texas Legislature launched a campaign against UT to have Conrad removed from the lead role of a student opera production. Segregationist legislators couldn’t tolerate that black young woman was cast opposite a white young man in “Dido and Aenas.” Yet when UT officials bowed to the will of the legislature and removed Conrad, it ignited a drama that put the young mezzo-soprano in the national news.
Hames’ film starts not with the predictable flash of an historic headline — though a yellowed newspaper declaring “Negro Girl Withdrawn from UT Opera Cast” appears soon enough on the screen — but instead with Conrad’s upbringing in the nurturing, tight-knit African American community of Center Point in the bucolic woods of North East Texas. That grounding is important because later, when we learn that Conrad faces unconscionable harassment at UT (a white student spat in her face as she walked across campus), we’re remind that her mettle comes directly from an inner strength and pride instilled when she was a child. And that mettle sees her through to the present day: Conrad’s remarkably capacity to forgive is the ultimate star of “When I Rise.”
Hames and editor Sandra Guardado make clean, seamless work of stitching together an impressive stock of archival images and footage along with contemporary interviews. And that’s a good thing because Conrad’s story goes far beyond the Lone Star State, stretching over decades and continents. After leaving UT far behind her, Conrad launched a celebrated opera career that took her around the world, landing her on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera among other notable venues. However, it wasn’t until 2009 that she achieved a true reconciliation with her alma mater and the Texas state government when the legislature awarded her a honorific resolution.
But it’s not only Conrad’s story that unravels in “When I Rise.” UT’s arguably unresolved relationship with its racist past and Texas’ own continuing need for recognizing its civil rights history play major roles in the film. Admirably Hames doesn’t flinch from filling in this necessary context along with all its attendant complexities.
Produced under the auspices of UT’s Briscoe Center for American History — who raised the film’s approximately $500,000 budget and which maintains Conrad’s archive — “When I Rise” is ultimately about the extraordinary grace of an extraordinary woman.
It is imperative film viewing.
“When I Rise” screens again at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Paramount Theatre.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
Event report: Elektra Luxx
When you make a movie for, as director Sebastian Gutierrez puts it, “[muffle-mumble]-thousand dollars,” you expect some difficulties. But you probably don’t expect glitches once you’ve met your deadline and delivered a finished cut to the festival championing your work.
The Paramount’s digital projector went kaput 62 minutes into Gutierrez’s “Elektra Luxx” premiere Sunday night, leaving an audience that was clearly into the film wondering what would happen to the adult-film actress, played with gusto by Carla Gugino, for whom it was named.
Though SXSW head Janet Pierson reassured the filmmaker by recalling a similar tragedy at the first screening of “She’s Gotta Have It” — things worked out okay for Spike Lee — Gutierrez remained flustered as he addressed the crowd while hoping for a quick repair.
Fortunately, he’s funny when nervous: he dished trivia on the production, hinted what was to come in the film’s climax, and geeked out over the new tech that made “Luxx” so much better looking than his previous movie.
Cast members including Gugino and Emmanuelle Chriqui (“Entourage”) eventually joined the director, revealing what it was like to act in such an oversexed movie. The party ended when Pierson admitted they couldn’t fix the equipment in time and would have to schedule a make-up screening later in the week.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Summary: ‘Mr. Nice’
Beginning with a forced narrative device that allows the story to jump into flashback mode, the movie tells the story of Howard Marks, a massive hashish smuggler from Wales who became something of a counter-culture icon.
The inclusion of scenes at the beginning of the movie depicting Marks as a much-bullied, un-athletic kid is just the first example of the film’s need of editing. Nothing about his treatment as a child informs the dashing and risk-taking character we follow through the film.
The film is interesting in the sense that it reveals a figure likely not widely known and shows a gentle and human side to the rabble rousing Welsh folk hero whom Ifans admittedly idolized growing up, but it rambles on entirely too long and can not be saved by its lead. There are several times in this low-stakes “Gooodfellas” where an end seems perfectly fitting, only to give way to yet another run from the law or subsequent court trial. Unfortunately, by the end, I was left not caring too greatly about the eventual fate of this seemingly very likable man with the out-sized personality.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW live review: “Lebanon, PA”
“Lebanon, PA” is the anti-“Juno.”
Where “Juno” glided along with a host of Hollywood talent and a twee self-satisfaction, “Lebanon, PA” boasts three name actors and a host of unknowns examining a teen pregnancy through a very different cultural lens.
We first see Will (Josh Hopkins) storming out of an apartment after an apparent breakup, A 35-year-old Philadelphia ad man, we next see him discussing how to market to children — a brave choice for a guy we’re supposed to sympathize with.
Will returns to Lebanon, Pa. to bury his recently deceased father, a man he saw very little after his parents’ divorce. His mother Jeanette (Mary Beth Hurt) is eager for him to sell his father’s house.
While in Lebanon, Will meets Andy (Philadelphia stage vet Ian Merrill Peakes, holding down the folm’s most complicated character), a devoutly Catholic, single father of two. His life at loose ends, Will strikes up an odd friendship with Andy’s daughter CJ (Temple theater student Rachel Kitson making her film debut). He also starts hanging out with CJ’s married teacher Vicki (Samantha Mathis).
Democratic consultant James Carville, who helped the late Robert P. Casey to an unlikely win for Pennsylvania governor in 1986, once described the state as “Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, with Alabama in the middle.” It was a bit of a snide comment, but he had a point. Between the two cities, Pennsylvania is a very Catholic state. (Casey was famously pro-life.)
Writer, director and editor Ben Hickernell takes a look at this very conflict. Will is big-city, non-religious and interested in a (possibly unhappily) married woman. Andy has struggled as a single father as long as his younger child has been alive and find abortion unthinkable. CJ is in the middle, genuinely unsure of what to do as some adults tell her what to do and others refuse to help her make a choice.
Hickernell and most of the cast was present for a brief q-and-a, including Mathis, whom one woman was convinced she had seen on a soap opera. (No, ma’am, but have you seen “Pump Up the Volume?”)
Peakes discussed trying the make a man very unlike himself empathetic and noted that if people took the time to examine many sides of various important life choices rather than rushing into a decision, the world might be a slightly better place. Amen.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘Tiny Furniture’
Many small, intimate films have portrayed the plight of wayward 20-somethings stumbling awkwardly into adulthood, but few have so effectively accomplished it from such an honest and often neglected point of view. That, in part, is why “Tiny Furniture,” written and directed by 23 year-old Lena Dunham is so refreshing yet familiar.
(That, in part, is why “Tiny Furniture,” written and directed by 23 year-old Lena Dunham feels so utterly original. Many small, intimate films have portrayed the plight of wayward 20-somethings stumbling awkwardly into adulthood, but few have so effectively accomplished it from the often neglected point of view of a young woman.)
Having moved back to her artist mother’s loft in New York City following graduation from a college in the Midwest, Aura (Dunham) searches for a sense of purpose and self-worth amidst a sea of pretentious would-be artists; immature and opportunistic men; and low-paying jobs.
The brilliantly written dialogue, especially between Aura and her (actual) mother and sister (Laurie Simmons and Grace Dunham), is burdened and enlivened by the offerings of daily life, both mundane and profound, and offers a pace and emotional depth that feels utterly natural. Even when it is incredibly witty, the movie never feels overwrought or embellished. It seems as it if is telling a truth, one that we have not heard enough in movies.
“Tiny Furniture” screens Monday, March 15 at 2:15 PM at Alamo Ritz 1; Tuesday, March 16 at 11:30 AM at Alamo South; and Saturday, March 20 at 4:15 PM at Alamo Ritz 2.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Growing pains at SXSW
It’s great that the SXSW Film Festival is growing and going strong, and there’s much to recommend it. But….. seriously folks, when you have badge holders waiting in line for an hour and when you have people who have purchased tickets waiting in line for an hour and only a few of the badge holders and none of the ticket holders get in, you’ve got a problem.
That’s what happened today at the screening of Winter’s Bone at the Alamo South. And when you got inside, you realized why so few members of the public were getting in to the screening of the film. Several rows had been reserved, and people who showed up 10 minutes before the screening were being let in before others. Why? Some said they were members of the “jury.” And a publicist who was eager to have them see the film was hustling them in front of other people who had waited.
Also, quite a few seats were reserved for the “filmmakers.” The only problem: The filmmakers didn’t show up. Instead, you had a few people who had SMALL supporting parts, and friends of those who had small supporting parts, and they were let in AFTER the movie had begun, swinging their cellphones, which were still blaring.
As for the regular SXSW staff at the Alamo South, they seemed to show little concern for answering questions correctly. When I first arrived and asked which line was for Winter’s Bone, the staff directed me to a line, where I dutifully stood, waiting with others, for a while, only to discover that it was NOT for Winter’s Bone but for another screening.
I guess all of this is to be expected at a festival that is growing by leaps and bounds. But someone needs to get a grip or risk alienating the public bigtime. Anyone at SXSW care to respond?
P.S. For all of you people who paid good money to see this movie, which was a winner at Sundance, there’s another screening. 7 p.m. Wednesday, Alamo South. If you’re a badge holder and you see other people getting in before you on Wednesday, you might wanna speak up. It’s your money. Please email me if this happens. cealy@statesman.com
Permalink | Comments (23) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW live: John and Jonah, goofballs
On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, actors John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill were plumping their comedy of discomfort “Cyrus” in an Austin hotel suite. The movie, written and directed by one-time Austin boys Mark and Jay Duplass and co-starring Marisa Tomei, had its local premiere Saturday night at the Paramount.
- Chris Garcia: Jonah, a while ago you’d seen the Duplass brothers’ “The Puffy Chair” and immediately wanted to work with them.
Jonah Hill: That’s exactly what happened. I saw their short film “Intervention” first and followed everything from then on. I picked up on a unique voice they had, and it was clear that no one was doing it the way they were doing it. When you see that, you want to collaborate with those people.
- What’s so unique about what they do?
John C. Reilly: They don’t know how to make a movie the way most people make movies. They’re truly unique, because they just taught themselves how to do it with very little means, so their personal style just totally comes through. And they have a really strong b.s.-detector. They know when something seems fake and movie-ish and too manufactured. They’re really in tune with honesty.
Hill: They stand by what they want to do and will never deviate from their intentions.
- I know they give the actors a lot of freedom on the set. They don’t block as much, shoot long takes and keep the camera rolling when scenes end, which a few other directors also do.
Hill: Judd Apatow does a lot of that.
Reilly: Robert Altman, Lars Von Trier.
Hill: I heard that whoever directed “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” did that. I heard that the chipmunks had quite a bit of freedom on “The Squeakquel” to riff and a lot of that stuff wasn’t in the script.
Reilly: Squeak!
Hill: Yeah, to squeak. Honestly, I heard that it was a really open set.
Reilly: (Laughing) Don’t do that.
Hill: (Laughing): Well, Theodore, the mouse that’s Theodore, is a clasically trained actor.
Reilly: No, Alvin is clearly the natural.
Hill: Alvin is the teen heart-throb, but Theodore — he was in the Steppenwolf Theatre with you, I believe.
Reilly: Oh, Jo-Jo.
- How much improv do Mark and Jay allow? Did you rehearse first?
Reilly: We didn’t rehearse. We’d all read the script and just show up and have some discussions about the general tone of the movie before shooting. They didn’t even want us to do one blocking rehearsal. They’d set up the scene so we could move around wherever we wanted to and they warned the crew that was going to be happening. Most days they would tell us not to do what was written in the script but to say things the way we would say it. Even on days when I thought, “Wow, do we even have a movie here? Is this going to gel together?,” I always knew it was at least going to sound original and fresh, because this is how people talk. It was just Jonah, Marisa and I trying to work it out.
- Your love of Austin precedes you, Jonah. How many times have you been here?
Hill: Probably 10.
Reilly: Damn.
Hill: I come out for fun. I’ve come three or four times for my movies and come back with my friends to drink beer and go to the Alamo Drafthouse. Waterloo Video closed, which I just found out and is very sad for me.
- John, I totally don’t care, but you kind of lied to me last time I interviewed you when you were in town. You said you weren’t playing Sasquatch in “Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny,” but you did.
Reilly: I didn’t lie to you. Sasquatch is real.
- During that same interview I think I offended you by describing a lot of your characters as “schlubby.” But now, in the “Cyrus” press notes, that’s exactly what they call you.
Reilly: Well, no one wants to hear themselves described as schlubby. You hear that four times in a day and it’s like, enough with the (expletive) schlubby already. A schlub. It’s kind of a lovable word.
- It is a lovable word.
Reilly: It’s better than schlemiel.
Hill: Schlimazel. I would refer to you as a schlimazel.
Reilly: What’s the difference?
Hill: Schlemiel, schlimazel, hasen-something incorporated!
Reilly: Hasenpfeffer incorporated!
- Can I just take your pictures and get out of here?
Hill: What? (Laughing) You have a strange interview style …
Reilly holds up a sketch he drew of himself. He’s on a skateboard.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Scene report: “The People vs. George Lucas”
Darth Vader and Boba Fett greeted fanboys lined up for the first showing of the lively doc “The People Vs. George Lucas” — a line so long that another screening was added at midnight to accommodate the spillover.
There was little doubt about where this jury’s sympathies were: Most of the crowd clearly felt Lucas had turned to the Dark Side years ago and should be fed to a sarlacc. But cries of “George Lucas raped my childhood” were balanced in the film, which gave ample time to those defending his right to do whatever he wants with his fictional creation, including turning it into an epic bore.
After the film, director Alexandre Philippe (whose generosity toward his subject extended to a defense of “Howard the Duck”) said that the loved/hated filmmaker has not seen it. He and his producers kept the Q&A short, moving the party over to the Highball, where long before the “Princess Leia Slavegirl Danceoff” was scheduled to begin, Stormtroopers were spotted chatting women up at the bar.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary of “Marwencol”
Mark Hogancamp was beaten by five men outside a bar and suffered brain damage. He had to learn to write again, to think again, and everything else. But as he continues to recover, he has started an unusual therapy: Building small worlds of people in his backyard by using and modifying dolls.
His artistic efforts are the subject of Jeff Malmbergs’ “Marwencol,” which first screened Saturday at SXSW and will screen again at 11:15 a.m. Sunday at the Alamo South and at 1:15 p.m. Friday, March 19, at the Alamo Ritz.
Hogancamp’s alternate universe is set during World War II in a Belgian village called Marwencol, hence the doc’s unusual name. The dolls in the town represent his friends, and the main soldier is his alter ego. He stages stories by positioning the dolls, then taking photographs to document the different moments in his stories.
And some of the stories help him deal with his psychological problems. For instance, rather than getting angry at real-life friends, Hogancamp takes out his frustrations on the dolls in his imaginary village. SS officers are maimed and shot. Various characters are killed off, some in noble ways, some not.
It’s a fascinating look at the mind of a man who’s trying to recover from a tragedy. And the story really takes flight when Hogancamp’s work is noticed by a New York art gallery, which stages an exhibition of his photographic stories.
“Marwencol” is one of the top documentaries at SXSW. So put it on your calendar. The screening on March 19 is probably the easiest one to attend, since the music fest will be in full swing and film crowds will diminish.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW capsule: “Mars”
As the Alamo Ritz’s lobby filled with cast and crew of “Mars” before the Austin sci-fi film’s Saturday premiere, it was hard not to notice Kinky Friedman, unlit cigar in mouth, admiring the theater’s Davy Crockett statue.
Friedman plays the president of the United States in the film (Kinky getting elected to something? now that’s what I call science fiction), and appears to be reading from cue cards in many scenes. He’s a weak link balanced by an enjoyable performance by Mark Duplass, who plays a has-been astronaut hired for a Martian expedition mainly to do interviews with talk-show hosts.
The most noteworthy thing about Geoff Marslett’s homemade, cult-ready movie is its novel animation style, a computer-heavy rotoscope technique that leaves everyone looking grainy and took about two years to complete. It’s a greenscreen-friendly process allowing live-action footage to mesh with pure animation, which made one bit of the Q&A surprising: The loopy zero-grav bedhead hairstyles worn by crew members weren’t drawn in by animators after shooting, but were done the old-fashioned way by stylist Nancy Rankin.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: “My Trip to Al-Qaeda”
Austin writer Lawrence Wright hosted a surprise early screening Saturday night of the new documentary based on his one-man play, “My Trip to Al-Qaeda.”
The documentary, directed by Alex Gibney, details the thousands of hours of interviews that Wright conducted while reporting on the terrorist group for The New Yorker. It also focuses on the tensions between being reporter and being a citizen after the 9/11 attacks.
Included in the documentary, of course, are many points that the writer made in his prize-winning nonfiction, “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.”
It’s a deeply personal documentary, detailing Wright’s frustration with U.S. policies that served to fuel the fire of Al-Qaeda. The torture, the waterboarding, the use of dogs to terrorize prisoners. (Wright goes into detail about the particular aversion to dogs that Islamists have because of a nasty historical incident hundreds of years ago.)
Wright first staged in his play in New York in 2007. But the documentary goes beyond just showing Wright on stage. It incorporates footage of him in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, as well as details about his meticulous cataloging of interviews that led to the writing of “The Looming Tower.”
It’s an insightful look inside a writer’s mind as he goes about trying to explain the rise of Al-Qaeda and the dangers that lie ahead if Al-Qaeda wins. The group has no political agenda, he says, other than to fuel the hatred of Westerners. And if Al-Qaeda ever takes political control, Wright openly wonders what kinds of policies they will institute. The answers are rather depressing and terrifying.
