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SXSW
August 4, 2009
Sparkling new SXSW Film site ready to rock
The all-new, spiffy, super-duper South by Southwest site is up and a’runnin’. Everything you need to know about SXSW film 2010 is there — registration, movie trailers, pretty pictures — with updates to follow as the calendar marches forth. Check it out HERE.
And for the SXSW Interactive side of things, check out Omar Gallaga’s Digital Savant HERE.
SXSW 2010 happens March 12 — 21.
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March 14, 2008
Capsule review: 'Stop-Loss'
Still-green actor Ryan Phillippe has undermined yet another promising film. This time it’s the Austin-shot “Stop-Loss,” which premiered at the Paramount Theatre on Thursday during the last days of the South by Southwest Film Festival. Phillippe plays an Iraq war veteran with post traumatic stress disorder who is pressed back into service after his expected discharge through a procedure known as “stop loss.” In early combat scenes, Phillippe, focused by the action, plays a believable leader who helps his men through the mess of street fighting. His crucial scenes, however, transforming from a disciplined member of the armed forces into a rebellious fugitive from the law are unconvincing. His platoon mates fare no better: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, so hypnotizing last year in “The Lookout,” plays a generic depressive. Jar-headed Channing Tatum certainly looks the part of a soldier (actually built more like a U.S. Marine), but his range runs from threat of violence to confusion about the threat of violence. Although “The Deer Hunter” set a precedent, writer/director Kimberly Peirce does not convince us that these and other damaged vets all came from the tiny fictional Texas town of Brazos, and the 1978 film was helped by infinitely more talented actors.
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March 13, 2008
Capsule review: 'Bananaz'
“Bananaz” screens at 11:00 a.m. Saturday March 15 at the Paramount.
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Capsule review: 'Choke'
“Choke,” an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s cult novel, made its regional premiere last night at the Paramount. Who knew sexual addiction could be this funny?
Victor Mancini, played to smarmy perfection by Sam Rockwell, is instantly likable despite his penchant for picking up women at Sexaholic Anonymous meetings and perpetrating a well-rehearsed scam on unsuspecting restaurant patrons. Director and screenwriter Clark Gregg casts Victor as the classic “cad-with-a heart-of-gold” whose true motive is to keep his senile mother, played by Angelica Huston, in an expensive assisted living center long enough to discover the true nature of his lineage.
Fans of the book will no doubt miss Palahniuk’s darker, more disturbing depiction of sexual addiction, but Gregg’s aim here is to milk the disorder for its obvious comic value, not brood over its consequences. “Choke” clips along with a sitcom-like pacing that sets up some big laughs early on, but ultimately fails to wring any sincerity out of Victor’s redemption
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March 11, 2008
SXSW film winners
JURY AWARDS
REEL SHORTS
Special Jury Award - “The Second Line,” Director: John Magary.
Winner: (Tie) “Warlord,” Director: David Garrett & “Small Apartment,” Director: Andrew T. Betzer
ANIMATED SHORTS
Special Jury Award: “I hate you don’t touch me or Bat and Hat,” Director: Becky James
Winner: “Madame Tulti-Putli,” Director: Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski
EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS
Special Jury Award: “Upwards March,” Director: Kaveh Nabatian
Winner: “Safari,” Director: Catherine Chalmers
SXSW WHOLPHIN AWARD
Winner: “Glory at Sea,” Director: Benjamin Zeitlin
MUSIC VIDEOS
Special Jury Award: (Tie) Group Sounds, ‘Temporarily in Love,’ Director: Randy Scott Slavin & Cornelius, ‘Fit Song,’ Directors: Keigo Oyamada & Koichiro Tsujikawa
Winner: TV on the Radio,” ‘Me-I,’ Directors: Mixtape Club & Daniel Garcia
TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL COMPETITION
Special Jury Award: “Inflections,” Director: Matthew Campbell
Winner: “Picnic,” Director: Wesley Bronez
ON NETWORKS GREENLIGHT AWARD
Best Original Production: “The Guild,” Director: Jane Selle Morgan
Best Original Series Idea: “Knock Off,” Written: Brandi-Ann Milbradt
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Special Jury Award: “Full Battle Rattle,” Directors: Tony Gerber & Jesse Moss
Grand Jury Award: “They Killed Sister Dorothy,” Director: Daniel Junge
NARRATIVE FEATURE
Special Jury Award for Cinematography: “Explicit Ills,” Director: Mark Webber
Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast: “Up With Me,” Director: Greg Takoudes
Grand Jury Award: “Wellness,” Director: Jake Mahaffy
AUDIENCE AWARDS
EMERGING VISIONS
Winner: “In a Dream,” Director: Jeremiah Zagar
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Winner: “They Killed Sister Dorothy,” Director: Daniel Junge
NARRATIVE FEATURE
Winner: “Explicit Ills,” Director: Mark Webber
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Cast shows up at 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' premiere
After “Harold and Kumar Escape Guantanamo Bay,” “The Promotion” and “Run Fatboy Run” — all of which drew massive crowds at the Paramount over the weekend — the big Hollywood comedy to beat at SXSW was “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” It played to a packed house Monday at the Paramount.