The screening on Saturday was kept secret, partly because the movie is scheduled to have its official world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. But Wright says he wanted to show the movie first in his hometown. It’s a coup for SXSW. And it’s a very worthwhile, timely documentary.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW live: The Duplass Bros. and ‘Cyrus’
Mark and Jay Duplass fulfill their dream: A premiere of their movie at their beloved Paramount Theatre.
Former Austinites Mark and Jay Duplass returned to town with their first Hollywood movie, the delightful, off-kilter comedy “Cyrus,” starring John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei and Catherine Keener. The movie, a huge hit Saturday night with a sold-out crowd at the Paramount, is fresh off a strong showing at Sundance.
Before they walked the red carpet, Mark and Jay (“The Puffy Chair,” “Baghead”) came up and said hi and explained that this was their wildest dream accomplished: Screening their movie at the classy Paramount on a Saturday night. This is where the brothers used to watch “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Jaws” and “The Godfather” during the theater’s Summer Classic Movie series when the boys were UT students, they said almost giddily.
After SXSW Film producer Janet Pierson reminded the audience to change their clocks to spring forward (the crowd booed lustily), she introduced the Duplass brothers.
They hit the stage, arms raised. Jay exclaimed, “YES!” The dream, done. “We’ve been waiting 20 years” for this, he said.
They rattled off all the great movies they’ve watched at the Paramount, and Mark dead-panned, “But our movie is better than all of those.”
“Cyrus” is pretty terrific — super sweet, funny, uncomfortable, touchingly human. It doesn’t show again during SXSW, but goes theatrical this summer. More about it HERE.
Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly hit the red carpet at the “Cyrus” premiere.
(Photos: Chris Garcia)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW live movie review: “Ain’t In It For My Health: A Film About Levon Helm”
There’s a fantastic gospel tune made popular by Mahalia Jackson called “I’m Going To Live The Life I Sing About In My Song.” It’s about remaining holy the other six days of the week: “I can’t go to church and shout all day Sunday / Go out and get drunk and raise sand all day Monday.”
Religion aside, Levon Helm, best known as the drummer, mandolin player and sometime-singer for The Band, lived the life he sings about in his songs. Or, in a turn that made everything more complicated, Helm lived the life that Band mate Robbie Robertson wrote about in HIS songs. Or so Helm has always contended. And that made all the difference.
But the excellent “Ain’t In It for My Health,” which made its world premiere Saturday, isn’t about the Band, though there are plenty of images and film of the group.
It’s about Levon Helm from Turkey Scratch, Ark., 69-year old singer, multi-instrumentalist, husband, father, grandfather, stoner, brilliantly distinctive drummer and the only guy in the history of the world who looks cool singing and playing drums at the same time.
As director Jacob Hatley said by way of introduction: “Some heavy stuff happens in the movie, but it’s a party movie.”
Indeed. While Helm is famously bitter about how his authentic Southern roots became the meat of many songs Robertson wrote for the Band, he comes off as an incredibly warm and funny guy, hanging out in his Woodstock, N.Y. home, lighting endless tiny joints, riffing with pals about the good old days without seeming weird about it.
There are tales of catching catfish and hanging out in Canada, all delivered in a cracked version of Helm’s rather extreme Arkansas accent. (Helm nearly lost his once-mighty tenor voice after a bout with throat cancer, and there are several scenes of his voice going out on him and painful checkups at the doctor’s office.)
Some years ago, Helm started doing shows called “Midnight Rambles” in his barn, mostly to make the mortgage on his house. They struck a chord with locals and Band fans and have become a regular thing, ideal for an aging musician and cancer survivor who finds it exhausting to tour.
Hatley started off hired to make a music video for a song off of Helm’s 2008 comeback album “Dirt Farmer” and, as Hatley put it “ended up staying for two years.” There’s wonderful footage of Helm with bandmate Larry Campbell trying to finish a song fragment written by Hank Williams, a scene of Helm singing “In the Pines” (!) to his infant grandson and a fair number of bon mots:
On the Band getting a lifetime achievement award from the Grammy folks: “I would go out for that if they could tell me what good it would do [the late] Rick (Danko) and Richard (Manuel).”
On worrying about money: “Once you get behind financially, you get behind spiritually.” (I’ve never heard this put so well.)
On The Band: “It was over after the second record.” (Dang.)
On chronic illness: “First you try to get well, then you keep from going bankrupt.”
Yet, he still seems like an amazingly fun with, as his wife puts it, “incredible teeth.”
After the movie, Hatley took some questions: “I always just wanted to make a character piece about Levon,” he said, “The original idea was just him at the table talking. It would be something that you put on at 2 a.m. and watch half of or something.”
Hatley said his favorite scenes are those of Helm wathcing Westerns or riding a tractor or talking about catfish. He happend to catch Helm as “Dirt Farmer” became more popular and eventually scored a Grammy on the same day that Helm’s grandson was born.
Is it a stoner movie? Hatley: “Yes. Absolutely.”
Most importantly, perhaps, Hatley would like you to see the film. “If you would like to buy it, that would be great,” Hatley said to one audience member.
It deserves a pick-up. You know how many Band nerds are out there? Man alive, would they flock to this.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Panel thoughts: Nobody Wants to Watch Your Film
Panelists: Graham Leggat (Executive director of the San Francisco Film Society), Peter Becker (president of the Criterion Collection) and Sarah Pollack (YouTube)
Moderator: Efe Cakarel, TheAuteurs.com
ADD nation is in full swing, I realized when I sat down for the “Nobody Wants to Watch Your Film.” Adjacent to the stage on which the panelists sat was a giant screen that carried a live, streaming Twitter feed of Tweets germane to the panel. Attendees could use the hash tag #watchyourfilm to contribute to the discussion. At first, it seemed extremely rude. Why on earth would you come to a panel and then spend half your time Tweeting while people on the stage attempted to speak to a less than captive audience. Then I saw a few Tweets that provided some good food for thought. It was kind of a cool, a way for everyone to take part in the panel, without interrupting or raising their hands. But it was also extremely distracting, and ultimately unnecessary. I realize the wonder of technology allows us to all comment in real time on everything happening and that old models of almost everything are being transformed. Maybe I will come to feel less offended by it in the future, but for my first panel of this year’s fest, it came as a bit of a wake-up call for where we’re headed with our constant meta-communication.
The panel itself centered around the following question from Cakarel: “What do you think is going to be the prominent business model five years from now?” I was curious as to how much new ground would be covered here. For years now, it seems like we’ve endured panels at fests talking about people going to the movies less, how distribution channels are rapidly changing and how hard it is to get someone to watch our film. There always seems to be much gnashing of teeth, but no real answers as to where we’re headed and how people will be able to continue to make money with their content.
Obviously this is the case because this is going to take time to shake out. We probably won’t see much difference on a broad level for another few years, but the panelists seemed to agree the key to easily accessing content and drawing in the largest numbers of viewers possible is a sort of EZ Pass that eliminates speed bumps and allows users to move seamlessly on their computers/TVs from one content provider to another without having to provide payment or log-in information.
Some highlights:
Becker on the balance of commerce and art: “How do you make room not just for greed in the world, but for art.” The answer he says, is not simply that content should be free.
Pollack: Films are going to have to start being made for a lot less money. Artists are going to have to start smaller and see if they can build interest and a following. YouTube now offers a pay model called the Screening Room, which is allowing content creators to earn some ad revenue, but filmmakers need to understand that it is their responsibility to generate demand in their films. They can do this by attending smaller film fests, using social networking and creating a connection between themselves and their fans.
Becker: People are watching more content online, but they’re not watching more features. The two-hour feature was once an ideal time for seeing a movie in terms of the social context of the day. That length is not sacrosanct, he said, and a new generation of filmmakers is going to be making shorter works for the new mediums which we will use to consume film.
Leggat: The reasons people watch movies online are 1) instantaneity and 2)
Leggat: Dispelling fears that we will be wathcing movies only on hand-held devices in the future: “We’re not gonna be watching 3-hour films in scope w/ subtitles on our mobile phones” … “For cinephiles, going to the theatres will not change. It’s like going to Church.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW: Live with that ‘Kick-Ass’ girl, Chloe Moretz
We had a quick sit-down chat with Chloe Moretz, the tiny scene-robbing star of the action-comedy “Kick-Ass,” which opened the SXSW Film Festival on Friday night at the Paramount to thick buzz.
Moretz, 11 when she made the movie and now 13, had just wrapped the “Kick-Ass” panel Saturday at the Austin Convention Center, where she appeared alongside director Matthew Vaughn, writer Mark Millar and co-stars Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Aaron Johnson.
Moretz on Saturday in Austin. (Photo: Chris Garcia)
In the movie, Moretz plays a superhero assassin who goes by Hit-Girl. She blasts, slices, kicks and slashes, leaving heaps of bloodied bodies in her John Woo-ian wake. She drops cuss-bombs with salty elan, all the more shocking for her size, age and wholesome veneer.
The day after the film’s premiere, Moretz still hadn’t seen “Kick-Ass.” She missed the big night because her entourage was told that driving from the Houston airport to Austin would only take an hour.
Instead of being at the Paramount, “I was on a three-hour drive watching ‘Mulan’ and eating Jack-in-the-Box in a car going through the middle of Texas,” Moretz sighs.
“I would have loved to be there,” she says, adding that she’s “crazy excited” about the film and what’s certain to be her breakout performance.
We talked about her Hit-Girl influences (Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill,” Kirsten Dunst in “Interview with the Vampire,” Angelina Jolie in all her action movies), her months-long training regimen (“I literally did a thousand crunches every night”) and the fact that she NEVER swears in ordinary life (“I would be grounded for years … We’re a VERY Christian family.”)
We’re saving our full interview with the actress for the film’s release April 16. Stay tuned.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Screenwriter Paul Schrader donates collection to Ransom Center
The University of Texas’ Ransom Center now honors the writer of the famous line “You talkin’ to me?” as well as the actor who spoke it.
Ransom Director Tom Staley announced on Friday that screenwriter and director Paul Schrader has donated his work to the center. Schrader was the writer behind such classic movies as “Taxi Driver,’” “Raging Bull,” “American Gigolo” and “Affliction.” The center already has the archive of “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” star Robert De Niro.
‘I first heard about the Ransom Center through Robert De Niro, when his collection came here,” Schrader said in a news release. His donation includes more than 300 boxes of materials, from script outlines and drafts to correspondence and photographs.
The collection needs to be processed and archived, but the Ransom will display a few of the Schrader materials in a case in the lobby through March 21. Visitors can already see some items from “Raging Bull” and “Taxi Driver” in the center’s current ‘Making Movies’ exhibit.
Read the press release here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
SXSW: Live with Chloe Sevigny
Chloe Sevigny excused herself from the Q-and-A session after the screening of her comedy “Barry Munday” on Saturday afternoon at the Paramount.
“I have stage fright,” she said, seemingly hiding on the theater’s mezzanine as a huge ovation erupted inside the auditorium while writer-director Chris D’Arienzo and co-stars Patrick Wilson and Judy Greer took the stage.
“They always tend to ask the main actors all the questions, so it’s kind of like why do it?” she added.
Sevigny has a small but assertive role as a libidinous bad-girl in “Barry Munday,” a highly entertaining offbeat comedy about a rudderless guy (Wilson, hilarious) who, in a drunken haze, gets a mousey, 30-something virgin (Greer) pregnant, upending both of their loserish lives. Festival audiences are historically a generous lot, yet “Munday” earned its laughs and applause.
“I was surprised how well this played. It’s really funny,” said Sevigny, who hadn’t even seen a clip of the movie until today. “I thought it was great. I was really amused.”
The faces of Sevigny, at the Paramount on Saturday. (Photos: Chris Garcia)
Sevigny — known for “Kids,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “American Psycho,” “Zodiac” and HBO’s “Big Love,” for which she won a Golden Globe this year— loved D’Arienzo’s script for “Barry Munday,” finding it “charming, humorous and very tender.”
She originally went for the lead role, Ginger, played to comic perfection by Greer. “There aren’t a lot of great parts for females out there, obviously,” Sevigny said.
When Greer got the part, “I said, ‘I want to be in it even more now that Judy’s in it.’ She’s one of my favorite actresses. Since ‘Jawbreaker’ I’ve been a huge fan of hers.”
Sevigny’s character, Ginger’s salacious younger sister, secretly dances at a strip club that Wilson’s character frequents.
“That was me dancing, sadly,” Sevigny laughs. “I always promised myself I’d never play a stripper or a hooker, but I did this because it was comedic.”
She dances to Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again,” ‘80s hair-band pop that can either be loved on its own terms or in a protective Snuggie of irony.
“I love that song!” Sevigny says, and we believe her.
“Barry Munday” plays again at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday and 7:15 p.m. Thursday at the Alamo South.
Sevigny also stars in “Mr. Nice” at SXSW. It screens at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at the Paramount.
Sevigny will also appear on the “Mr. Nice” panel with co-star Rhys Ifans at 3:30 p.m. Monday in Studio SX at the Austin Convention Center.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
A taste of ‘Leaves of Grass’
I was a little skeptical when I read the “Leaves of Grass” synopsis and learned that Edward Norton was not only going to be playing opposite himself as twin brothers in writer-director Tim Blake Nelson’s film, but that he would be doing so in a marijuana comedy. My fears were alleviated Friday night, however, when I quickly realized that “Leaves” was not a typical stoner flick and even more quickly remembered how enjoyable it is to watch Norton on film.
With a baby on the way and the responsibilities and dangers of being a big-time weed grower and distributor weighing on him, Brady Kincaid (Norton) lures his Ivy League professor brother, Bill (Norton), back home to Oklahoma to play unwitting accomplice in his half-baked attempt to redirect the course of his life.
As Bill gets reluctantly charmed by his brother, he comes to question his long-held resentments and judgment of the life he left behind and realizes that the boundaries and truths which he found in the study of philosophy were no more valid than the life led by his uneducated brother.
Nelson has penned a thoughtful and at times touching study on what it means to lead an authentic life and how one’s search for happiness can take on many forms. The weightiness of the message, which seems to represent a personal and meaningful struggle for the filmmaker, and the plot digressions slow the pace of the film, at times, and the whip-neck changes are cause for as much confusion as entertainment, but the performances by Norton, who obviously embraced the challenges offered by the roles, make for a lively parable - part Coen brothers, part Tarantino.
It’s hard to think of a better place than Austin for the movie to make its U.S. premiere. That was thinking of writer-director Tim Blake Norton, who told me Saturday that he made sure the film’s release was pushed to the first week of April to accommodate screening first at SXSW.
While it is easy to say that marriage makes sense due to the proliferation of marijuana in the movie, an herb not too difficult to sniff out in Austin, the real reason for the effective paring rests in the dichotomy shared by the film and the city: intellectualism balanced by sensualism. Nelson, Norton and I discussed that aspect of the film, along with fear, the business of making movies, mystic Cowboys and more in an interview that will appear on Friday, April 2, when the film is released here in Austin.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
‘Beijing Taxi’ party Sunday night with a host of Chinese bands
In a nice bit of SXSW synergy, the documentary “Beijing Taxi,” in conjunction with Dart Music International House and Maybe Mars, will be throwing a party Sunday night at Mi Casa featuring Chinese bands AV Okubo, Carsick Cars, P.K. 14 and Xiao He. The party starts at 8 p.m. for badge holders and those who manage to finagle an RSVP (email ivana@beijingtaxithefilm.com) and then opens up to the public at 10 p.m. (space permitting).
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Event coverage: “Trash Humpers”
Every film festival has at least one movie that prompts lots of walkouts, either because of “offensiveness” or sheer boredom.
This year, SXSW had its first such screening with “Trash Humpers.” Shot on what looks like scratchy, old VHS tape, “Humpers” is true to its name. A gang of old folks gets its jollies by being a bit too familiar with trash cans, light poles and just about anything else in their wake.
Director Harmony Korine, who’s known for stirring up folks, would probably deny it, but “Trash Humpers” has an eerie resemblance to “Tobacco Road.” I’m not talking about the play or the movie version. I’m talking about the novel detailing the sexual degeneracy of a poor Southern family.
In “Humpers,” the family is a group of old folks who test the limits of freedom by doing whatever they want. They scream. They drag plastic baby dolls around, tied behind their bicycles. They make fun of a kid who can’t make a basket in basketball. They urinate and defecate in people’s driveways.
And in one instance, one of them takes a hammer to a cross dresser’s head. (The actual hammering occurs off-screen).
As for narrative arc, there’s little. It seems like more a hodgepodge of events that an actually structured movie.
But it’s interesting to see Korine go in this direction. I’m not sure whether it’s the right direction. And if you’re judging by the audience reaction during the premiere Friday night, you’d probably say it’s a step backward.
Then again, Korine is a provocateur. And if that’s what he was aiming for, he has succeeded.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: “Bear Nation”
Four years ago, director Malcolm Ingram made a splash with ‘Small Town Gay Bar,’ winning awards at the L.A. Outfest and the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
This time, he turns the spotlight on a subculture within a subculture: bears, a burly group of gay men who celebrate being hairy.
The documentary is called ‘Bear Nation,’ but it transcends national boundaries by focusing on bears in Canada, England and the United States.
And although he isn’t gay, bear icon Kevin Smith, the hefty director who recently was kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight, plays a prominent role. In fact, he seems to enjoy being known as a bear pinup boy. (He’s an executive producer of ‘Bear Nation.’)