The movie is another Judd Apatow affair, following the blissed-out screening of “Knocked Up” at SXSW 2007. Apatow produced, first-timer Nicholas Stoller directed, and lumpy, gangly mouth-breather Jason Segel wrote and stars in the movie. Segel’s best known for big parts in Apatow’s “Freaks and Geeks” and “Knocked Up.”
Segel, Stoller, co-stars Kristen Bell and rocker-haired Russell Brand and a couple of producers introduced the film. As always during bizarrely charitable festival screenings, the audience whooped it up, laughing so much that follow-up dialogue was drowned out, etc. People seemed to love it.
Segel, Brand and Bell
Guess what? It’s not that funny. Hilarious moments abound — Brand, Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill and Bill Hader get the funniest bits — but Segel is too slack a presence to hold the center of a feature-length movie. You’ll hear more about it when it’s released later this year.
Because it’s set in Hawaii, Universal Studios had young women drape floral leis on ticket-holders before the show.
One lei-taker was MC Frontalot, star of the droll SXSW documentary “Nerdcore Rising.” He’s a self-proclaimed geek rapper, bustin’ rhymes fo’ real with the whitest back-up band on earth. Here he is in all his fantastically dweeby glory:
The big SXSW/Chronicle party followed the hit screening at La Zona Rosa. There we met Jess Weixler, the award-winning lead in the Austin-shot horror-comedy “Teeth” that played earlier this year. She was hanging out with scandalously overestimated pornographer Joe Swanberg, whose latest juvenile swab “Nights and Weekends” premiered Sunday.
Weixler gave us the bad news that she will star in Swanberg’s next movie. Asked if she’s ready for the requisite Swanberg nudity, which rarely propels his half-baked plots, she was, like, Sure!
“I’m not ashamed of my body,” Weixler, who shows some skin in “Teeth,” beamed.
Weixler and filmmaker Margaret Brown (“The Order of Myths”) at Monday’s party
Bonus phot — Segel outside the Paramount:
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March 10, 2008
A big buy at SXSW
While we scratch our heads crazily over the (tiny) appeal of Joe Swanberg’s movies, The Hollywood Reporter files this juicy news, to which we offer sincere, if baffled, congratulations:
In a landmark moment for the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival, IFC Entertainment has picked up worldwide rights to Joe Swanberg and [the pathologically nude-scene-hungry — Ed.] Greta Gerwig’s romantic drama “Nights and Weekends.”
It marks the first acquisition of a SXSW premiere during the fest.
IFC picked up Swanberg’s previous feature, [the really lame — Ed.] “Hannah Takes the Stairs,” in the months following its 2007 SXSW premiere.
“Nights” chronicles a couple (played by the co-writers/directors) who endure a painful long-distance relationship. Dia Sokol and Anish Savjani produced the film, which premiered Sunday.
The pickup marks a victory for SXSW producer Matt Dentler [yay, Matt! — Ed.] in his low-key efforts to create a market for smaller indies at the Austin event.
Swanberg, Gerwig
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Bela Fleck, musical ambassador
Vampire Weekend may be the band receiving the most buzz leading up to SXSW Music, but the Afro-centric inspired melodies of the band took a back seat to the real deal on day three of the SXSW Film Festival.
Grammy-award winning Banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck, who has made a name for himself over the last 20 years playing with his band the Flecktones, decided it was high time that someone re-introduce the banjo to its native home, the African continent. It was this idea, one that was born from a failed pitch to him to do a safari-style banjo camp in Africa (huh?), that led the musician and his brother, filmmaker Sascha Paladino, to head to Africa three years ago to document Fleck playing in multiple villages and towns across the country.
The result of their three year labor of love is the film “Throw Down Your Heart.” The name of the film is derived from the translation of the port town in Tanzania, Bogamoyo, which served as a point of departure and the breaking of spirits of African slaves.
The movie is an amazing testament to the power of music, not just in the communities in Africa that the film crew visits but amongst the visitors and their hosts. Fleck had not met any of the musicians with whom he played during his trip (excepting Oumou Sangare), so the genuine appreciation and sense of amazement upon first sitting down to share each other’s music is palpable in the film.
From his visits to Uganda, Tanzania, Mali and Gambia, the birthplace of the banjo, the viewer is offered intimate insight to the customs of the African people and the ritualistic and spiritual role that music plays in their lives. And despite the language barrier, it is clear that the language of music is a universal one that obviously allowed Fleck to touch the lives of the people he visited and vice versa.
His travels to Africa helped Fleck change his “rhythmic ideas and ideas of what makes great music.” The path to this newfound passion and understanding of people and music leaves the audience, in a surrogate sense, as enriched as the film’s participants.