Amusing and enlightening, ‘Bear Nation’ highlights the many varieties of gay culture.
Screenings: 9:30 p.m. Sunday, March 14, G-Tech; 12:30 p.m. Thursday March 18, G-Tech
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW capsule review: “The Weird World of Blowfly”
Well, the title sure is spot-on. Blowfly is Clarence Reid, the “original dirty rapper.” With a catalog of album covers of naked women and some of the world’s raunchiest R&B that he spoke-sang, Blowfly wearing a weird superhero costume, spent the 60s and 70s making some of the world’s most successful triple-XXX albums, including “Rap Dirty,” a rap record from 1965, becoming a legend among record collectors, hip-hop artists and soul nerds. (“‘Rap Dirty’ was the inspiration when I wrote ‘Fight the Power,’” Public Enemy’s Chuck D says.) He also wrote a mess of R&B songs for folks such as Gwen McCrea.
Like a lot of black artists who started in the ‘60s, Reid had an unfortunately paternalistic relationship with his record label TK Records and when it fell out of fashion, so did he. He sold the rights to his music in 2003 and sees no royalties from samples. (He can’t even listen to songs that sample his music and who can blame him?)
These days, he tours with drummer and manager Tom Bowker, a former journalist and ad hoc bands. “Weird World” is complicated, fascinating stuff, bringing up some thorny questions about the intersections between race, money, personal agency, art and age. Reid says he used to put dirty lyrics to “the crackers’” favorite songs to annoy them. Except they loved it, which is not a bad example of capitalism’s ability to absorb pretty much anything.
At one point, after Bowker has gone to the store on behalf of Reid, only to have Reid blow up at him for not leaving for the next gig yet, Bowker says, “He doesn’t understand that he has no power, he is a passenger. His job is to be Blowfly on stage and to sit in his seat in the van and let me bring him stuff and let me make him great career-wise again….I’ve built up this brand!” It’s not the most comfortable moment ever and kudos to director Jonathan Furmanski for leaving it in. Then again, the get-in-the-van road life is a hard one and Reid can seem…high-strung.
But if you can’t at least giggle at “Should I (expletive) That Big Fat (expletive)?” set to “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” or “By I Time I Get to the Clinic” to “By the Time I get to Phoenix.” you are probably not alive.
“The Weird World of Blowfly” screen 9:30 tonight at Alamo Lamar 3, 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at G-Tech and 9 p.m. Friday at Alamo Lamar 2. Blowfly himself performs tonight at Beerland.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Casule summary: Strange Powers
‘Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields’
Fans of Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields will probably enjoy this chronicle of the lauded singer/songwriter’s career, which traces the band’s origins back to 1980s Boston, but it might be a tough 85 minutes for anyone else.
Directors Kerthy Fix and Gail O’Hara worked on “Strange Powers” for 10 years, a very long time for a film in which not much happens. Merritt doesn’t seem to like the attention, and says as much on camera. More outgoing band member Claudia Gonson keeps the narrative moving along, but the relative stability of everyone involved doesn’t make for a very interesting viewing.
The climax of the film hinges on an episode during the mid-2000s when New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones accussed Merritt of racism for not including enough black artists on a “best of” list Merritt had written years earlier.
Frere-Jones expresses regret to the filmmakers, though, deflating most of the controversy. Aside from clips of band at work and testimony by Peter Gabriel, Sarah Silverman (?) and others, the most compelling moments are live concert footage.
Screenings: 7:15 p.m. Monday, March 15, Alamo South; 2:30 p.m. Thursday March 18, Alamo Ritz; 7:45 p.m. Saturday, March 20, Alamo Ritz.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: Enter the Void
Gaspar Noe is a visually trippy director, and “Enter the Void” shows why. The son of famed Argentine painter Luis Felipe Noe, his movies play out like color-draped dreams, sometimes with out-of-sequence scenes, sometimes with flashbacks and flashforwards.
“Enter the Void” plays with experimental storytelling by centering its narrative in the head of a young man, Oscar, who has been killed during a petty drug deal. Oscar’s spirit isn’t free to move on because he promised his sister Linda, a nightclub stripper, that he would never leave her. So he watches from above and prowls the neon-filled city of Tokyo, where they live.
As American Southerners might say, this movie isn’t normal. But sometimes that’s a good thing.
Noe describes his most famous film, “Irreversible,” as a “trial run” for “Enter the Void.” It played in the official competition in the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and got a mixed critical reception. Its running time: 2 hours, 36 minutes.
Screenings: 11:59 p.m. Monday March 15, Alamo Ritz; 8:30 p.m. Wednesday March 17, Alamo South
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW capsule: The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights
Music lovers attending the premiere of the White Stripes film may have been befuddled when they were greeted, outside the Paramount entrance on Congress, by not the bandmates but a troupe of bagpipers.
As they soon learned, bagpipes were sometimes part of the very odd Canadian tour the film documents — a charmingly nutty itinerary that had Jack and Meg White playing everywhere from bowling alleys to inside public buses, with Inuit meeting houses thrown in for good measure.
There’s also plenty of fiery footage from proper concert stages in the film, and if Friday’s audience didn’t scream and shout as director Emmett Malloy had hoped, they were clearly appreciative. Afterward, they peppered Malloy and his producer with questions about everything from the movie’s predictably stylish color scheme to the reasons for Meg’s tears in an enigmatic closing scene.
On the way out, fans passed a table offering at least one cinematically themed novelty: a 12-inch single featuring remixes of a Stripes tune by directors Michel Gondry and Jim Jarmusch.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Rodriguez unleashes some ‘Predators’ at SXSW
(Director Nimrod Antal, creature designer Greg Nicotero and producer Robert Rodriguez chat in front of an artist’s rendering of one of many “Predators”)
After the big SXSW Film opener “Kick-Ass” on Friday night at the Paramount — which reportedly went over like gangbusters, as expected — the must-see event was the sneak peek of the Robert Rodriguez-produced sci-fi thriller “Predators,” which immediately stuffed the 187-capacity theater at the Alamo Ritz. (Envision: eager fanboys, demanding press and a battalion of frantic publicists. It was a nervous evening.)
Rodriguez, in jeans, cap, leather jacket and chain-wallet, took the stage and thanked Fox for allowing this special moment a week before the movie’s trailer becomes official. He described how he wrote the “Predators” script back in the mid-1990s as a hired gun, after his “Desperado” was delayed. His love for “Alien” and James Cameron’s crack sequel “Aliens” influenced his decision to bring the “Predator” franchise back to its roots, and to simply add an ‘S’ to the original film’s title.
Rodriguez went nuts on the script, knowing that he wasn’t directing it, with no eye on the budget. “Any cool idea I came up with, I just shoved it into the script,” he said. The young filmmaker even wrote it with Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind to star.
It never happened, and Rodriguez went on to … you know what. Recently-ish, Fox dug up Rodriguez’s old script and got re-excited about it. They approached an always-busy Rodriguez. He said: Cool, let’s do it. But only if we do it at Troublemaker Studios here in Austin. It was a go. But Rodriguez, busy man, elected not to direct but to produce the film. A pair of screenwriters, Michael Finch and Alex Litvak, worked-over and burnished Rodriguez’s old script.
Nimrod Antal was handpicked by Rodriguez to direct after a short search. Rodriguez loved Antal’s thrillers “Kontroll” and “Vacancy” (Antal also directed last year’s “Armored”).
“Your’e a badass,” Rodriguez recalled telling a very nervous Antal, who looked at the more experienced director as a personal “hero.” Antal was there, too, and he joined Rodriguez in retelling their story.
Rodriguez and Antal screened two versions of the “Predators” trailer. The film stars Adrien Brody (who, we are told, is in Austin Friday and Saturday), Laurence Fishburne, Danny Triejo and others carrying heavy weaponry and dripping with jungle sweat.
The trailers looked great — eerie, fierce, violent, filled with promise for that old Rodriguez pow. Antal explained that he wanted to create a variety of Predator aliens with their own personalities and skills. As the duo spoke — creature designer Greg Nicotero soon joined the party — a slide show of production art illuminated the big screen behind them. There were myriad new creatures - birds, insects, dogs, all ferocious and covered in metallic spikes — and variations on the Predator itself, with their “own mood, look and style,” Antal said.
Repeatedly, they said they made the movie, coming July 9, for “Predator” fans. “I think you guys are going to be really proud, really happy with it,” Antal said.
See the official site, where the trailer will be available March 18 HERE.
Afterward, Fox gave away “Predators” T-shirts and autographed posters, like this one:
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW live review: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” at the Alamo Ritz
It wasn’t all that surprising that a serious line had already formed a good hour or so before the 4:30 screening of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” After all, Ritz 1 and 2 are two of the smaller theaters in the Alamo chain. Which lead to this exchange overheard in the line:
Woman One: “He (an unseen third party) thought this should be at the Paramount. The novel was incredibly popular and this movie has been huge in Europe.”
Woman Two: “Maybe. But it’s a two and a half hour movie in Swedish with subtitles.”
You may make your own jokes about Americans and reading at movies, but both women were, in their own ways, absolutely correct. Stieg Larsson’s thriller “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (the original Swedish title “Män som hatar kvinnor” translates roughly as “Men Who Hate Women”) was a genuine publishing phenomenon, moving millions of copies everywhere from BookPeople to WalMart airports. The movie version is the most successful Swedish movie of all time. Kristin Stewart is rumored for an American remake due in 2012.
That said, when you have Kick-Ass, the White Stripes documentary and world premiers at SXSW slated for the Paramount, somethings got to give. (Though a representative for SXSW said a long line was left outside.)
So what of the movie? There are two types of noirs: The kind with small lives and small crimes with small errors and small failings snowball into an almost inveitable ending, like an emotional Rube Goldberg device. Then there’s the kind with a massive, labyrinthine plot that might stretch decades as past crimes prove to not even be past.
“Dragon Tattoo” is the second kind, the story of crusading investigative magazine reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) convicted of libel in a very shady case. His career a mess, he’s approached by industrialist Hennrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance of Vagner’s neice some 40 years earlier. Vanger loathes his extended family, and suspects any one of them for the crime.
Blomkvist is eventually joined by the titular girl, a slender, gothy angry-at-the-world hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) blessed with a photographic memory, a way with computers and a hideous past that has left her with a loathsome “guardian” (think a parole officer that has power of attorney). She looks like a crusty-punk, hacks like a knife through soft butter and is an emotional basket case — who wouldn’t fall for that?
This is not your Ikea’s Sweden. This is Sweden where a Fascist-sympathizing past intrudes on the present, where rape and incest seem all too common, where brutal capitalists can have their way with good lefty journalists with ease.
It’s also a thriller and a calmly (almost too calmly) paced one, where every twist is (for the most part) logical and, more importantly, paid off. It always plays fair with the audience. Blomkvist is quietly honorable and dogged, a man who isn’t sure if he’s a shlump or charming or when he should be one or the other. Salander’s cold and distant, but becomes just as obsessed as Blomkvist, even as she has her own scores to settle.
It’s well-crafted and stays compelling, but it also had what you might call the Harry Potter Burden: It had to remain faithful to a phenomenally popular book.
Disclosure: I haven’t read it, but a quick survey of the crowd revealed that the movie stripped the plot down as far as possible while still hitting all of the necessary plot points — it still need two and a half hours to get where it was going, but any less and fans might have been hacked off.
They were not, nor was I.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW capsule review: ‘American Grindhouse’
‘American Grindhouse’
How does someone make a history of American exploitation films without once uttering the name of the most influential exploitation filmmaker of all, crowned “King of the Bs” Roger Corman? Elijah Drenner manages this spectacular feat in his lusty survey of low-budget cinema, a raunchy mash note to the B’s and Z’s (and T’s and A’s).
Thanks to recent grindhouse apologists like the Alamo Drafthouse and the evangelical Quentin Tarantino — who apparently had no time to chat with the filmmaker, another blow to the movie’s bona fides — genre and drive-in dreck has been excavated and glorified, profiting from a mass reconsideration tinged with respect.
Drenner shows that exploitation movies, stuff that became synonymous with L.A. and New York grindhouses in the ‘60s and ‘70s, has been around since at least 1913. Nudity, violence, horror and myriad taboos slither through early celluloid, including many of the pre-Code Hollywood movies that still startle. (See Tod Browning’s once-banned “Freaks” for a jolt.)
A passionate gallery of talking heads — genre masters Jack Hill, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Joe Dante, John Landis, et al — discuss the mercenary “carny spirit,” the hucksterism and gimmickry propelling most of the movies, from the risibly cynical “sex-ed” and anti-drug films (titillations in pedagogic robes) to Russ Meyer’s “nudie cuties.” Trash dominates, but some filmmakers aimed for art: “Freaks” and Wes Craven’s horrifying “Last House on the Left” shiver with subtext.
Biker flicks, gore, women-in-prison, blaxploitation, on down to a kind of culmination with “Deep Throat” — this compact celebration glides through the decades with naughty glee (if not the zest of the 2008 doc “Not Quite Hollywood” about Australia’s exploitation film industry). Clips from some 200 movies will have you raiding your local independent video store.
Screenings: 9 p.m. Saturday, Alamo Ritz and 10 p.m. Tuesday, Alamo South. Trailer and details HERE.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
5 Questions With … Etienne Sauret, director of ‘Dirty Pictures’
We e-chatted with Etienne Sauret, director of “Dirty Pictures,” a documentary portrait of Dr. Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, a famed chemist dubbed the “Godfather of Psychedelics” for his discoveries in the field of psychedelic drugs, including MDMA, aka Ecstasy. The movie “examines the impact of Dr. Shulgin’s lifelong quest to unlock the complexities of the human mind.” Sauret’s other credits include “WTC: The First 24 Hours” and “Too Pure.”
“Dirty Pictures” screens at 9:30 p.m. Saturday at the Austin Convention Center; 7:15 p.m. Sunday at the Alamo South; and 5:30 p.m. March 19 at the Alamo Ritz.
- What led you to Dr. Shulgin, so-called “rogue chemist,” as a subject?
Etienne Sauret: It began unexpectedly. I have a friend who runs a drug prevention center in the U.K. who wanted to bring Sasha to London to speak at a conference on drug policy. Sasha couldn’t go to London, so my friend enlisted me to go to California with him to make a short film with Sasha for the conference. As we were filming, I found myself really touched by Sasha. I found him special and endearing, and that’s where it began.
- Describe the relationship between Sasha and Ann Shulgin, his wife and work partner of 40 years.
It’s very special, one that comes through in the movie. They complete one another. Alex (Sasha) has the scientific and chemical knowledge to create the compounds and Ann has the ability to verbalize what their work is all about. He’s a child at heart, more interested in tinkering and finding the next compound, where she can verbalize the philosophical and spiritual considerations that they’re trying to get across. So in the movie and for their two books (“Pihkal” and “Tihkal”) she’s a strong voice in explaining their experiences; she takes up where he leaves off.
- What does Shulgin think about the destructive capacity of Ecstasy and other drugs he’s had a hand in making?
Sasha has always regretted that MDMA has come to be seen and used as it has, as part of the party drug Ecstasy. For him, MDMA would have stayed as it was initially, a tool that was used in controlled environments — successfully by psychology counselors — to create a treatment benefit. He doesn’t see the club thing as really having anything to do with MDMA as he created it, which was as a drug to provide insight for people. He’s not against people having fun, per se, he just sees his creations as a more serious endeavor and one to be taken seriously. As Sasha likes to say “They are no casual experiments.” Ann reinforces this belief by adding that one “can deal with matters of life and death” when taking psychedelics.
- How does the mainstream scientific community regard Shulgin and his creations?
Some chemists openly admire his work, and a few of them are in the film. … I think some other chemists must secretly admire what Shulgin does, although they can’t directly say it because of possible repercussions. I think some of them must look up to him for the freedom he has made for himself to dictate the scope of his own research. As a maverick, he’s been able to do what very few of them can do because they work for big companies, which is what he walked away from years ago. … On one hand he is a folk hero with a dedicated worldwide fan base who appreciate his work, but to the outside world, he’s often seen as a rogue chemist who is responsible for people’s children’s experiments. And I think that’s a burden to him, because he knows what good his drugs can do, and he sees this as a vulgarization of that potential.
- I’m sure law enforcement isn’t overly pleased with his work.
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that these days they’d probably rather just ignore him. Drug enforcement now deals with drugs that have nothing to do with Sasha’s discoveries at the prime of his career, when he was in consultation with law enforcement and researching new drugs. I think the DEA is more concerned with huge labs that are making a ton of drugs that are really nasty and that have nothing to do with the psychedelic experience.
- What’s the most lasting thing you learned while being immersed in Shulgin’s world?
Foremost is the power of individuality, of somebody who stands up against all odds. Sasha decided what he wanted his life to be, then he went all the way and never looked back. … There’s something very inspiring about that. … If there were more people like him, we’d live in a better world. Meaning, if there were more individuals who took it upon themselves to find materials which could possibly enable people to better themselves, we’d live in a better environment. Anybody who improves people’s ability to feel good and understand themselves has got to feel pretty good themselves.
More about the movie HERE.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW capsule review: ‘The Ride’
‘The Ride’
In just seconds, it plays out like this: Gate swings wide, beast thunders forth, man on beast’s back holds on for dear life before he’s flung like a sock monkey, scrabbling in the dirt to dodge the frenetic hazards of hoof and horn.