“Throw Down Your Heart” screens again Wednesday and Friday at 11 a.m. at the Alamo Ritz.
Sunday’s screening was preceded by VH1 Rock Docs party at Maggie Mae’s, and whether it was the free barbecue and drinks, or Fleck playing a truncated set, the place was buzzing. Given the crowd for the music and the one overflowing into the bar and upstairs to the roof, along with grumblings about a paucity of drink tickets, it seems the free grub and schmoozing probably had as much appeal as anything. Spotted in the crowd were the Zellner brothers, Morgan Spurlock, festival producer Matt Dentler and Austin film eminence gris Johhn Pierson.
On a music movie side note: I had a nice conversation with musician and actor Chris Thomas King, whose credits include “Ray” and “Oh Brother Where Art Thou.” After briefly bemoaning the fact that, as with the banjo, many African-Americans have set aside the guitar, this time in favor of the turntables, King told me he is planning to begin work on a new film about the legendary Chicago label Chess Records, so expect that in the coming years.
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Harold and Kumar go to SXSW
Hooting, whooping, laughing and clapping — these are the sounds of low-brow bliss.
The happy racket boomed through the Paramount on Saturday night during the world premiere of “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.” Yup — the world premiere.
It was the first time the comedy’s titular stars, Kal Penn and John Cho, had seen what plenty of people at the sold-out show clearly considered a masterpiece of vulgarity, irreverence and satirical mayhem.
Paul Stekler, head of the film department at the University of Texas and a filmmaker of serious political documentaries, exclaimed the drug-choked, sex-soaked, expletive-seasoned romp “The best movie of the year!”
Writer-directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg furnished an amusing introduction to the movie and post-show insights about how cheap their budget was — lots of single take scenes, short shoot, etc. — and how an unrated version should make it to DVD. (Unrated? You mean the movie can get naughtier, raunchier?)
Penn, Cho and cult favorite Neil Patrick Harris, who seemed a wee, um, addled, fielded audience questions. A woman screamed out, “When will you sleep with me?” to Harris, who’s best known as TV’s “Doogie Howser, M.D.”
Cho chimed in: “That’s complicated,” tacitly referring to Harris’ open homosexuality.
Cho, Penn and Harris, Saturday night on the Paramount stage
The comedy, a sharp if crude commentary on national security issues, political hypocrisy, the Bush Administration and the multi layers of Western racism, is frequently hilarious, though we can’t help wonder how much the high-voltage audience energy influenced our endorphin production.
Viewers could snatch a “H&KEGB” goodie bag as they left the theater. A jumble of faux presidential campaign graft filled the bags. Appears the studio is plumping our pot-huffing heroes as the best electoral option since Marion Barry ran for, and was re-elected, the mayor of D.C.
Free junk always makes you feel special.
(Look closely at that picture. What item or thing does not belong there? Send a comment if you find it.)
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'Gonzo'
A tortured romantic filled with anger who could never quite reconcile his dream of a better world, or the demon’s of his soul, with the reality of the times eventually sucumbs to a Gonzo world and image he created for himself. That is what one takes away from two-time Academy Award winnner Alex Gibney’s new documentary ‘Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson,’ which screened on day two of SXSW film.
The amusing and somewhat sad portrait of the man of letters who flourished during a period in the 60s and 70s, achieving more notorieity than any modern American writer, starts out a little hokey, an odd touch coming from Gibney. Johnny Depp provides the voice over, reading passages from Thompson’s 1966 novel ‘Hell’s Angels,’ while a shmaltzy reenactment of the lines being read show Thompson cruising along the California highway in the middle of the night. Eventually the metaphor does feel apt, as there always seemd to be something Thompson was running from or to. Usually himself.
Raised in lower-middle class Kentucky, Thompson is portrayed as a man who never felt like he belonged, who felt cheated by the system and treated more harshly than the more well-heeled with whom he caroused. This outsider feeling and a sense of longing for vengeance, justice and fair treatment seems to be what propelled Thompson’s literary career and social life.
The movie spends much time looking at specific juncture in the writer’s life: his bursting onto the scene with ‘Hell’s Angels,’ his long relationship with Rolling Stone, his ‘Fear and Loathing’ masterworks (Las Vegas and the campaign trail), his run for sheriff in 1972, his relation with artist Ralph Steadman, and the fallout from the fame and celebrity he achieved and its effect on him and his family.
For the casual fan, ‘Gonzo’ is probably most informative in the depth of its look into Thompson’s relationship with George McGovern and his deep mistrust of government and cyncism towards authority. The themes of that campaign and Thompson’s co-mingling passion for and anithpathy towards government and the idea of what America could be indeed still ressonate well today. In the end, Thompson’s anger and romanticism led to his demise and self-destruction.
As the title of his 1970 article about the Kentucky Derby,’The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,’ so succintly stated, Thompson was distrustful of what the money, power and soulessness of America created in its culture. He wanted to storm the Bastille and bring everyone down with him, meting justice with his pen. Unfortunately for those who loved Thompson and for the American consciousness, the passion with which he lived and the pain inflicted on him by the beauty and the ache of the world was too much for the Gonzo writer to sustain. He was gone far too soon. And although his talent had become a shadow of its former self by the time he literally finished his self-destruction, he left a damn fine legacy in his chaotic wake. His voice, and subjective narrative journalism style that spoke out against the injustices and corruption of the world and his uncanny ability to paint vivid, psychedelic, gargantuan pictures with words separates him from any would-be challengers to his throne.
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SXSW Film: Day Two
Now come the interviews with filmmakers and actors behind the SXSW films.
Today, recovering from Friday night’s opening party with ease, we sat down with cult indie-film starlet Illeana Douglas from the horror-dark-comedy “Otis,” which also stars Daniel Stern (who didn’t make it to Austin), Kevin Pollak, Jere Burns, Bostin Christopher, Tracy Scoggins, Tarah Paige, Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs, Jared Kusnitz and Ashley Johnson.
Here’s most of the cast of “Otis,” which had a midnight screening Friday at the Alamo Ritz. Pollak and Douglas told us they couldn’t BELIEVE how crazy Sixth Street was when they poured out around 2 a.m. Drunk people everywhere, they said, and general bedlam. They didn’t know Austin got down so wildly on weekends.
The “Otis” cast:
Then we ran into director Steve James (“Hoop Dreams,” “Stevie”), whose new doc “At the Death House Door” plays at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Paramount and 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Austin Convention Center.
Steve James and Peter Gilbert, co-directors of ‘At the Death House Door’ And now, this second, we’re off to talk to Rosario Dawson, star of “Explicit Ills.” More on that later …
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'American Teen' makes the grade
We missed it at Sundance — where its buzz grew and grew and it won the best director award for a documentary — but we finally caught “American Teen” Saturday night during SXSW at the Alamo South.
An emotional vortex, just like high school, the film by Nanette Burstein (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”) follows four or five high school students in the small town of Warsaw, Indiana, during their senior year, class of 2006.
It captures in a filmic terrarium the basic “Freaks and Geeks” cliques (with one huge exception: the stoners/rockers/skaters): the self-absorbed pretty blonde; the popular jock boys; the video-game nerd; and the precocious creative artist girl, who just wants it to end so she can move to San Francisco and become a filmmaker.
Completely absorbing, frequently moving, “American Teen” has you rooting for the kid you most identify with, in our case (and many others’) the creative misfit girl, who likes to read, paint, take photos and dress funky. And, beyond logic, keeps getting dumped by boys.
She’s the only one in the cast who came to Austin for this single-spot SXSW screening (it will be released in theaters later this year). Her name is Hannah Bailey, and she told us she’s now studying film in New York.
Her she is on the movie’s poster …
… and here she is outside the Alamo after the screening:
More on “American Teen” HERE.
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SXSW Film: Day One
A veteran SXSW film employee called Friday’s opening night premiere of “21” at the Paramount the “smoothest” opening night she’s ever seen at the festival. The 1,200-seat theater was packed to capacity, and SXSWers only had to turn away three people, she said.
Yes, the festival kicked off nicely Friday night. Despite being formulaic to a fault and far too slick for the grungy DIY image of SXSW, “21” looked and sounded magnificent, thanks to the Paramount’s unsurpassed presentation quality. It stars Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth and toothsome up-and-comer Jim Sturgess, who, to the shrieking delight of female fans, was in attendance. As was director Robert Luketic (“Legally Blonde”), who chatted on the red carpet pre-show:
Director Luketic
Showing up before the “21” folks were fleeting local celebs from the in-progress film “Will.” I don’t know who these young actors are, but people ooo’d and aaah’d, and we took the bait and snapped a picture. Shame flooded our every molecule.
The trying-very-hard children of the Austin-shooting movie “Will”
We bailed half-way through the movie (oopsie!) and headed to the opening night film party at Buffalo Billiards, a place, we’d have you know, we’d never step into if not for film festival soirees. For the first time we can remember, the bash was granted both floors of the capacious venue, which only made the party seem bigger and better.
Who was there? Glad you asked.
Austin filmmakers David Zellner and PJ Raval, both fresh from Sundance. Zellner co-wrote, co-directed and stars in the SXSW movie “Goliath,” screening again at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Austin Convention Center and 4 p.m. March 15 at the Paramount.
Filmmaker Margaret Brown and SXSW honcho Louis Black. Brown, also fresh from Sundance, screens her doc “The Order of Myths,” which Black associate produced, at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Alamo Ritz.
We also saw a guy who looked exactly like Sen. John McCain. False alarm, that.
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Capsule review: 'Flying on One Engine'
Three decades of tragedy — a car accident in the 1970s, a battle with cancer in the ’80s and a heart attack in the ’90s — left Dicksheet using a wheelchair and living off Social Security in relative obscurity in New York. Despite his physical ailments, the doctor’s indomitable will led him to travel to India, where his almost unfathomable devotion through surgery has led not only to eight Nobel Peace Prize nominations but also a reverence bordering on worship in the communities where he works. It will leave you wondering what it is you might do to help benefit mankind if in only a fraction of the way its central character has.