This is high athleticism in the professional bull ring — “conquering the beast,” as someone puts in Meredith Danluck’s documentary about the players who animate the Professional Bull Riding (PBR) circuit. People are the soul of a well-told story and Danluck is enamored with her down-home characters at the expense of a deeper look at the sport, its history and rules.
Leisurely stretches show how a colorful bull breeder, a contemplative rodeo clown and young riders brimming with bravado live at home and on the ranch. These parts flap too loosely to braid a narrative, and you might wonder: Where’s the bull?
Danluck’s not-quite-novel glimpses into rural southern culture eclipse the beautifully shot ringside action. She’s hooked on the rugged romance of cowboydom, from cattle to Coors, and less transfixed by the intricacies that lead these people into the bull’s eye.
Screening: 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Austin Convention Center.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘American: The Bill Hicks Story’
‘American: The Bill Hicks Story’
The Bill Hicks story is both well known and murky, as years of bootlegs, repackagings and mythologizing have clouded the story of the man whom some regard as the best stand-up comic since Richard Pryor.
American cruises through Hicks’ early years in Houston as a rebellious Southern Baptist obsessed with stand-up comedy at a time and place where he had a better chance of working at NASA.
Sneaking out of his house to gig in Houston at 14, the footage of Hicks as a teen is dazzling - his pace and timing are already at professional levels, his charisma already tangible.
“There has never been anyone funnier at his age as a stand-up. Maybe the only other guy who touched him at that age was Buster Keaton,” says one comic. After living in Hollywood and heading back to Houston a comedy vet at 21(!), Hicks nailed down his wordview and progressed, much like Carlin, from excellent stand-up to man-with-a-mic visionary, hitting Letterman, becoming a legend.
Like many comics, he fell prey to the free booze and cocaine that fans love to give you when you’re a god on stage, but he cleaned up, got focused and became the Bill Hicks everyone remembers, ranting against consumerism, advertising and fear, which is about where he stayed by the time he died from cancer at 32 (!) in 1994.
Directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas use witty collages in the style of “The Kid Stays in the Picture” and keep the narrative tight, focused and moving. While I could have used more on the legendary joke-stealing beef between Hicks and Dennis Leary, they did get some amazing footage of Hicks relaxing in Wimberley. His magnetism is on display in “American;” It’s easy to see why people adored him.
The movie screens tonight (Friday, March 12) at 9, G-Tech (in the convention center). It also screens at 4 p.m. Monday March 15 at the Paramount and at 9:30 p.m. March 20 at the Paramount.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Recommended for Friday: “Cherry”
One of the best little films at this year’s SXSW has to be “Cherry,” directed by Jeffrey Fine.
It probably won’t have a huge screening tonight (Friday) because it starts playing at 6:15 p.m. at the Alamo Ritz, and that conflicts with the blockbuster wannabe “Kick-Ass,” which is the opening night film at the Paramount.
But “Cherry” deserves to be seen. It’s also screening at 9:45 p.m. Monday at the Alamo South and at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday March 17 at the Alamo Ritz. So mark your calendars.
Why’s it special? Partly because of the performances. Partly because of the depth of characterization. Partly because of assured direction.
It focuses on Aaron (Kyle Gallner), a college freshman who isn’t exactly experienced in the ways of the world. He’s an engineering student who has artistic aspirations and ends up taking an art class, where he sits next to the 34-year-old Linda (Laura Allen).
Linda, of course, is hot. And Aaron is immediately attracted. So when Linda invites Aaron to dinner, he accepts, only to find that Linda has a precocious 14-year-old daughter, Beth (Brittany Robertson).
Beth, meanwhile, develops an attraction for Aaron. And even at 14, she’s far more socially sophisticated than the freshman.
Robertson nails the role of Beth. And she’s almost as impressive as the little girl in “Kick-Ass.” Is this the year of the precocious/foul-mouthed young girl? It’s shaping up that way at this year’s SXSW.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission’
‘Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission’
Austinites are quite familiar with the story of local video game legend Richard Garriott, who made a fortune and spent $30 million of it to go into space.
The big trip occurred in 2008 after months of training at the secretive Star City in Russia. And this documentary about Garriott’s adventure captures it all, from his early days of admiring his astronaut father to the accumulation of his fortune and his eventual training and launch into space from Kazakhstan. When Garriott’s capsule makes its return to Earth after 12 days at the International Space Station, a camera captures the fiery event.
Director Mike Woolf, a former ad writer at GSD&M, teamed up with Andrew Yates to form Beef and Pie Productions in 2000. This is their first feature. It’s a good start.
Screenings: 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Paramount; Also, 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Paramount.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘Pelada’
‘Pelada’
Knowing when to walk away from the game is a problems that has haunted athletes for decades. How do you leave something you love?
In the documentary “Pelada,” filmmakers Ryan White and Rebekah Ferguson follow former collegiate soccer players Luke Boughen and Gwendolyn Oxenham as they travel the world playing in pick-up soccer games from Brazil to China.
Although it is widely understood that soccer is the world’s most popular sport, the film reveals how deeply the roots of the game are planted in nearly every culture. Players don’t rely on chalked fields or officials or scoreboards to commune with one another. They simply need a ball — or sometimes something approximating a ball.
As they travel from the slums of Buenos Aires to the concrete urban landscapes of Shanghai, Oxenham and Boughen revel in a game that, as long as they have the desire to play, can never truly be taken away from them.
Screenings: 7:15 p.m. Sunday, aG-Tech Theater; noon Monday, Alamo South; and 3:30 p.m. Friday March 19, Alamo South.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘Winter’s Bone’
‘Winter’s Bone’
The kind of dirty-fingernailed, underdog-championing film often overpraised by festivalgoers, “Winter’s Bone” has atmosphere and occasional jolts but takes its time building up any narrative momentum.
The Ozarks-set tale of a high school girl, Ree, who goes hunting for her vanished crank-brewing father in order to save the family’s meager homestead, “Bone” puts its heroine through the wringer. Lead actress Jennifer Lawrence holds her own against nasty hillbillies, but doesn’t quite summon the charisma to keep us engaged during the plot’s lax moments. The arrival of John Hawkes, as a morally more-than-ambiguous uncle who helps Ree in her search, keeps the movie from drowning under its bleak weight.
“Winter’s Bone” won the Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting awards at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
Screenings: 4:15 p.m. Sunday, Alamo South; Also, 7 p.m. Thursday, Alamo South.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: “No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson”
‘No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson’
Most casual sports fans probably know Allen Iverson as the heavily tattooed basketball player who once rhetorically (and repeatedly) asked a group of reporters if they really needed to waste his time talking about practice.
Despite being one of the greatest-ever NBA players, Iverson has become more known for his selfish attitude (real or perceived) and thuggish image.
In the documentary “No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson,” director Steve James of “Hoop Dreams” returns to basketball and returns to his home of Hampton, Va., to investigate Iverson’s formative years and one incident that helped shape the superstar’s world view.
In the middle of a high school athletic career in which he led his football and basketball teams to state championships, Iverson’s life changed forever. He was at a bowling alley on Valentine’s Day during his junior year when an argument erupted.
What happened next is clear: A fight ensued between Iverson’s friends and a group of white patrons, chairs were thrown and a woman was injured. What was unclear, and still is, is the extent of Iverson’s involvement. Despite conflicting reports, Iverson and two of his friends, all minors, were tried as adults and convicted on a felony charge of maiming by a mob. (The conviction was later overturned.)
In his documentary about the case, James reveals the racial and cultural tensions that still exist in Hampton. And while the facts might ultimately be muddied by history, “No Crossover” leaves audiences with a clearer understanding of the troubled future Hall of Famer, who ever since has had a me-vs.-the-world attitude.
Screenings: 11 a.m. Sunday , Paramount; Also, 2:45 p.m. Friday March 19, G-Tech Theater
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘Crying With Laughter’
‘Crying With Laughter’
The great Scottish humorist Lachlan McLachlan once said, “Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.”
In “Crying With Laughter,” Scottish comedian Joey Frisk is taking McLachlan’s words to heart. Although he’s divorced and has a young girl, he has never grown up. When he goes on stage, he regales his audience with sordid tales of his conflict-laden life, sometimes crossing a line and confronting audience members.
Playing the sad comedian, Stephen McCole dominates the movie and makes it worth watching. He’s a disaster waiting to happen, a raw set of nerves awaiting the inevitable wound. That wounding comes in the form of an old classmate who turns up and involves an unsuspecting Frisk in a kidnapping.
The movie is being billed as a thriller, but it’s really more of a character study. Justin Molotnikov directs.
Screenings: 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Alamo Ritz; Also, 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Alamo Ritz; 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Alamo South. (It will also be available as video on demand on the day of the premiere through the iTunes Movie Store and Amazon.com. It will be available for in-home viewing through Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon and Cox cable providers starting April 1.)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: “The Taqwacores”
‘The Taqwacores’
This movie is as unusual as its title, which combines the word “taqwa” — the Islamic notion of love and fear for Allah — and “core,” as in hardcore punk.
Based on the novel by Michael Muhammad Knight, “The Taqwacores” focuses on a Pakistani American student who moves into a Buffalo, N.Y., Islamic boarding house dominated by punk rockers.
While there, the innocent Yusef Ali (Bobby Naderi) begins to question his notions about Islam, mainly because of his housemates. They drink, have premarital sex, smoke pot, sing in punk bands and let out a constant stream of curses. It’s particularly odd to see one of the female housemates doing some of this while wearing a full burka.
You have to suspect that traditional Islamists won’t find this very amusing. But “The Taqwacores” has heart, and it’s based on the notion that Allah accepts everyone.
The feature ranks as an auspicious debut for director Eyad Zahra, a Cleveland native who attented the Florida State University Film School. It played this year at the Sundance Film Festival.
Another movie, titled “Taqwacore,” is screening at SXSW. It’s a documentary about the punk Islamic movement, directed by Omar Majeed.
Screenings for the narrative feature: 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Alamo Ritz; Also, 3:30 pm. Wednesday at Alamo Ritz.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: “Micmacs”
‘Micmacs’
French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet is known for his unusual imagery, his big-screen pastiche of intricate devices and fanciful imaginings.
His latest offering, “Micmacs,” has plenty of these images, and it’s easy to wish that the action would stop and let you study everything in the frame: the robots pieced together from scrap metal; the crazy-looking electronics. In short, the director of such amusing confections as “Delicatessen” and “Amelie” manages to create beautiful worlds from things that most people throw away.
Americans, especially, will be reminded of the creative influences of comedians Buster Keaton, Red Skelton and Carol Burnett, whose deep humanism permeates “Micmacs.” The movie follws the advetures of the gentle Bazil, who has a bullet lodged in his head after a drive-by shooting. Losing his job because of his injuries, Bazil is adopted by a ragtag group of outcasts who live in a junkyard. But Bazil eventually discovers the weapons maker responsible for the bullet in his head, as well as a nearby arms dealer that made the bomb that killed his father in Northern Africa.
So Bazil recruits his new friends to wreak havoc on the industrial behemoths. It’s a classic tale of David vs. Goliath, with interesting characters and fantastical situations. Dany Boon stars as Bazil.
Screening: 6:45 p.m. Saturday March 13, Paramount
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘Hood to Coast’
‘Hood to Coast’
It’s North America’s longest relay race, starting at Mount Hood, Ore., and going 197 miles to the Pacific Coast in Seaside, Ore. Director Christoph Baaden, who ran the race for the first time in 2007, decided to make a documentary about the festive event, which attracts 1,000 teams and about 12,000 runners each year.
The result is “Hood to Coast,” which makes its premiere at this year’s SXSW. Baaden follows four teams during the relay, including two groups of older runners, some of whom have serious health issues. He also follows a team that includes people who aren’t really physically or mentally prepared. And the result is a charming mix of seriousness and levity.
And when you see some of the runners, you’ll also probably be inspired.
2:15 p.m. Saturday March 13, Alamo South; 1 p.m. March 16, Paramount; 2 p.m. March 20, Alamo South
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘Greenlit’
‘GREENLIT’
In ‘Greenlit,’ director Miranda Bailey follows efforts to be environmentally friendly during production of ‘The River Why.’ She finds that the movie industry isn’t as green as it seems.
In fact, Bailey cites a report indicating that Hollywood is one of the biggest polluters in Southern California, blowing up cars, setting fires and gobbling down hundreds of thousands of bottles of water each year.
And they’re not green anywhere else, either, it seems. Take, for instance, ‘The Beach,’ starring the environmentally conscious Leonardo DiCaprio and shot in Thailand. The producers decided that they needed palm trees, so they removed some of the native vegetation and planted the palms. Then the rains came and washed the dunes into the ocean.
Or take, for instance, the filming of ‘Titanic,’ once again with DiCaprio, in a giant tank off Mexico. The moviemakers decided that the water would look better on film if it were treated with chlorine. Then, after production was completed, they released the water into the ocean, causing a fish kill.
As Bailey quickly discovers on the set of ‘The River Why,’ even well-intentioned production companies who hire green consultants aren’t always open to being environmentally friendly.
Packing peanuts in the compost bin. Bigtime complaints about the lack of compact bottled water. Ignored phone calls about recycling efforts. And so it goes.
Insightful, funny and sad, ‘Greenlit’ shines a spotlight on an industry that’s full of people who pride themselves on being green — but don’t practice that same philosophy at work.
Screenings: 4:45 p.m. Saturday, March 13, Alamo South; 6 p.m. Friday, March 19, Alamo South
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW capsule review: ‘Iron Crows’
“Iron Crows”
It looks like Hell itself, the Chittagong ship-breaking yard in southern Bangladesh, where men and young boys use blow torches, cables, pullies and their own skinny bodies to dismantle gigantic tankers and cargo ships for scrap metal.
Atop mountains of rusted steel, sparks spray and black smoke twists. The ground is an oily slurry. The air, an invisible blizzard of iron flakes and asbestos, is toxic. Slabs of steel bigger than a bus tumble to earth, missing the people below when luck visits. A tree-sized pipe breaks off and nearly crushes a worker. (“Allah saved you!” a colleague cries.) Some 20 workers are killed there each year.
Bong-Nam Park’s mesmerizing documentary about Chittagong, where more than half the world’s ships go to die, tells the heartwrenching stories of three of the workers within the wider context of pounding poverty, child labor and ecological nightmares. Fair and human, the 60-minute film is a tough eye-opener filled with stunning visions. Tiny figures toil in the shadows of beached monsters. In the scaffolding above, crows make nests out of iron wire.
Screenings: 4 p.m. Monday, The Hideout; 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Alamo South. Details and trailer HERE.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
5 Questions with … Gregory Kallenberg, director of ‘Haynesville: A Nation’s Hunt for Energy’
We spoke to Gregory Kallenberg, director of the documentary “Haynesville: A Nation’s Hunt for Energy.”
The film “takes place in the Louisiana backwoods, and follows the momentous discovery of the largest natural gas field in the United States — and maybe the world. It examines the historic find — a formation called the “Haynesville Shale” — from the personal level as well as from the higher perspective of the current energy picture and pending energy future.” (Kallenberg is a former reporter for the American-Statesman.)
“Haynesville: A Nation’s Hunt for Energy” screens at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Paramount Theatre.
More about the movie and its trailer HERE.
- How did you come across this subject and what made it seem worthy of its own movie?
Gregory Kallenberg: Well before anyone knew the massive scale of the Haynesville discovery, there was this buzz going around northwest Louisiana. You couldn’t go anywhere without people whispering about “secret wells” and leasing checks being written for “millions of dollars.” It was this surreal “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” moment that makes you want to pick up a camera, hit the REC button and see what happens. At that point, the film was going to be a story about people’s experiences with this weird boomtown hysteria. Once we found out that all of this was true AND the impact of this find would have national impact, we knew we had a film that could address the bigger issue of energy, its human cost and what role that energy could play in our energy future.
- What’s the film’s narrative and who are the main players?
The movie documents the discovery of the largest natural gas field in the U.S. The find, called the Haynesville Shale, has an estimated $1.75 trillion in gas and contains more energy than Brazil and Mexico combined. The film follows the beginning fervor of the Haynesville Shale and its effect on three people’s lives. Kassi, a single mom, fights for her community’s environmental rights. Pastor Reegis is an African American preacher who believes that God has delivered the Haynesville Shale and its riches to his congregation. And Mike, a self-described “country boy,” wrestles with the idea of giving up his pristine land in exchange for becoming an “overnight millionaire.” At the same time, you see academics, environmentalists and pundits discuss the broader impact of this find.
- Your movie arrives amid a flux of activist docs about energy, conservation and food production. What does yours add to the dialogue?
“Haynesville” is unique in that it avoids the current trap of being a histrionic first-person, hyper-biased film. My goal as a filmmaker was to make a balanced piece about energy and its human cost and larger perceived benefit. I want people to see that energy is an amazingly complicated issue with very few easy answers. What’s most important to me is that people walk out of this film and start the conversation that will lay the foundation for our energy future. For the first time in history, I believe all of us have the power to chart the course for a clean energy future, and I hope “Haynesville” helps start that movement.
- What do you think should be done with the Haynesville Shale? Are you conspicuously stepping aside from the argument or does the film make your point?
While I hope the film communicates my point, I will provide a bit of a spoiler here. I personally think we should have gotten off of coal yesterday. The extraction of coal is environmentally obscene and the emissions from coal are borderline poisonous. That said, I only believe in the use of vast energy sources like the Haynesville if we can figure out how to extract in as safe a way as possible that’s fair to landowners and environmentally responsible. If the gas industry and the environmental movement can work together on this, then we have a good shot at a clean energy future.
- You screened the movie in Copenhagen at the big climate summit. What was the response? Are you galvanizing people and opinion?
Our screening in Copenhagen was an amazing experience for three reasons: 1) I had the unique opportunity to show my film at the world’s premiere environmental conference. 2) I saw an audience made up of environmentalists and energy lobbyists nodding together at the screen and, afterwards, coming together and discussing the film’s message. And 3) I fulfilled my life’s dream of eating Danish danishes and, I’m happy to report, they were way better than I ever imagined.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘Rejoice and Shout’
“Rejoice and Shout”
“There’s a movie!?” The ghost of Sam Malone, the “Cheers” bartender who spent weeks reading “War and Peace,” then found out he could’ve watched the film, resurfaced after watching “Rejoice and Shout,” the best history of gospel music to yet hit the screen.
One could spend weeks researching the topic (I did) and not get too much more essential information than provided by this film, made by noted music documentarian Don McGlynn (“The Howlin’ Wolf Story”) and made special by the vintage performance footage lent by collector Joe Lauro.
Although the film is a bit scholarly at times, relying heavily on info by gospel historians Anthony Heilbut and Bill Carpenter, they know their stuff. And they set up the vamp and pure talent of such acts as Swan Silvertones, Dixie Hummingbirds, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, the Staple Singers and many more that make “Rejoice and Shout” a must-see for black gospel enthusiasts.
The innovative Soul Stirrers of Trinity, Texas, who receive their own chapter in Heilbut’s great book “The Gospel Sound,” get snubbed by “R&S,” with only a token mention. But the filmmakers can otherwise be commended for covering so much ground in this labor of love that should be required viewing for high school students.
Screenings: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Alamo South; 1 p.m. Saturday March 20, the Carver.
Â
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘Dogtooth’
“Dogtooth”
The Cannes Film Festival is known for showing daring, dark movies. But when “Dogtooth” premiered there in 2009, even the most jaded veterans were taken aback.
Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos of Greece, “Dogtooth” deals with a husband and wife who have decided to raise their children with no contact with the outside world. They live down a street far from other homes, and a towering fence surrounds them.
The stern parents make up incredible lies to help explain the occasional glimpses of planes flying overhead and other ordinary sights.
The father, played by Christos Stergioglou, has a job in town. And when he begins to notice that his teen-age son is having sexual urges, he arranges to have one of his female co-workers come to the home regularly for intercourse.
She’s the only one from the outside world to be allowed on the grounds, and it doesn’t take long for her to decide to play sexual mischief. One scene is vaguely reminiscent of the fascist sex encounter in Lena Wertmuller’s “Seven Beauties,” although no whips are involved.
There’s a point to all of this, of course, and it will probably become clear if you’re inclined to stay till the ending. Some will inevitably choose not to do so, but that would be a shame.
It won the top award in the Cannes sidebar known as Un Certain Regard.
Screenings: 6:45 p.m. Friday, Alamo South; 5 p.m. March 19, Alamo Ritz.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘No One Knows About Persian Cats’
“No One Knows About Persian Cats”
If you think Iranian films are all about kids losing stuff, “No One Knows About Persian Cats” will rock your world-view. Literally because the guerrilla-made docudrama dives into Tehran’s underground to showcase its rebel musicians.
For the past 30 years, Western music and solo female singers have been virtually banned in Iran. The odd title likens Tehran’s covert young performers to cats, which, like dogs, can’t be taken outside the home.
With fiancée Roxana Saberi as co-writer and executive producer, famed Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi trails a singer and her indie-rocker boyfriend through the labyrinthine netherworld where secret groups perform. (Saberi, you’ll recall, is the journalist accused by Iran of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to eight years in prison. An appeals court released her after an international outcry.)
In the fast-paced feature, shot on the run in 17 days with a SI2K camera (all 35mm equipment belongs to the State), two musicians, just out of jail, go looking for a band and passports so they can play a London gig. A garrulous bootlegger (Hamed Behdad, the film’s only professional actor) agrees to help.
But what powers “Persian Cats,” chaotic and sometimes confusing, is its stirring, emotive music — rock, rap, metal and jazz — with lyrics in Farsi and English. Played against flash cuttings of Tehran’s frenetic city life, it’s the marrow of a noteworthy film. In Farsi with English subtitles.
6:30 p.m. Friday, Alamo South; 11:30 a.m., March 18, Alamo Ritz.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Capsule summary: ‘The Good Heart’
“The Good Heart”
British thesp Brian Cox, who played Lear to lauds in the Bard’s hometown, now calls himself “an actor who does really interesting work in independent movies.” And as the churlish barkeep in Icelandic filmmaker Dagur Kari’s “The Good Heart,” the mighty Celt lets it rip.
His character Jacques is so nasty a nurse greets his fifth heart attack with: “Not again! Why don’t you just die?” But rude Jacques survives to share a hospital room with failed suicide Lucas, delicately played by Paul Dano.
“When it comes to the survival of the fittest,” Lucas says, “I have to throw in the towel.” Instead he lets Jacques take him home to carry on his “legacy” — the rundown bar he owns. It’s a far cry from Cheers, but Lucas soon learns the house rules, no walk-ins, no women and no getting chummy with regular patrons.
Enter wan stewardess April (French actress Isild LeBesco), and gruff Jacques, waiting for a new heart, and gentle Lucas, newly wed, start to change.
The bar is so murky and grim, it’s Dickensian, so dark Clint Eastwood would approve.
This is the Kari’s third feature, his first in the U.S. and English. His script has fjord-sized holes with dialogue that both clinks and zings.
The gloomy comedy, shot in New York and Iceland, may not crease your face with grins. But you will have seen some superior perfs.
Dano, last teamed with Cox in “L.I.E.” (2001), holds his own against the veteran’s bombast, and the supporting cast, down to Estragon the duck, is perfection.
8:45 p.m., Friday, Alamo Ritz
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
A taste of the new ‘Twilight’
OMG alert …
While folks will have to wait until tomorrow morning to see the full 90-second trailer for the upcoming “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” Summit Entertainment today released a 10-second teaser. In the latest film that will surely have teens streaming and screaming in droves, the emo Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner all reprise their roles, as a town is ravaged by vampires and Bella must choose between Team Edward and Team Jacob.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
5 Questions with … Rebekah Ferguson, co-director of ‘Pelada’
Using a five-question format, we’re interviewing South by Southwest filmmakers about their movies before and during the festival, which runs March 12 through 20.
Here, we talk to Rebekah Ferguson, one of the directors of the documentary “Pelada,” which follows former collegiate soccer players Luke Boughen and Gwendolyn Oxenham as they travel the world playing in pick-up soccer games in fields and streets from Brazil to China, reconnecting with the game they love while pondering their futures.
“Pelada” screens at the Alamo South Lamar on Friday, March 19 at 03:30 PM; Sunday, March 14 at 7:15 PM at the G-Tech theater at the Austin Convention Center; and Noon on Monday, March 15 at Alamo South Lamar.
The M.O.: How did you and Ryan get involved with making the movie with Gwendolyn and Luke?
Rebekah Ferguson: Gwendolyn and I played varsity soccer together at Duke. She was a senior when I was a freshman, but we stayed close friends. The seedlings of “Pelada” took root late one night, when Gwendolyn and I were both pondering what we wanted to do next — I was graduating from Duke and she was graduating from Notre Dame graduate program in Creative Writing. We had both done short doc films at Duke and we found ourselves pondering the idea of the pickup soccer version of “Endless Summer.” One that had a has-been athlete’s perspective … but also one that went completely around the globe to really showcase the fact that soccer is a game you can find anywhere.
We had both traveled enough to know how easy it was to find a pickup game, but what we loved most about it wasn’t just the soccer. It was a way to gain admittance to other cultures, and other people that you might never find as a tourist. It was our street cred so to speak. Luke and Gwendolyn embodied that has-been mentality at the time, and really had that itch to figure out where soccer fit into their lives. Ryan was another classmate of ours at Duke, so we called him up. Funnily enough he was on the tail end of a year abroad. But as soon as he got back, he and I picked up cameras, Luke quit his job, Gwendolyn put her writing on hold, and we took off.
There are really two stories going on here: one about pick-up soccer games around the world and the other about dealing with the end of a dream and coming to terms with a new reality after competitive competition, especially in the case of Gwendolyn. Did you know there were these two narratives going in and how did you balance the telling of the two stories?
Yes, this was actually the perspective that we wanted to bring to the film. Luke, Gwendolyn, and I (and Ryan to a certain extent ,as well) had all climbed the ladder of competitive soccer in the U.S., culminating in college, semi pro, and for Gwendolyn, some professional soccer down in Brazil. So we all knew what it was like to grow up with that dream and then to realize that it’s not going to play out how you always thought it would. Seeing that psychology unfold through Luke and Gwendolyn seemed like the best way to tie the vignettes together.
I think Luke and Gwendolyn’s experiences are something that a lot of people can identify with, not just athletes. What’s specific to soccer is that their careers came to an end before they were ready, but everyone goes through that time when you have to reevaluate your life and find out if you are ready to move on. Their intensity as competitive athletes played out in an interesting way. It definitely led us to more adrenaline pumping situations, like San Pedro Prison in Bolivia, Mathare Valley in Nairobi, Iran … but it also had an interesting juxtaposition to some of the stories we found where people play for the pure joy. And at then end of the film, Gwendolyn is forced to confront the idea that soccer can carry on and take on a new meaning.
How did you guys pick which countries and locations you visited? Does any one leg of the trip stand out as your favorite or carry special meaning for you for any reason?
There were some places that were absolute must visits, like Brazil, for example. But we wanted to travel to a combination of soccer super powers and places that you would never hear about in FIFA World Cups. Also,. being a low budget indie film, we called in a lot of favors to family, friends of family, friends of friends, even people who didn’t know us to put us up and feed us. We quickly found out that it was the best thing for the film because staying with locals meant we immediately had a good pulse on where to find games.
One of my personal favorites was our time in Bolivia. One of the more daring (dare I say stupid) things we did was talk our way into San Pedro prison and bribe the prisoners into letting Luke and Gwendolyn play soccer for a day. It was such a crazy proposition, and literally started with a phone number we got off a blog to an English speaking prisoner inside San Pedro … from there we ran around the city, and finally got escorted in to negotiate with the prisoners, which you see unfold in the film. We were feeling the suspense the whole time, not knowing if it was going to work out — would they let Gwendolyn play, would they let us interview them. But once we got down to the crazy trapezoidal asphalt court squeezed between blocks of cells, decorated top to bottom with all the prison team emblems, we realized how much pride was at stake, and the intensity with which they played. That was when we realized this was going to be a great story. We went from being absolute outsider tourists to sharing post-game warm Coke and Fanta on the sidelines of a prison soccer court.
The trip to Iran and dealing with the social and government implications of women playing sports in public felt the weightiest and most perilous. Can you talk about that experience?
Our experience of being in Iran was so contrary to the typical American stereotypes. People were so friendly to us, and invited us in. But at the same time, as Americans, we were assigned a guide and driver that stayed with us at all times, and Gwendolyn and I had to wear hijabs and be completely covered out in public. We were also treading on tricky territory with our cameras, and so when we were told by our tour guide that the government was keeping tabs on us, it was pretty nerve wracking. We weren’t sure if it was because Gwendolyn played, our cameras, or a combination of both. That became a huge part of that story.
In some ways, what Gwendolyn was doing felt taboo, but in other ways it seemed natural. With the people we interacted with, we were treated so warmly, and when Gwendolyn played in that initial game, it felt like any other game…but playing in the hijab was i think a constant reminder for G, that there were more forces at work. As filmmakers, we definitely wanted to make sure we made it out of the country with our footage. I spent a lot of sleepless nights dubbing tapes two and three times over, but at the end of the trip, i think they got the idea of what we were doing and we made it home with all the copies I had sweated over. We weren’t there to interview people about politics (although it is an unavoidable element of the story), we were there to get into games and see where it led us. Iran was one of the most soccer crazy countries we went to and they also were some of the nicest, most inviting people. I feel really lucky to have had that experience.
Obviously you knew soccer was a world sport, but were you surprised to see how deeply integrated it is in so many cultures?
Each new place we traveled to, especially once we got out of South America and Europe, I remember just being in awe of how popular soccer was. It was way beyond what we imagined when we started brainstorming the trip. Even on our trips to Asia and the Middle East we were finding games everywhere. And each place had its own favorite teams, favorite players, their own style, even their own slang vocabulary. One of the first things we would do when we arrived in a new place was figure out what that word for pick up was…bc we didnt want to be led to stadiums and league championships, we wanted to find the informal games. That ended up being the inspiration for the film’s title, “Pelada.” It’s Brazilian Portuguese for pickup, but also literally means naked or bare. Pelada’s double meaning took on another aspect for us. It embodied our search for the most bare form of the game, stripped down to its core.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
5 Questions with … Steve James, director of ‘No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson’
Here, we talk to Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”), director of the documentary “No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson,” a look at one of the most controversial moments in the history of one of the NBA’s most controversial stars. James dissects the felony charge and subsequent trial of the high school aged Iverson, while highlighting the simmering racial tensions in America and challenging pre-conceived notions about the heavily tatted star. (In the spirit of the basketball Mighty Mouse who could always get to the rack, we did this 5 Questions, and-1 style, with six questions.)
“No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson” screens at 11 a.m. March 14 at the Paramount Theatre and 2:45 p.m. March 19 at the G-Tech theater at the Austin Convention Center.
Statesman: Who approached you about doing the ESPN “30 For 30” series and how did you decide to focus on Allen Iverson? What other topics, if any, did you consider?
Steve James: I was first approached by John Sloss, who represents me and was serving as an advisor for the series. My first thought for a story was to do something on Dr. J, Julius Erving, who as a rookie, played for my hometown ABA team, the Virginia Squires. Watching the then-unknown Erving burst on to the scene was a, um, religious experience for me. But Erving’s rookie year was in the 70’s, too early for the series which focuses on stories that have happened in the last 30 years. So my second thought was Allen Iverson and the bowling alley brawl. I wasn’t living in Hampton, VA when it happened, but followed it through my parents and then the media. I realized something very significant was happening at that time, and it had to do with race, and sports, and the legal system. If I wasn’t knee deep in “Hoop Dreams” at the time, I would have gone home and started filming. So, 17 years later, ESPN gave me another chance to make this film.
Where on the continuum between best player inch-for-inch in history and selfish, un-coachable star do you think Allen Iverson falls? Or is there no answer?
Well, as the tag line for our poster says, there’s one Answer, but many opinions. I think what’s so fascinating about AI is that he is different things to different people. His grit and courage and toughness are without question, but in those same qualities, one can sometimes legitimately criticize him for selfishness as a player. I think Iverson is something of a Rashoman-like figure: how you view him says as much about you as it does about him.
What role, if any, did your late father play in your desire to make this movie? Was there a way in which making this film formed a deeper connection between you and him?
I think making the student film I made on him (and that’s featured some in this film) was what really formed a deeper connection. Maybe making this film was a way of resurrecting what he meant to me now that he’s gone. But I was very conscious of not trying to make this film too personal. I had no desire to hijack the story of Iverson and the trial in favor of my own story of growing up. I just hope that the personal parts help inform the viewer about my hometown and what it felt like to grow up there. Making this film certainly made me much more aware of my hometown’s history and the broader community. Playing basketball there in high school, I thought I knew more about the black community of Hampton than I did. This film was a real education for me, which is what I love about making documentaries.
Why do you think so many people refused to be interviewed for the film?
I think people have a hard time talking about race, and since this whole thing was prompted by a racial brawl, many people didn’t want to go back there and talk about what they were feeling or thinking at the time. It seems to me that race is indeed the “elephant in the room” as Pastor Marcellus Harris says in the film, but many of us would rather not talk about it. We worry, if we are white, that we might be perceived as racist if we speak candidly. And perhaps if you are black, you worry that people will accuse you of living in the past when there “really was racism.” And on a practical level, people refused to talk because they didn’t want it to affect how bosses and colleagues and fellow church members would view them. They wanted to put distance between that time and themselves.
Going into the making of the movie, did you have an opinion as to Iverson’s guilt or innocence in the case? If so, how did you remain objective? Do you care to share your thoughts as to his guilt or innocence?
Like most “liberal types”, I first expected — maybe even hoped — that I’d find that Iverson was innocent. During the making of the film, I went back and forth between thinking he was innocent or guilty. The reality we found was, the testimony on both sides was flawed. But what became clearer as we went along was that ultimately the real issue for me wasn’t guilt or innocence. That even if Iverson was guilty, the question is, was he treated fairly by the justice system? In the film, I weigh in on that one… But I’d rather you see the film then just read about it here, to find out what I think. And of course the other real issue was, why did Allen Iverson and this event so divide the community? And that’s really what the film is about.
Do you believe if Iverson and his fellow defendants were white that they would have received the same punishment?
I specifically address this question in the film… But I think part of the reason to watch the film is for the viewer to come to their own conclusions about this question. We really tried to make sure all voices were heard and that Allen’s supporters and detractors were fairly represented before I gave my opinion. And one of the interesting surprises was, though the community divided largely along lines of race over Allen Iverson, it was not exclusively so by any means. Because he also divided the community along lines of class.