11 a.m. Tuesday, 1:30 p.m, Saturday at Alamo South
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Rosario Dawson: Supernova
Actress Rosario Dawson — best known for her breakout in “Kids” and Quentin Tarantino’s wicked Austin-made “Death Proof” — talks a mile a minute and has a face like a freshly bloomed pink rose. (Pink Rosario?)
Ask her a question, then sit back and enjoy the machine-gun fire for the next, oh, 10 to 20 minutes as she answers, loquaciously, logorrheically. She’s awesome.
She’s in Austin to screen her urban drama “Explicit Ills,” which stars pint-sized child actor Francisco Burgos, who radiates the screen.
Dawson and co-star Burgos on Saturday in Austin
The worthwhile film plays at 9:30 p.m. Friday at the Alamo Ritz. Details HERE.
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Capsule review: 'Sex Positive'
A nearly forgotten part of contemporary medical and sexual history moves to the foreground in “Sex Positive” in this portrait of Richard Berkowitz, who helped pioneer safe sex practices during the first years of the AIDS/HIV crisis in the 1980s. An unlikely hero, Berkowitz was a gay hustler who came to the now-obvious conclusion, along with virologist Joseph Sonnabend and activist Michael Callen, that if fluids carried the retrovirus, then the use of condoms and other preventative measures would cut down on the spread of the disease. Producer/director Daryl Wein does a good job in this doc establishing the historical context of sexual liberation in the 1970s and the deep fear that any intrusion into the sexual sphere for public health reasons would compromise the hard-won gains for liberty, dignity and self-determination. Always helps to be reminded of even recent history.
9 p.m. Friday at the Austin Convention Center
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Capsule review: 'Bulletproof Salesman'
The third doc building on footage gathered by Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein (“Gunner Palace”) at the start of the Iraq war, “Salesman” follows a single man, Fidelis Cloer, who’s part of the enormous commercial ecosystem of combat: His company takes commercially available automobiles and turns them into gunfire-resistant tanks, then sells them to diplomats, sheiks and other people with good reason to fear for their lives. We follow him first on cold-call sales trips to meet clients in hotspots such as Baghdad (though we never get to see an actual sales pitch), then watch as Cloer refines his product — reinforcing their undersides, for instance — as the nature of risk in Iraq shifts from bullets to improvised explosive devices. It’s a short portrait that never quite communicates the broader significance the filmmakers say they see in the subject, but it intrigues nevertheless.
6:30 p.m. Monday, 7:15 p.m. Thursday at the Austin Convention Center
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Capsule review: 'Full Battle Rattle'
Both an involving you-are-there documentary look at an unfamiliar subject and a question-raising meditation on the way America deals with Iraq, “Full Battle Rattle” follows a group of soldiers into an intense, prolonged training scenario: They are assigned to protect a fictional Iraqi village that was built from scratch in the Mojave Desert and is populated by Iraqi immigrants. The villagers are instructed to role-play with the soldiers, helping them learn how to deal with disputes and crises — a noble goal, although there’s something off-putting about seeing a staff of Americans write “backstories” for men and women who know their former country first-hand. The new soldiers, for their part, try hard to do the right thing but sometimes fall victim to an excess of optimism. The filmmakers are sympathetic to both sides, and viewers come away with a sense of just how easy it is for things to fall apart.
2:30 p.m. Tuesday and 8 p.m. Friday at Alamo Ritz
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Capsule review: 'Crawford'
When the circus comes to town, festive chaos uncorks. When it departs, behind are left matted fields, errant debris and a sighing breeze of emptiness and relief. Seven years of the George W. Bush circus in Crawford — which, in 1999, the then-presidential hopeful dubiously claimed as home — has left a marbled impression on the Mayberrian burg and its 700 residents. “The novelty has worn off,” twangs a local in David Modigliani’s textured documentary, which plays like a cardiogram of small-town sentiment after a prolonged but benign heart attack. Incessant media glare, battalions of law enforcement, thronged protests — Bush’s periodic presence upended local life in spasms. Good: The economy boomed. Bad: The folksy funhouse-mirror view of Crawford, fashioned by patronizing media, stirred resentment. Conventionally but lushly shot, the film’s at its best revealing a cacophony of ideologies within town limits. It yields surprising, satisfying dissonance.