“No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson” screens at 11:00 AM on March 14 at the Paramount Theatre and again at the G-Tech theater at the Austin Convention Center on Friday, March 19 at 02:45 PM.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW trailer: ‘MacGruber’
Synopsis of “MacGruber” from SXSW.com: Only one American hero has earned the rank of Green Beret, Navy SEAL and Army Ranger. Just one operative has been awarded 16 purple hearts, 3 Congressional Medals of Honor and 7 presidential medals of bravery. And only one guy is man enough to still sport a mullet. In 2010, Will Forte brings Saturday Night Live’s clueless soldier of fortune to the big screen in the action comedy “MacGruber.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW trailer: ‘Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields’
Synopsis of “Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields” from SXSW.com: Songwriter Stephin Merritt is known as “the Cole Porter of his generation” for his memorable melodies, lovelorn lyrics and wry musical stylings. Shot over a period of 10 years, ‘Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields’ explores his friendship with his longtime bandmate and manager, Claudia Gonson. Through his recording and songwriting process, the film traces a 20-year career that has yielded one of the most engaging bodies of work in the contemporary American songbook.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/9/1
PICKS OF THE WEEK
“Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire” (Lions Gate) and “Up in the Air” (Paramount): Though neither had much chance at the big prize, “Precious” took home Oscars in two categories (Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay) in which both it and “Air” were nominated. Deserved victory or not? Visit the New Releases shelf to be the judge.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Old Dogs” (Disney); “Planet 51” (Sony); “Possession” (2009) (Fox)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Gigante” (Film Movement); “Service” (E1 Entertainment); “The Wedding Song” (Strand); “Paris” (IFC); “The Stoning of Soraya M.” (Lions Gate)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Avon Barksdale Story” (E1 Entertainment); “The Brothers Warner” (Warner Bros.); “Capitalism: A Love Story” (Anchor Bay) “The Heart is a Drum Machine” (Lightyear)
BEST OF TV
“The 39 Steps” (2008) (BBC); “Breaking Bad” Season 2 (Sony); “The Commish” Season 1, “Silk Stalkings” Season 1, “Tenspeed and Brown Shoe” Complete Series,” “Wanted: Dead Or Alive” Season 2 (Mill Creek); “Hannah Montana” Vol. 6” (Walt Disney); “In Plain Sight” Season 2, “Tremors” Complete Series (Universal); “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” Season 1 (Warner Bros.); “Walker, Texas Ranger” Season 7 (Paramount)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Tapeheads” (MGM); “Sonny Chiba Collection” (Mill Creek)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Richard Gere in Lasse Hallström’s “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale” (Sony); Danny Trejo in “Justin Time” (MTI)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: DVDs
SXSW Film updates from us (and you) via Twitter
Before, during and after South by Southwest, follow us on Twitter to get updates aplenty from the Austin360.com team, as well as fellow attendees. Just follow @360sxswmovies, or bookmark this page.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Live Blogging the 82nd Academy Awards
7:02 p.m.: It begins, in its chintz-glitz way. Red carpet congestion, upon which strolls a thousand scripted cliches (“You’ve been through a long journey,” “Just so happy to be here,” “It’s been great,” “It feels amazing”). This is the happiest place on Earth.
7:05 p.m.: Austin’s own Sandra Bullock, stomping the carpet: “It’s the journey … It’s been an amazing ride …” Thanks!
7:07 p.m.: Announcer just informs, “It’s the most famous red carpet in the world.” And, at 82 years old, it’s the oldest and smelliest.
7:12 p.m.: Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman getting lots of “Invictus” love on the carpet. The only love they’ll get all night. Sorry.
7:17 p.m.: Ten best picture nominees. All of them are “wonderful,” gushes Cameron Diaz. Unlike awesomely honest “Up in the Air” nominee Vera Farmiga, who earlier told E! that she’s totally rooting for “Hurt Locker” and Kathryn Bigelow over her own film and director, Jason Reitman.
7:21 p.m.: Austin alert — don’t forget the awards’ local ties: Bullock for best actress, UT alum Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” for best animated film, Ryan Bingham, co-writer of best original song “The Weary Kind.”
7:25 p.m.: Did the carpet lady actually just say that Taylor Lautner played the most famous werewolf in movie history? Think about that, for like two seconds.
7:30 p.m. Best actor/actress nominees all stand on stage like animatronic pals (except Gabourey Sidibe, who did a sassy shake). Awkward. I believe I will remain commentless about this musical number with Neil Patrick Harris and the (?) Rockettes.
7:34 p.m. I retract that. That was horrible.
7:36 p.m. Can this be happening? Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin — fine comics of past and present belovedness — are TANKING? Where’s Letterman?
7:40 p.m.: Cringe, cringe, cringe …
7:45 p.m.: Finally, an award bestowed. Christoph Waltz snatches his much-deserved best supporting actor trophy for “Inglourious Basterds,” in which he made a Nazi even slithier and nastier than ever imagined, and did it with sinister glee. This is his 250th award for the role. Acceptance speech is laden with ship and ocean metaphors. He has a good beard.
7:55 p.m.: It’s the night of polite chuckles. And then: Cameron Diaz flubs it big time. She’s putting a hit on the Teleprompter dude. Now: Nominated animated characters talking about being nominated. Ill-conceived at best. (And UP will win it, easily.)
7:59 p.m.: Yup, it’s “Up.” Even though Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was funnier, smarter, fresher. Every year, Pixar owns this place.
8:03 p.m.: Former Austinite Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett win best original song for the plaintive “The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart.” Bingham in his acceptance speech says he loves his wife “more than rainbows.” And he gives a salute to late, great Austinite Stephen Bruton.
8:14 p.m.: Showing bits of the actual script text put next to the movie scenes playing out — love it. A peek behind the mysterious artistry.
8:16 p.m.: Quentin Tarantino upset! Beaten by Mark Boal for “The Hurt Locker” for best original screenplay. We are happy.
8:19 p.m.: Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick pay tribute to the late John Hughes, who made high school slightly more tolerable. Onto the montage, which is like sweet time travel.
T Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham get their Oscars for best original song “The Weary Kind”
8:36 p.m.: “The New Tenants” wins best live-action short. My least favorite of the five. It’s kind of shockingly bad.
8:38 p.m.: We like Ben Stiller, but his “Avatar” get-up gag is a groaner. Worse, you are wasting time! Move, show. Move.
8:49 p.m.: Geoffrey Fletcher is breathless with emotion as he accepts the best adapted screenplay Oscar for “Precious.” The win is a small surprise, as it won no guild awards.
8:55 p.m. Everyone talking about how fitting it is that Jeff Bridges, the “Dude,” introduced the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man.” He not only was in their “Lebowski,” but he’s playing Marshal Rooster Cogburn in the Coens’ remake of the 1969 western “True Grit,” shooting this spring in the Austin area.
8:59 p.m.: Mo’nique takes best supporting actress for “Precious.” This was preordained. She thanks Hattie McDaniel, first black performer to win an Oscar, for “Gone with the Wind.”
9:07 p.m.: “Avatar” snatches best art direction with far too much ease. … Only 2 hours, 25 minutes left.
9:11 p.m.: Austin-born fashion-designer-turned-filmmaker Tom Ford (“A Single Man”) co-presents best costume design award, which goes to Sandy Powell for “The Young Victoria,” a, uh, costume drama. It’s Powell’s THIRD Oscar.
9:20 p.m.: And why do we need a tribute to horror movies? Is it to showcase those nubile “Twilight” stars who introduced the montage? Or is it to keep us tuned in through late Monday?
9:27 p.m.: “The Hurt Locker” wins both sound editing and sound mixing. “Locker” momentum gathering.
9:35 p.m.: Sandra Bullock, glittering like a disco ball, presenting outstanding achievement in cinematography. “Avatar” grabs it. Bullock, a wee gaunt with flowing dark hair, looks vaguely Na’vian.
9:38 p.m.: Roger Ebert just Tweeted: “I don’t remember when i’ve seen a less exciting Oscarcast.” Agreed. And I’ve been watching at least since “Annie Hall” won best picture in ‘78.
9:51 p.m.: Best original score goes to “Up.” Take that, new-agey, la la la “Avatar” music.
9:54 p.m.: “Avatar” wins biggest no-brainer — best visual effects.
10:03 p.m. The important, very upsetting “The Cove,” about dolphin massacres in Japan, wins best documentary feature.
10:07 p.m.: The brilliant editing in “The Hurt Locker” wins the Oscar. “Avatar” losing heat?
10:15 p.m.: How bonkers is Tarantino? (Answer: muy.) He and Pedro Almodovar present best foreign language film. The irony: Almodovar’s acclaimed “Broken Embraces” isn’t up for the award. Wonder if he’s sour.
10:16 p.m.: An upset? Certainly a surprise: Argentina’s “The Secret in Their Eyes” wins best foreign film. “A Prophet” was ROBBED.
10:21 p.m.: A Tweet from IMDB.com: “A groan went up from the international press crew when ‘Secreto’ won.” Like we said …
10:27 p.m.: Jeff Bridges is about to win best actor for “Crazy Heart.” You can cut the non-anticipation with a knife.
10:33 p.m. Jeff Bridges just said “Woo!” and “groovy” in the same breath. For that, he earns the Oscar.
10:36 p.m.: If Bridges says “man” one more time, they take the award away from him.
10:54 p.m.: Austin’s Sandra Bullock graciously accepts the best actress award. Now, she’s weeping about how good her mama was. Nice.
10:55 p.m.: First woman to win the best directing Academy Award — Kathryn Bigelow gets it for “The Hurt Locker.” This is great. Beats out her ex-husband James Cameron while she’s at it.
10:58 p.m.: “The Hurt Locker — best picture. It wins six Oscars tonight. We picked it, we hoped it. (Tom Hanks didn’t even wind up his announcement of the winner. He just came out and blurted it. He, too, was watching the clock?)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Oscars 2010
IFC to offer SXSW films On Demand
Can’t make it to Austin to enjoy all of the beautiful weather and scads of films? Or maybe you’ve got some scheduling conflicts, with two movies you want to see playing at the same time? IFC has you covered (at least partially). In conjunction with the start of the festival, IFC will be presenting On Demand the following SXSW movies: Emmett Malloy’s documentary “The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights,” Austinite Bryan Poyser’s Sundance hit “Lovers of Hate,” and Shane Meadows’ comedy “Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Review: Kevin Smith at the Long Center
Yes, he talked about flying while fat. A lot. A whole lot.
Go see writer-director-author-comedian Kevin Smith (“Clerks,” “Chasing Amy” and ugh, “Cop Out”) do one of his in-person gigs, and you’ll see somebody who loves to talk. Dude is so garrulous he makes Quentin Tarantino seems like Calvin Coolidge. A University of Wyoming appearance Smith did a few years ago similar to his gig at the Long Center Thursday night lasted for five hours. Five. Hours.
I lasted three hours Thursday, but Smith got up early Friday morning to do a local radio gig. He still wasn’t done talking, apparently. And if you like the guy, you’re OK with that. For the record, I like the guy. I think he’s funnier than a lot of his movies. I share some of his geeky passions, as a lot of people in the Michael and Susan Dell Hall apparently did. “An Evening with Kevin Smith” was ostensibly a Q&A, but the A’s were sometimes 20 minutes long, rambling, digressive, profane stream-of-consciousness strolls through a very creative man’s mind. An answer to a single question could wander from “Twilight” to Comic-Con, Mitch Albom, George Carlin, Cannes, writing Batman for DC Comics and adapting the Green Hornet for film.
He’s approachable, he’s candid (to a fault), he’s indefatigable, he’s unpretentious, he’s comfortable with who he is. It felt like going to dinner with the guy. But, to paraphrase something my beloved said, I bet his wife is glad when he goes somewhere else to talk. You get the feeling you could ask the guy to run to the store to get some milk and his reply might last the better part of an hour.
And yes, he talked — at length, of course — about recently being booted off a Southwest Airlines (“the Greyhound of the sky”) flight for being too fat. But you knew he would.
Updated Sunday evening. Thanks for the cxes.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment
5 Questions With … Anthony Burns, director of ‘Skateland’
Using a five-question format, we’re interviewing South by Southwest filmmakers about their movies before and during the festival, which runs March 12 through 20.
We e-chatted with Anthony Burns, director and co-writer of “Skateland,” a drama about teens coming-of-age in East Texas in the ‘80s. Burns attended Texas State University and wrote “Skateland” in Austin, though the film was shot in Shreveport, La. The movie world-premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year and co-stars Shiloh Fernandez (“Deadgirl”) and Ashley Greene (“Twilight”).
“Skateland” screens at 9:30 p.m. March 16 at the Paramount Theatre.
- What are your ties to Austin? Why, after moving to Los Angeles, did you choose to write “Skateland” here?
Anthony Burns: Initially, we wanted to shoot in Texas, around Austin, but aesthetically it didn’t work for our story so we ended up in Shreveport. However, I had adapted a book years before and had written the entire script at Spider House Cafe. I found it to have the perfect vibe to be creative and write— just enough noise, quiet and comfort to keep you focused. The co-writers, Brandon Freeman and Heath Freeman, went to the University of Texas and I practically grew up here, so it sounded like a good time to get back (at least for the first draft).
- As a nostalgic coming-of-age story set in a small Texas town, your movie’s been compared to “The Last Picture Show” and even “Adventureland.” Are these fair comparisons?
I don’t mind comparisons as long as it’s completely obvious or the person making the statement takes time to explain them. When it comes to “The Last Picture Show” our film’s very similar in place and story, albeit 30 years of separation. Besides the word “land” and having the same decade as a backdrop there’s not much to compare between our film and “Adventureland.”
- What other films influenced how you told your story? Did Austin classic “Dazed and Confused” have any effect?
“Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Say Anything” all captured the zeitgeist in their storytelling and I feel that’s a major factor why they’re continually celebrated. That’s what we set out to do and I believe we accomplished it. I read a review that said what “American Graffiti” did for the ‘60s and what “Dazed and Confused” did for the ‘70s, “Skateland” does for the ‘80s.
- Explain how you achieved the film’s period textures through photography, fashion, art direction, music.
We spent a lot of time researching ‘70s photographers to create the color palette and the entire production team worked off those swatches to design our wardrobe and sets. We wanted the textures and the over all appearance of the film to be harmonious, so it was important that everyone was working with the same tones. MTV’s pop appeal was on the rise during 1983 and the music being created early on in the decade was so incredible that we knew from conception our soundtrack would be a key element. We did decide on some less obvious choices, too, like the Buzzcocks and Lipps Inc., but of course bands like New Order, Blondie, Flock of Seagulls and many more made the final cut.
- What does the title skate rink represent to you and the characters?
The rink represents familiarity and comfort. We decided to use the rink as one of many tools to motivate the main character to start making decisions, to grow up basically. Skateland is closing and, like much of his life, times are changing and you have to move with it or get swallowed up.
More about “Skateland” HERE.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW trailer: ‘Beijing Taxi’
Synopsis of ‘Beijing Taxi’ from SXSW Film site: BEIJING TAXI is a feature length documentary that vividly portrays Beijing undergoing a profound transformational arch. Through a humanistic lens, the intimate lives of three taxi drivers connect a morphing city confronted with modern issues and changing values. With diverse imagery combined with a contemporary score rich in atmosphere, we experience a visceral sense of the common citizensÕ persistent attempts to grasp the elusive. Candid and perceptive in its filming approach and highly cinematic in style, BEIJING TAXI takes us on a lyrical journey into fragments of a society riding the bumpy roads to modernization. Though the destination is unknown, they continue to forge ahead.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
SXWS trailer: ‘For Once in My Life’
Synopsis of “For Once in My Life” from SXSW Film site: For Once In My Life takes a journey with the members of the Spirit of Goodwill. This unique assembly of musicians, all with a wide range of mental and physical challenges share the common factors of friendship and a dream to make music. The band of 28, have varying degrees of disabilities from Autism, Downs, blindness and other physical and developmental challenges. Music participation has proven to be a necessity as they balance unyielding struggles to overcome each day, much less a live performance. Through inspiring concert footage and intimate behind-the-scenes glimpses into the band member’s lives, the film paints a heart-warming portrait of what people with disabilities can do when given a chance. They offer inspiration and the message of music’s nurturing powers for all people.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
SXSW trailer: ‘Amer’
Synopsis of “Amer” from the SXSW Film site: Three key moments, all of them sensual, define Ana’s life. Her carnal search sways between reality and colored fantasies becoming more and more oppressive. A black laced hand prevents her from screaming. The wind lifts her dress and caresses her thighs. A razor blade brushes her skin, where will this chaotic and carnivorous journey leave her?
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
First look at ‘Predators’ during SXSW
SXSW is always game for a few good surprises, and with the festival less than 10 days away, we have early word on one of those little gifts.
Producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimród Antal will be offering a “First Look” at their film “Predators.” The movie will screen at 10:15 p.m. on Friday, March 12 at Alamo Ritz, with doors at 9:45 p.m.. Now for the bad news for some of you, the special event will only be open to badge-holders, and, as always, will be on a first-come first-served basis. A Q&A with the audience will be held following the screening.
“My director, Nimród Antal, and I are excited to bring this first look at Predators to Austin’s SXSW Film Festival, an event that’s become vital to the filmmaking scene,” Rodriguez said. “Austin is my home and I’m proud that Predators was conceived and filmed here.”
“Predators,” based on characters from the original 1987 “Predator,” stars Adrien Brody as Royce, a mercenary who reluctantly leads a group of elite warriors who come to realize they’ve been brought together on an alien planet… as prey. In addition to Brody, the film stars Topher Grace, Alice Braga, and Laurence Fishburne. Co-starring are Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, Oleg Taktarov and Mahershalalhashbaz Ali.”