1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Paramount
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Capsule review: 'Of All the Things'
Songwriter Dennis Lambert wrote or co-wrote some of the biggest hits of the ’70s — such as “Baby Come Back” and “Ain’t No Woman Like The One I’ve Got” — but the one LP he made under his own name tanked. Then it swam across the ocean, where (unbeknownst to Lambert) its song “Of All the Things” became a blockbuster in, of all the places, the Philippines. Thirty-five years later, Lambert — now a high-end Realtor in Boca Raton — accepts an offer to tour there, where his sentimental ballad is sufficiently beloved that a Lambert gig on Valentine’s Day fills the same Manila coliseum where the Thrilla in Manila took place. On screen, Lambert isn’t the most captivating character, but this affectionate doc portrait (directed by the songwriter’s son, Jody) coasts entertainingly on a bed of feel-good hits and the quirk appeal derived from Lambert’s left-field comeback shot.
7:30 p.m. Thursday at Alamo Lamar
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Capsue review: 'The Toe Tactic'
Like a druggy dream that turns to gibberish when exposed to daylight, Emily Hubley’s “The Toe Tactic” comes with flashes of inspiration but, though it’s clearly a deeply felt personal film, doesn’t quite translate to outsiders. A strange mix of drawn animation and live action (Hubley, who contributed to “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” is well known in the animation world), the film constructs its own mythology using a group of cartoon dogs who serve as both Greek chorus and (by manipulating live-action objects and people) deus ex machina. Hubley has recruited talent from all corners (from Yo La Tengo to Eli Wallach) for her story about a young woman searching for human connections and dealing with her father’s death, and the result can be compelling for those willing to seek out its weird wavelength.
7 p.m. Tuesday, 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the Paramount
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Capsule review: 'Throw Down Your Heart'
Banjos? In Africa? Bela Fleck, the American plucker par excellence, knows his ‘jo, and he knows, of course, that the instrument he’s mastered hails from Africa. Sascha Paladino’s respectfully observant documentary — he points the camera and lets the musicians play away — traces Fleck’s odyssey across the continent, where he jams and confabs with a humble gallery of crack village musicians. Along with an ingratiating cast of radiant locals, we meet the banjo’s grandad, the simple akonting, a gourd wrapped in animal skin with three twangy strings that conjure worlds of joyous sound. Add layers of percussion, flutes, vocal harmonies and Fleck’s own astonishing finger-work, then watch past and present collapse in sonic unity. The banjo sheds its image as the quintessential American instrument to reveal a symbol of deep African heritage and the collective wail of the European slave trade (the film’s title derives from this heartbreaking historical chapter). Fleck, our amiable ambassador of the banjo, generously steps back and lets the local musicians shine. Together they evoke naked humanity — tears, laughter, passion and the unalloyed bliss of making music.
11 a.m. Wednesday, 11 a.m. Friday, Alamo Ritz
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Capsule review: 'At the Death House Door'
The latest doc from sometime collaborators Steve James and Peter Gilbert (“Hoop Dreams”) turns its eye on the death penalty, specifically on the evolving convictions of Huntsville jailhouse chaplain Carroll Pickett, who saw nearly 100 convicts through the final hours before execution. Straight-arrow Pickett is an unlikely death penalty abolitionist, but the stories he tells here — which he collected, secretly, in a diarylike trove of cassette tapes recorded after each execution — make his conversion easy to understand. Alternating with Pickett’s story is that of Carlos De Luna, who was put to death in 1989 for a Corpus Christi murder that he almost surely didn’t commit. The latter story might have more dramatic potential than Pickett’s, but the filmmakers play down its “Thin Blue Line” appeal, weaving it somewhat awkwardly into Pickett’s as one of the most trying episodes in a long, conflicted career.
1 p.m. Wednesday at the Austin Convention Center
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Capsule review: 'Cook County'
In “Cook County,” first-time writer-director (and University of Texas graduate) David Pomes depicts with brutal honesty the devastation wrought by methamphetamines on a family in the piney woods of East Texas. Battling an addiction that he ambivalently acknowledges will lead to his death, Bump (Anson Mount in a career-changing performance) has consigned himself to a ramshackle cabin in the woods where he cooks up meth while neglecting his 6 year-old daughter and alienating his teenage nephew, Abe (Ryan Donowho). When Bump’s brother, Sonny (Xander Berkeley), unceremoniously returns to the family he left behind, he finds his scared and resentful son trapped in Bump’s paranoid and delusional world. Fearing for his son’s life and hoping to end the family’s tragic cycle of meth abuse, Sonny struggles to find dignity in his life while saving his son’s. It hardly mines any new material or emotional depths, but the raw emotion and wonderful performances by Mount and Berkeley make the film worth a viewing.
4 p.m. Monday, 4 p.m. Wednesday, 4 p.m. Saturday at Alamo South
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Capsule review: 'The Matador'
Barbaric, balletic, bullfighting’s the bloodiest of the blood sports, exultant in its Colosseum-esque atavism. David Fandila, subject of Stephen Higgins and Nina Gilden Seavey’s fine documentary, is Spain’s next superstar of the “corrida de toros.” He’s young, handsome and, in the ring, fast and fleet, suave and cocky. Glimmering in sequined Vegas plumage, Fandila executes a sneering, teasing tango with the beast. Subtext rules: How heroic is it to cut down a panting, dying bull, carrying blades in its back like quills, as you playfully prance around it? The debate galvanizes an otherwise straightforward biography. To some, bullfighting is “savagery with an artistic payoff.” To others, it’s “on the margin of rationality and modernity.” The film’s high-definition sparkle and artful precision make the deadly pageantry shine. Still, it could leave you with a sickening sadness.