The fest has also announced that it will showcase the world premiere of Géla Babluani’s “13,” — starring Jason Statham and Mickey Rourke — which will take place at midnight on Saturday, March 13 at the Alamo South Lamar Theater, taking the TBA slot in the SX Fantastic section.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
For director Poyser, a bittersweet week
In a one-week stretch, Bryan Poyser got one of the best phone calls he’s ever received and one of the worst.
His phone rang on the Monday before Thanksgiving. The Austin filmmaker was at work at the Austin Film Society, where he is the group’s director of artist services. He was typing the final few words in a blog entry, a sentence, he says, that read something to the effect of “I don’t want to say anything about what I’ve really been thinking about the past couple of weeks, other than to say that I wish I didn’t want it so much.”
Phone rings.
“I was just about to post the blog when I get this call from California from a number I didn’t recognize,” Poyser says. “It was Trevor Groth, head programmer of the Sundance Film Festival, telling me they really loved my movie and that they want to play it in the competition.”
This was exactly what he wanted so much.
“I was running around the office as he was talking to me and I wasn’t really hearing what he was saying and I was pointing at my phone to my co-workers, whispering ‘It’s Sundance!’”
Poyser’s low-budget dark comedy “Lovers of Hate” had beat out more than 1,000 feature films to land in Sundance’s prestigious Dramatic Competition.
During the festival, Jan. 21-31 in Park City, Utah, the movie will vie with 15 other titles, some starring bona fide stars Mary-Louise Parker, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, James Gandolfini and Laura Linney. Poyser’s movie stars relative unknowns: Austin actors Chris Doubek and Heather Kafka and New Yorker Alex Karpovsky (who was last seen in Andrew Bujalski’s Austin-made “Beeswax,” as was Poyser in a small part).
It was one of those nirvana moments that burgeoning filmmakers twist themselves up for, a godsend as coveted as it is elusive. Sundance’s tradition of introducing fresh independent cinema to world audiences - “Slacker,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” this year’s “Precious” - is legend.
A week after that phone call, almost to the hour, Poyser was again finishing up work at the Austin Film Society. Phone rings. It’s his sister, who informs him that their father has died of a heart attack.
The double-whammy of news, an irreconcilable knot of jubilation and sorrow, has thrown things into perspective. “It hasn’t knocked the wind out of my sails, but it’s made me recognize what an amazing opportunity (the festival) is for me and everyone involved,” Poyser says. “Still, my life changed a hell of a lot when I got the call about my dad. I’m going to be dealing with not having him around for the rest of my life. It would have been great for him to see this.”
In its way, this is a story about death and rebirth. “Lovers of Hate” marks Poyser’s return to making a feature film to his personal specifications. He has made several shorts and two features, 2004’s “Dear Pillow” and 2006’s “The Cassidy Kids,” which he produced and co-wrote. (“Cassidy Kids” was directed by Poyser’s former collaborator Jacob Vaughan.)
While “Dear Pillow” emerged how he envisioned it, earning festival awards and an Independent Spirit Award nomination, “Cassidy Kids” was a demonstration of how the vaunted collaborative nature of filmmaking can turn to sour compromise. Poyser and Vaughan joined forces with the University of Texas Film Institute and the now-defunct Burnt Orange Productions to make “Cassidy Kids,” but, Poyser says, “There were too many cooks in the kitchen. ” It didn’t go very well.”
After the $4,000 “Dear Pillow,” which Vaughan shot and edited, Poyser and Vaughan leaped at the chance to make a half-million-dollar feature with Burnt Orange. They soon realized part of their job description was to serve the ideas of other people, not necessarily their own.
Though the movie premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival and aired on the Independent Film Channel, “It didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to,” Poyser says over coffee. “I was trying to please all these different constituencies, changing the script to something I thought other people would like.”
Poyser was left mulling if he even wanted to keep making movies. He felt chastened. “The effort required is so high and the potential payback is so low,” he says.
If he did, he was certain that he would do it on a smaller scale. He shot a couple of short films and wrote a feature script.
But it was while he was at Sundance in 2008 that he struck upon the idea for “Lovers of Hate.” In Park City, he was staying in a gigantic four-story, six-bedroom chateau-style home co-owned by Deborah Green, an Austin Film Society board member. He had already wanted to write a script as a vehicle for friend Chris Doubek, but now he had a setting: this massive edifice that could serve as a character.
“I liked the idea that someone could hide in there without anybody else inside knowing it. It’s so big,” Poyser says.
He used the conceit to develop a grimly comic story about a warped love triangle between two brothers and the estranged wife of one of them.
The brother played by Doubek hides in the house only to witness his brother (Karpovsky) moving in on Doubek’s willing wife (Kafka). The movie explores the psychological dynamics of watching the one you love in the arms of another who happens to be your brother.
Doubek’s character “decides to get his revenge by sabotaging the couple from the shadows, playing little tricks on them, trying to split them apart,” Poyser says. Elements of bedroom farce mingle with “uncomfortable humor.”
With a five-figure budget, “Lovers of Hate” was shot on high-definition video by Austin cinematographer David Lowery in 19 days in Park City and Austin. (It’s produced by Megan Gilbride, and its executive producers include filmmakers Mark and Jay Duplass.)
“I wanted to make sure that the logistical challenges were manageable enough that they wouldn’t keep me from making the movie I wanted,” Poyser, 34, says.
“I thought that if I’m going to go through all the effort, time and expense of making a tiny-budget movie, it better be something that I give 110 percent to and that I don’t shoot myself in the foot by trying to do something too ambitious.”
About the felicity of making a film in Sundance’s hometown only to have it accepted to the festival the following year?
“Of course we hoped that it might happen,” Poyser says. “Hey, here we are in Park City, shooting a movie. Wouldn’t it be awesome if one year later we could come back with the film in the festival? But I really tried to keep my expectations very low and just concentrate on the work and making it good.”
He’s still keeping his expectations low. Poyser, who graduated with a film degree from the University of Texas, realizes that film distribution has contracted in recent years and that the chance of getting one’s film into theaters is slighter than ever.
“We knew we weren’t making a movie that we’d be selling to Miramax for a million bucks,” he says. “We’re willing to recoup its cost by selling DVDs one at a time at film festivals.”
The hard facts of the film business and the hard blow of losing a family member have placed Poyser in a contemplative mood that you might call humbly realistic.
“It’s been such a weird time for me. It’s all made me grateful for this and not to expect everything to change after this moment. And to recognize that we got lucky.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
Lessons from the set:
Originally published in the Statesman on August 8, 2008.It’s a sticky summer day on a film set in East Austin. On movie shoots, time is everything, haste mandatory.
“Go, go, right now!” director Mike Dolan shouts to a small group of young actors on a covered outdoor basketball court.
“Rolling!” a crew member barks.
Nature has other plans. A hissy, rattling thrum fills the air, growing louder and more piercing by the second.
“Stop the cicadas!” someone hollers.
A guy dashes to the tree from which the offending bugs are performing their noxious chorale. He hurls twigs and stones into the branches.
The sound promptly stops.
“He’s amazing,” production designer Yvonne Boudreaux quips, watching the heroic cicada silencer.
It’s always something. Just moments before, two gardeners on a John Deere casually spluttered through the scene. “What are they doing here?” someone wondered.
Making a movie is a drill in taming mayhem, especially on location. Especially here, in Edward Rendon Park on Chicon Street, where the cast and crew of the film “Dance With the One” are a mostly untested lot, coming together with raw talent and adrenalized dedication to produce a full-length feature for the University of Texas Film Institute.
In a way, it’s a glorified student film. Save for two crew members, some of the actors and the film’s producers - Tom Schatz, UT film professor and UTFI executive producer; Alex Smith, UT film lecturer and UTFI creative director; and Bryan Sebok, UT film lecturer and UTFI academic coordinator - the 40 or so people working on “Dance With the One” are UT undergraduate and graduate students from several departments, as well as institute alums. Only some on the production are earning paychecks. Students receive course credit.
More than a sizable crew and a healthy 22-day shooting schedule sets the production apart from a scruffy DIY student movie. “Dance With the One” boasts a professionally vetted script, a cherry-picked top-line crew - director, cinematographer, editor and others - and a $200,000 budget funded through UT, grants and outside donors.
“There’s no way you can do a movie like this and not spend a couple hundred thousand dollars in hard money,” Schatz says. “This is a movie that would cost at least three quarters of a million dollars in the real world.”
Even with all that, the movie is a nonprofit venture. It doesn’t have to sell, no one has to see it. A theatrical run would be great, but it’s not compulsory. As the institute’s Sebok puts it, “There’s no commercial imperative on this.”
The point is in the practice: exposing students to hands-on, real-scale filmmaking. Smith and his brother Andrew went through the Sundance Institute Writer’s Workshop with their 2002 drama “The Slaughter Rule,” a small indie hit starring Ryan Gosling. He’s partly modeled the UT institute on that celebrated program, where “students are making a feature film that they’ve created in a professional manner.”
“The film school at UT is fantastic at what it does, but sometimes the students get out without the ability to get hired on a real film, because they’ve been focused on creating their own personal work,” Smith says. “None of that will help them get work on a feature in the real world. UTFI is a way to bridge the gap between film school and the professional film world. So it’s a hybrid of a student film and a professional film. It’s student-made, but without the pressures of the marketplace.”
The institute is what remains of the for-profit partnership between UTFI and Burnt Orange Productions, which, from 2003 to 2007, made four feature films, including “The Quiet” and “Homo Erectus,” on a for-profit basis. But Burnt Orange, which raised millions for the films, went on indefinite hiatus last year, a victim of rough times in an independent movie market that’s witnessed the death of numerous indie outlets, such as Warner Independent and, just last month, Netflix’s Red Envelope Entertainment.
Theatrical releases are ceding to new media models such as direct-to-DVD sales and Internet downloads. The old business model, which Burnt Orange followed, doesn’t work anymore, Schatz says.
For the institute’s feature, “there’s no reason to do theatrical,” he says. “It’s a loss-leader for the big guys, but you can’t do a loss-leader this low.”
Written by Smith Henderson, a graduate of UT’s Michener Center for Writers, and his writing partner Jon Marc Smith, “Dance With the One” is an Austin-set family melodrama mixed with piquant doses of young love and crime thrills. Gabriel Luna, a theater student at St. Edward’s University, plays Nate, a young man wishing to leave his troubled home life with his girlfriend Nikki, played by UT graduate theater student Xotchil Romero. After their mother died of a drug overdose, Nate is helping to raise his teenaged brother alongside their wastrel, party-addled father. When Nate agrees to hide a hefty stash of drugs for a shady player, the story shifts to dark shades of noir.
Henderson and Smith based the screenplay on a novel by Smith. Henderson worked closely with author and Michener professor Stephen Harrigan to prepare the script for the institute. From there it was intensely vetted, line by line, for six weeks by Alex Smith, Dolan, Schatz, several industry pros and other UT instructors.
“We went on a crash course in how to get a script from a bad shape into something they could shoot today,” Henderson says.
Choosing a shootable screenplay is part of the two-year, five-semester UTFI process. During the semester-long screenplay workshop, six to eight scripts are developed by their authors with professional guidance. Several considerations go into choosing the final work, budget and practicality being paramount.
Once Dolan was chosen as the film’s director - itself a rigorous vetting process - he helped rework the script.
“Our challenge is to make the script we’re given as good as it can be,” Dolan says. “(Henderson and Smith) wrote a film that I thought was fractured between a family drama and a crime-thriller in the second half. And I said the only way it would work is if those parts were blended, which is hard to do.”
Dolan is a former actor who played major roles in the 1980s movies “Light of Day” (directed by Paul Schrader), “Hamburger Hill” (John Irvin), “Biloxi Blues” ( Mike Nichols), as well as episodes of television’s “I’ll Fly Away” directed by David Chase. He also wrote and directed the short film “Arrow Shot,” which enjoyed spectacular festival and cable runs.
His experience with actors and directors and an impressive understanding of the story in “Dance With the One” earned him the directing chair.
“This is an extraordinary learning experience,” he says. “I’m learning so much and I’m giving it everything I possibly have. I have certain skills, but I’m aware of others I don’t have.”
Excitement whirls across the film set in East Austin. People look happy and glad to be there, despite the blistering heat. A huddle of crew-mates keeps eyes peeled on a small video monitor as skinny, shirtless performers shoot hoops during a scene. Perched on bleachers nearby, Schatz glances at the script as the scene plays out. Someone yells, “Cut!”
Later, like a proud uncle, Schatz points out the film’s director of photography, UT graduate student Marcel Rodriguez, who happens to be the brother of Robert Rodriguez. (Speaking of Rodriguez, the two Sony high-definition cameras used on the movie were donated by the filmmaker’s Troublemaker Studios - the same cameras he used to shoot “Sin City.”)
“Every time I go to the set it’s like a dream realized,” Alex Smith says. “I love the energy there. A lot of the crew were students of mine over the years, so it’s really rewarding to see them working together on a real feature film with a real schedule and real call sheets and a caterer.”
From shooting and editing to scoring and marketing - the extent of the UTFI program - “Dance With the One” is at least a year from completion. After that, producers say, it will embark on the festival circuit, aiming for distribution, be it theatrical, DVD or download. Hopes are high.
“This better be a good little movie,” Schatz says. “And I expect it will be.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
With ‘Dance With the One,’ a step toward mainstream
The independent film scene is awash in grainy, small-scale personal movies tracing the romantic foibles of the post-collegiate crowd and the existential crises of the disaffected. From “The Puffy Chair” and “Beeswax” to “Frownland” and “Goliath,” they are microbudget movies featuring nonprofessional actors and a semi-improvised approach whose antecedents include the do-it-yourself films of John Cassavetes and Richard Linklater’s “Slacker.”
The modest success of these films - they’re more culturally influential than lucrative - has shaped what the educated viewer looks for at indie-oriented film festivals. They seek the offbeat and unpredictable, almost anything that flouts Hollywood molds, even at the expense of conventional visual “beauty.”
Despite this climate, the producers of the low-budget crime thriller “Dance With the One” aspired to make a more traditional picture, a straight-faced genre film with love, drugs and guns set in contemporary Austin. Shot in the summer of 2008 and now being submitted to film festivals, “Dance With the One” is the first feature by the University of Texas Film Institute since ending its four-year partnership with the now-defunct Burnt Orange Productions. (As partners, the institute and Burnt Orange produced such films as “The Quiet” and “The Cassidy Kids.”)
“We didn’t want to make a mumblecore movie,” director Mike Dolan says. “We wanted to make a movie that looked like a movie, with production design and lighting and the works. I wanted to make a movie that I’d like to see.”
Dolan, who as an actor co-starred in the feature films “Hamburger Hill” and “Biloxi Blues,” claims the neo-noirs “At Close Range” and “One False Move” and the unvarnished realism of the Ken Loach oeuvre as influences - “low-budget, hard-driving narratives that have a truthful and emotional heart … (and) a stripped-down, muscular vibe,” he says.
“Dance With the One” was rejected by this year’s Sundance Film Festival, though the festival programmer noted that the film’s “execution was exceptional.” Alex Smith, the institute’s creative director, surmises the movie was turned down “because it is more ‘earnest’ than ‘hip.’” The filmmakers are awaiting word if it will play South by Southwest in March.
Based on a script by Smith Henderson, a graduate of UT’s Michener Center for Writers, and his writing partner Jon Marc Smith, “Dance With the One” stars a mix of non-professional (UT graduate theater student Xotchil Romero ) and professional actors (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson of “Friday Night Lights”) to tell the story of a young man (piercing newcomer Gabriel Luna) whose dreams of escape from a troubled family are violently complicated by drugs and thugs. The twang-tinged score was produced by Austin musicians Bukka Allen and Brian Standefer, and the soundtrack features songs by the Black Angels, the Damnations, Doug Sahm and Roky Erickson.
“The story has a ton of heart and true Austin grit,” Smith says. “It has outstanding Austin talent, in front of the camera and behind it. I’m particularly proud that every key creative choice was made by a UT student or recent alum - from script to direction to cinematography to editing to the score to casting - yet never once does it feel like a student film.”
On the set of the film in the summer of 2008, Smith explained to me, “UTFI is a way to bridge the gap between film school and the professional film world. So this is a hybrid of a student film and a professional film. It’s student-made, but without the pressures of the marketplace.”
“Dance With the One” was shot in 22 days with a roughly $200,000 budget funded by UT, grants and outside donors, with no promise to make the money back. Some on the production were paid; students received course credit. The producers - Smith, the institute’s executive producer Tom Schatz and the institute’s academic coordinator Bryan Sebok - say the film won’t get a theatrical release, opting for new distribution models of cable, video on demand and DVD.
The institute’s program is on hiatus until it finds money to finance another feature, Schatz says. They are considering several “promising” scripts, says Smith, including a “rock ‘n’ roll horror comedy musical and a modern, urban Bonnie and Clyde dark comedy.”
While partnered with the for-profit fund-raising arm Burnt Orange Productions, the institute produced four features, none of which found much commercial traction, contributing to the demise of Burnt Orange. Only “The Quiet” was theatrically released. Met with scathing reviews, it made but a third of its estimated $900,000 budget. “The Cassidy Kids,” “Homo Erectus” and “Elvis and Anabelle” were never released theatrically and have effectively vanished into VOD and DVD obscurity.
The filmmakers have higher commercial hopes for “Dance With the One.”