4 p.m. Monday, 11 a.m. Tuesday, 7 p.m. Saturday, Austin Convention Center
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Capsule review: 'Intimidad'
In terms of craftsmanship, “Intimidad” is just a step or two above a home movie: a mishmash of camcorder footage and scratchy, washed-out 16 mm film that doesn’t fit together smoothly. But that’s not inappropriate considering the subject, a young Mexican family accustomed to life in a plywood shack with a metal roof and open holes for windows. The movie’s intense focus on this 21-year-old couple more than compensates for its technical roughness, injecting much-needed humanity into the dry labor statistics of trade and immigration debates. We meet the pair in Reynosa, where they’ve moved far from their newborn daughter in hopes of scraping together enough to buy a piece of land. Loneliness and wages that (despite working overtime) leave about $15 each month for savings test their commitment, and we watch over a couple of harrowing years as they try to reconcile hope and love with tough realities.
10:15 p.m. Tuesday and 9:30 p.m. Thursday at Austin Convention Center
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Capsule review: 'Wild Blue Yonder'
Whiney and watery, Celia Maysles’ navel-gazing documentary can’t break out of its smothering and tedious insularity, even though the father she seeks to learn about is David Maysles, a giant, with brother Albert, of vérite cinema (“Grey Gardens,” “Gimme Shelter”). She seems to believe that her last name is sufficient justification for her movie to exist. It is not. David Maysles died unexpectedly when Celia was 7, and somehow she never knew that he and her uncle were one of the most important filmmaking teams in the medium’s history. Now a young adult fostering an identity, she embarks on a “daughter’s search for her father,” she says through conspicuously forced tears. The one dramatic twist amid the inertia — Albert Maysles, creepily competitive, won’t share with his niece unseen footage of David’s portrait of his own father, titled “Blue Yonder” — doesn’t amount to much. The result is faintly engaging and understandably brief (60-plus minutes), yet fails to blossom into anything of universal relevance.
2:30 p.m. Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Alamo South
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Capsule review: 'FrontRunners'
Former Bill Clinton strategist Dick Morris might have called it “the hardest race” he ever fought, but running for student union president at New York’s elite Stuyvesant High doesn’t appear to be all that grueling today. The doc “FrontRunners” hopes for drama but finds little beyond the fact that one or two of the four teenage contenders are willing to stand for hours to hand out campaign fliers. (Admittedly, this election system — which involves a primary, a televised debate, and competition for the student newspaper’s endorsement — puts those in most schools to shame.) There’s really only one interesting character in the film: George Zisiadis, a likeably awkward kid with a slick ‘do and a fondness for polysyllabic words that he hasn’t quite mastered, may elicit condescending snickers from his running mate but is destined for great things once he fully escapes adolescence.
9 p.m. Monday, 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. Friday at Austin Convention Center
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Capsule review: 'They Killed Sister Dorothy'
It begins as a standard-issue documentary about a terrible murder and shady coverups — a missionary nun in Brazil is killed, probably at the behest of ranchers whose interests run contrary to her efforts to preserve the rainforest. But despite the conventional (if blood-boiling) presentation in its first half, “They Killed Sister Dorothy” builds to something truly remarkable: As conspirators face trial, we actually get to watch the proceedings (from multiple camera angles, even) as a team of repellent lawyers engage in theatrics you wouldn’t believe in a Hollywood drama — going so far as to paint the victim as a murderous ganglord and to try to associate her with Bush administration policies in Iraq and Guantánamo Bay that she had in fact protested. It’s a feast of real-time, real-life drama that makes the last third of “Dorothy” as riveting as its subject deserves.
1:30 p.m. today, 3:30 p.m. Friday at the Austin Convention Center
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March 9, 2008
Capsule review: 'Run, Fatboy, Run'
Far from the self-conscious genre deconstruction fans might expect from star Simon Pegg (“Shaun of the Dead”), “Run, Fatboy, Run” is actually a relentlessly rule-following romantic comedy — just the kind of genial, jokey fare you’d expect a “Friend” to direct. (David Schwimmer, who doesn’t act in the film, makes his feature-directing debut.) There’s zero chemistry between Pegg and Thandie Newton, who plays the fiancée Pegg left long ago and now wants to win back, but the picture’s mostly about male relationships, anyway: Pegg’s rivalry with Newton’s new dude, a Mr. Perfect played by Hank Azaria; Pegg’s efforts to parent the son he raises half-time; Pegg’s friendship with an equally lazy pal who — once this “fatboy” decides to endure a marathon to prove he deserves Newton — becomes his unlikely coach. As you’ve noticed, that’s a lot of Simon Pegg; fortunately, the comedian has the personality to carry us along.