“It doesn’t pull its punches, yet it’s very moving and never over-the-top,” Smith says. And the fact that it lacks the trappings of the contempo indie “will make it a film with a long shelf life.”
“Maybe the programmers at some festivals aren’t going to like it,” Dolan says. But he’s sure the typical moviegoer will.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
A Coffee With … Geoff Marslett
This story originally appeared in the Statesman on September 3, 2009.
Geoff Marslett, an Austin filmmaker and film lecturer at the University of Texas, knows how hard it is to make a movie, and he wants his students to know, too. That’s why, on the first page of the syllabus for his fall class, Marslett puts down a litany of reasons one shouldn’t try to make films, a short dissertation of discouragement taken from personal experience.
“Filmmaking is frustrating because you’re never going to be able to make the film you thought you were going to make,” Marslett explains over a frozen limeade at Dominican Joe Coffee Shop. “It’s fraught with disappointment and you’re going to put all your money and hard work into it and it’s not going to work out as you hoped.
“So Page One of my syllabus is reasons why they should just drop the class,” he says with a laugh.
But if students flip to the second page, they will discover glimmers of hope. There, Marslett details why he loves making films and why it’s an art worth pursuing.
“While there’s a lot of terrible stuff in trying to make a film, you have to remember why you’re doing it in spite of that,” he says.
Right now, Marslett knows why he’s doing it. He’s close to wrapping his first feature-length film, the animated science-fiction romantic-comedy “Mars,” and in July he was declared one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine.
“This year’s crop of 25 New Faces consists, as always, of new film artists whose work we feel passionately about but also, in this year of change, people who are redefining the notion of a career in film,” wrote the magazine’s editor Scott Macaulay.
Marslett isn’t sure how he was selected as one of the 25, but he says it shows that doing what you love and doing it well has it rewards.
“Any kind of honor feels great, because you go through long periods of misery,” Marslett, 35, says. “I’m loving my film (‘Mars’), but there are still those days when you wonder why you even thought you’d try to make it. Then you get something like this and you think that someone might actually appreciate your movie.”
Since the article appeared, film festivals and agents have contacted Marslett, asking when they can see “Mars.” Marslett doesn’t have an answer quite yet, but he says he’s hoping to get the completed film into the Sundance and South by Southwest film festivals early next year.
A native of Garland (“It’s where LeAnn Rimes is from, not much else,” he laughs), Marslett can be brutally frank about filmmaking, but he’s far from dour. He wears a perma-smile and exudes joviality and optimism. He’s boyish and lanky, with a luxuriant Wolverine beard. Marslett wrote “Mars” in the summer of 2007 and shot it entirely at Austin Studios that September. He describes it as a sci-fi adventure with heart. “It’s a romantic comedy about astronauts falling in love on their way to Mars. I wanted to show what it would be like to be locked in a little metal box and spending those nine months with just two other people.” Marslett and his crew shot with actors, including Mark Duplass, Paul Gordon and Zoe Simpson, in an all-green screen environment that required the performers to imagine everything around them. They would have to gaze out of non-existent windows at a non-existent Mars, for example, all of it a blazing neon green.
“Afterward, you really hate the color green. It burns into your retinas,” Marslett says. Marslett and nine other animators then took the footage and painted over it with 3-D computer animation - similar to the process Richard Linklater used in “Waking Life” and Robert Rodriguez used in “Sin City” - to create environments and landscapes.
“When I first wrote ‘Mars’ I thought I’d try to make something really cheap and fast and easy,” recalls Marslett, who has made several short films, including the acclaimed “Monkey vs. Robot.” “For some reason I wrote a sci-fi movie about flying to Mars. That’s not cheap! What was I thinking? Suddenly it involved space ships and robots and aliens.”
After flirting with film studies at the University of Southern California, Marslett earned twin bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and mathematics from St. John’s College in New Mexico. He earned a master’s degree in film at UT and started teaching there in 2001. All his studies came into play making “Mars.”
“In a lot of my work, from ‘Monkey vs. Robot’ onward, I deal with that conflict between science and philosophy and what we do as people,” he says. “What is love? What is life? are some of the questions in the movie. And how love and life are reflected in relationships between anything.”
It’s been an arduous journey from shooting two years ago to applying the final touches in post-production, all for less than $1 million. Marslett, who is used to making short films, didn’t expect making a 90-minute feature to be as demanding as it’s been, and he says he might not have written that first chilling page of his class syllabus if he hadn’t made “Mars.” Yet it’s been worth it. “There’s a huge amount of satisfaction,” Marslett says. “I’m so happy I made this film. Finishing a movie like this makes you not want to give up.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Happily, horror brings Aussie, Brit to town to shoot Alamo Drafthouse owner helps cast, crew settle in
Noah Taylor has been practicing his redneck.
In the film he just wrapped in Austin, the violent small-budget thriller “Red, White and Blue,” the Australian actor plays “a bit of a mystery man and backwoods hick,” Taylor says. “I mean, look at my teeth!” Taylor flashes a rack of crooked, tobacco-stained choppers and issues a self-deprecating laugh.
Later in the day he’s going to shop at Allens Boots on South Congress Avenue for some Western-style threads. Meanwhile, to efface his Aussie accent and locate some kind of American South drawl, Taylor says, “I’ve been on a steady diet of ‘King of the Hill,’ Alex Jones and Tommy Lee Jones.”
Taylor, known for his roles in “Shine” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” was handpicked by British director Simon Rumley, who’s been a fan of Taylor’s since seeing him in the Australian films “The Year My Voice Broke” and “Flirting.”
” Noah’s proved himself to be an incredibly versatile and entertaining actor, at times quite dark and quirky and at other times very sweet and tender,” Rumley says. “His performance here is incredibly strong.”
“It’s probably the project I’ve enjoyed most in the last 15 years, and it’s one of the best scripts I’ve read in years and years,” says Taylor, whose voice work as the March Hare is featured in Tim Burton’s upcoming “Alice in Wonderland.”
“A lot of low-budget stuff is a bit dodgy, but I watched (Rumley’s previous feature) ‘The Living and the Dead’ and was blown away by it and immediately wanted to work with Simon.”
Although its writer-director is British and its leading man is Australian (though Taylor lives in England), “Red, White and Blue” is an Austin affair through and through. It’s the first movie Tim League - the co-founder of the Alamo Drafthouse theaters and co-founder of Fantastic Fest - has had a hand in making. League is the film’s executive producer, and while this sounds like a plunge into feature filmmaking, a natural extension of his free-floating movie love, League is quick to caution that production will not become a habit.
“It will not. And people shouldn’t send me blind e-mails, which I’ve already started to receive, pitching multimillion-dollar film productions. I’m not going to do it,” League says. “I don’t have any plans of getting into the industry. It was fun, but I’ve got the day job and all.”
He decided to try production this time because he’s friends with ÂRumley, who wrote the script expressly for an Austin shoot. League and Rumley met in 2006 at Fantastic Fest, where Rumley’s horror film “The Living and the Dead” swept the festival, winning five major awards, including best film and best director. Since then, the two have run into each other at various film festivals around the world.
About a year ago Rumley told League he was setting his next film in Austin. Six months later he sent League a finished script. League read it and offered some ideas for changes, but creatively, that’s where League’s input stops, he says.
Because of his wealth of local film connections, from catering to crew, “I’m uniquely positioned to help out a production like this,” League says.
“For a relatively low-budget film, it’s imperative to have someone who can call in a lot of favors, and Tim most certainly did this,” Rumley says. “And an integral part of the story is set in and amongst a thriving bar and music scene, which also suits Austin perfectly.”
League invited the cast, including Taylor, Amanda Fuller and Marc Senter, and Rumley, cinematographer Milton Kam and producer Bob Portal to stay at his and wife Karrie League’s West Campus home during the tight three-week shoot. Their spacious house became the “command center for the production,” League says. (A crucial, violent scene in a basement was filmed there, but Karrie wasn’t told beforehand and came home to an alarming sight, Tim relates with a chuckle.)
Finding locations and extras was a cinch for the $1 million movie, which is not applying for Texas film tax incentives. League put out calls on Fantastic Fest’s Twitter and Facebook accounts and fans lined up to offer places and bodies. About 10 people volunteered their homes for shooting and about 100 people volunteered as extras.
“A driving force of the film is the fandom that’s particular to horror films,” Taylor says. “It’s really extraordinary.”
Some 30 locations were used for what’s described as a “slacker revenge movie,” including Emo’s, the Broken Spoke and Austin Diner. With 50 to 60 setups a day, the movie was shot with extreme speed.
“They’re an incredibly efficient team,” League says. “Even the local crew was amazed at how many shots they were able to do at so many locations with a three-week shooting schedule.”
Facilitating the pace was the use of the relatively new Red One digital cameras, which can capture shots in high-resolution with dim lighting and a naturalistic feel. The filmmakers don’t want to reveal too much about “Red, White and Blue,” though a press release breathlessly describes it as a “fearlessly frank, gut-wrenching romance and a merciless exploration of the futility of violence. ” With its casual nudity and scenes of extreme violence, (it’s) no doubt destined for controversy.”
Rumley calls it “social drama meets tragedy cum horror. I always strive to do something slightly different, and I like the idea of taking a central conceit of horror - the murderer and the victim - and throwing it on its head.”
Taylor compares it to 1970s horror-thrillers such as Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left.”
“It’s a tough film with integrity and social realism. Any horror that comes out of it is necessary to the story,” Taylor says.
“Ours is ultimately a revenge film and a really tragic love story. The three main characters do some pretty bad things, but you wouldn’t necessarily call them bad people. They make some wrongheaded decisions.”
“Red, White and Blue” likely won’t be ready for Fantastic Fest; the celebration of horror, fantasy, action and other genre films runs Sept. 24 through Oct. 1 at the Alamo South. But League won’t rule out a sneak peek of footage during the annual bash - a nice full-circle touch for a film that sprang from a friendship born there.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
Landmark pulling out of Dobie
Photos: Scenes from the Dobie Theatre through the years
Landmark Theaters is leaving the Dobie, where Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” premiered and two film festivals were born. But the center’s landlord is talking to potential operators to take over the four-screen arthouse and return it to its tradition as an independent film space with a strong local flavor.
Long regarded as a mecca for indie, foreign, art house and speciality films, the Dobie “has a rich history and a special place in Austin, and we want to get back to its roots and work with that,” said Noah Davis, an asset manager with New York-based Carlton Strategic Ventures of the Carlton Group, an international real estate investment bank that owns Dobie Center, on Guadalupe Street across from the University of Texas campus.
“Austin has a very unique brand and local feel to it, and while we’re not local ownership, we’re very committed to the local concept. … We want to go with the grain.”
Davis said Landmark Theaters won’t be renewing its 10,000-square-foot lease at the Dobie. Davis said it is his understanding that Landmark’s decision to leave the Dobie is part of a strategy to focus more on its theaters in other areas, including Boston and California.
In an e-mail, Ted Mundorff, CEO of Landmark Theatres, said: “We do not comment on the status of lease negotiations. However, we can confirm that our current lease expires in the fall of this year.”
Davis said that Carlton is in ongoing talks with “a half dozen to a dozen” prospective operators “to see who is the best fit to bring (the Dobie) back to where it was and ought to be.” However, he declined to identify any of them, citing the “sensitive nature” of the discussions. While the search for a replacement tenant has been an “ongoing” process, it “definitely heated up” in the new year, Davis said.
Davis said Carlton’s goal for the Dobie is to have it feature “more film-festival style films,” as well as artsy and foreign films, “things that appeal to Austin and the UT market,” he said.
“We want to get back to its heyday,” Davis said, which in the latter 1990s included director Quentin Tarantino launching his famous QT film festivals, in which he showed his personal collection of movies and held question-and-answer sessions with audiences.
In the mid-1980s, the Dobie became the first home for Austin Film Society screenings, organized by filmmakers Linklater and Lee Daniel. In 1990, the Dobie premiered Richard Linklater’s Austin-made cult classic “Slacker.”
The theater also is the place where its former owner, Scott Dinger, founded the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival in 1987.
Davis said he is optimistic that Carlton will be able to bring in a new operator that will allow the Dobie to remain a theater. He said an “internal frontrunner” has emerged, but added that “we have to see how things play out,” adding that Carlton needs to weigh the suitors’ individual financial packages and also determine which of them would be in keeping with “the best interests of the property and the community.”
Davis did not give a timetable for when Carlton expects to make a decision. The company wants to make the decision as quickly as possible, Davis said, while also giving it “the due diligence it deserves.”
Additional material from Chris Garcia.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/02/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The T.A.M.I. Show” (Shout! Factory): Everybody from James Brown to Gerry and the Pacemakers take the stage in one of the most famous, and most star-studded, concert films ever.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Clash of the Titans” (1981) (Warner Bros.): Cutting-edge home video meets the finest old-school tech in this timely reissue of Ray Harryhausen’s classic stop-motion-meets-live-action fantasy.
“Elvis” (1979) (Shout! Factory): If John Carpenter set sci-fi aside to make a movie about Elvis, you know Kurt Russell played the King.
“Ponyo” & “Where the Wild Things Are” (Warner Bros.): Two extremely unconventional stories about kids — one who falls in love with a fish, one who becomes the kind of the monsters before bedtime.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The NeverEnding Story” (Warner Bros.)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“2012” (Sony); “Cold Souls,” “Gentlemen Broncos” (Fox)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Frances,” “Plenty,” “The Wraith” (Lions Gate)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Lodz Ghetto” (Passion River); “We Live In Public” (Indiepix)
BEST OF TV
”Alice” (2009 Miniseries) (Lions Gate); The Beiderbecke Connection,” “Poldark” Series 1, “The Road from Coorain” (Acorn Media); “Bollywood Hero” (Anchor Bay); “Dalziel and Pascoe” Season 1, “Doctor Who: Dalek War” (BBC); “Designing Women” Season 3 (Shout!
Factory); “Have Gun Will Travel” Season 4, Vol. 1, “Matlock” Season 4 (Paramount); “Hell’s Kitchen” Season 2 (First Look); “X-Men” Vol. 5 (Walt Disney); “Yozakura Quartet” Complete Collection (Section23)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Castle in the Sky,” “KiKi’s Delivery Service,” “My Neighbor Totoro” (Walt Disney)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO: “Wushu Warrior” (Phase 4)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Strawberry Shortcake: Berryfest Princess” (Fox); “Super Why! Peter Rabbit and Other Fairytale Adventures” (Nickelodeon); “Thomas & Friends: Thomas & The Runaway Kite” (Lions Gate)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: DVDs
Two SXSW films go straight to VOD
Scottish thriller “Crying with Laughter” and the doc “Erasing David” are getting day and date releases at the iTunes Movie Store and Amazon VOD alongside their North American premieres at SXSW this month.
“Erasing David” premieres March 12. “Crying” premieres March 14. Both movies will be available on demand through Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon and Cox cable providers starting April 1. (Video-on-demand distributor FilmBuff is handling the deal.)
‘Crying with Laughter’
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
5 Questions With … Meredith Danluck, director of ‘The Ride’
Using a five-question format, we’re interviewing South by Southwest filmmakers about their movies before and during the festival, which runs March 12 through 20.
We talk to Meredith Danluck, director of the documentary “The Ride,” a caring, handsomely filmed snapshot of the Professional Bull Riding circuit and the people who produce and participate in the twangy subculture. More character study than bucking ringside thriller, the movie dwells on the personal lives of those who love the sport, deep in the heart of rural America.
“The Ride” screens at 7 p.m. March 17 at the Austin Convention Center.
- What in the world attracted you to the realm of cowboys, country and clowns?
Meredith Danluck: I went to a Professional Bull Riding event in Nashville, and after 24 hours of honky-tonking with cowboys, I was sold. How could I not be? They were all like characters out of a movie so I just figured, why not make a movie?
- What preconceived ideas did you enter the project with and how quickly were they shaken? Did you get infected by the ‘romance of the cowboy’ mentioned in the film?
It’s funny; at first I wanted to play down all the modernization of the PBR, the pyro, the money, the fame. But then I realized that was kind of the most interesting aspect of this scene. There’s an idea you have of the cowboy out on the range, and then there’s the PBR cowboy, who embodies all of that in spirit, but takes home a wad of cash and signs autographs on his way out the door. The collision of those seemingly contradictory ideas makes it super interesting.
- What type of guy or gal gets into bull riding? They seem to be fun-loving, risk-embracing youngsters, but also polite and well-bred.
Everyone I’ve ever brought to the PBR has gotten into it. It’s just so much fun. I mean, I guess there’s a core audience which is, as you would expect, big hats, big boots, big buckles and big beers. As far as polite, let’s just say that I heard a lot of yes ma’ams and never once had to open a door when in the company of a cowboy.
- Who’s one of your favorite characters in the movie?
Tom Teague. He’s a big-time bull breeder, almost as famous as the cowboys. He’s got an incredible sense of humor and because of the great way he talks he became this narrative voice for us, kind of like in the movie “Big Fish.” He’s got these funny ways of putting things, like “I got an ulcer the size of a hen egg” or “I need a mule like a hog needs rollerskates.” Not only is he one of my favorite characters, he’s one of my favorite people.
- How fitting is it that your movie is having its world premiere in Texas?
Back when we finished the film, we talked about what would be the perfect festival to premiere at. We all agreed SXSW would be the one. Just being in Austin gives everything this good-time feeling. Our film fits in perfectly; it’s a good time.
More about “The Ride” HERE.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2010