9:45 p.m today at the Paramount Theatre
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Capsule review: 'Secrecy'
The subject of government secrets is obviously pressing these days, but “Secrecy,” while it certainly digs into Bush policies and Gitmo controversies, refuses to limit itself to current events. The doc digs through the recent history of law and protocol on the topic, giving particular attention to a case near the start of the Cold War that — despite its highly suspect invocation of a “state secrets” principle — has been the foundation for similar legal battles ever since. The filmmakers listen to those on both sides of the transparency/classification debate, allowing the latter to supply some compelling instances in which press reports on sensitive matters cost people their lives. But given the solid arguments made by both sides, viewers may find themselves wishing the interviewees had been set free from their individual talking-head boxes, brought together in a room and forced to engage in civil, no-time-limit debate.
12 p.m. Wednesday, 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Alamo South
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Capsule review: 'Tulia, Texas'
A made-for-TV doc recounting a shameful episode in recent Texas history, “Tulia, Texas” does a fair job of getting the basics across: how 46 people in a town of 5,000 (39 of them black) were corralled in a drug sting that, upon closer inspection, was riddled with holes and led by an undercover drug agent who turned out to have a history of theft and abuse of power. The scandal, which sadly played out in a familiar racial template, with only a few white residents proclaiming their skepticism about the charges, has been well documented already, though, and this recap adds little. Moreover, the chronology may confuse viewers who don’t know the case; it’s unclear, especially early on, that interviews are being conducted as the years-long saga unfolds, rather than after its end.
9:30 p.m. Tuesday at Dobie Theatre; 2:30 p.m. Thursday at Alamo South
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Capsule review: 'Order of Myths'
Austinite Margaret Brown follows up her Townes Van Zandt film “Be Here to Love Me” with a doc that won’t win many friends in her home town of Mobile, Ala: “Order of Myths” focuses almost exclusively on the way that city’s Mardi Gras traditions (which predate those in New Orleans) remain dramatically segregated racially, in practice if not in law. Brown (again, with unusually good photography) presents the opulent costumes and extravagant ceremonies of both the city’s white and black ceremonial organizations while letting people on both sides talk about de facto racial barriers — unsurprisingly, Mobile’s white aristocracy has some very well-practiced rationalizations of the status quo. The tight focus leaves viewers wondering how representative this all is of broader social realities in a city that has elected its first black mayor; that’s a question “Myths” only hints at.
Paramount, 11 a.m. Thursday at Alamo Ritz
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March 7, 2008
Capsule review: 'Then She Found Me'
Helen Hunt’s feature directing debut (she also stars) lets her share a grown-up woman’s perspective on a dilemma (inconvenient pregnancy) and an archetype (the emotionally inept man-child) that have seen plenty of play in recent comedies. Hunt, refreshingly, steers almost entirely clear of cheap yuks and is unwilling to use the challenges her protagonists face as simple plot points: Here, when a character is a single parent, a kid’s existence actually affects the decisions he makes. The “he” in question is Colin Firth, who, like Hunt’s character, has recently been divorced; the two gravitate toward each other, naturally, and Firth’s diffidence in the face of new love plays out beautifully. Anything but diffident is Bette Midler, a self-obsessed talk show host who arrives out of the blue to claim she’s Hunt’s real mother — and to inject some restrained kookiness into the tale’s maturely handled midlife crises.
6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Paramount Theatre
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March 6, 2008
SXSW Film schedule for Saturday, March 15
Here is the SXSW Film schedule for Saturday, March 15. All times and screenings are subject to change. Due to the massive number of films being screened, we were obviously not able to check out each film before the fest. However, we did see quite a few, and of those, the critics’ picks are denoted by an *. For more SXSW information, click here.
Austin Convention Center
- 11:00 AM “Heavy Load” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Writ Writer” (World Premiere)
- 4:30 PM “One Minute to Nine” (North American Premiere)
- * 7:00 PM “The Matador” (World Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “The Wrecking Crew” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 1
- 11:00 AM “Natural Causes” (World Premiere)
- * 1:30 PM “Flying On One Engine” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “The Ladies”
- 4:00 PM “Cook County” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Dear Zachary: a letter to a son about his father” (Regional Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 2
- 12:00 PM “Shot”
- 12:00 PM “Texas Shorts”
- 12:00 PM “Plan-b”
- 12:00 PM “Sprout”
- * 12:00 PM “Peterson’s Savings and Loan”
- 12:00 PM “A New Toy”
- 12:00 PM “The Aviatrix”
- 12:00 PM “Quinceanera”
- 12:00 PM “Clothes Horse”
- * 2:30 PM “Secrecy” (Regional Premiere)
- 5:00 PM “Rainbow Around the Sun” (World Premiere)
- 7:30 PM “A Necessary Death” (World Premiere)
- 10:00 PM “The Visitor” (Regional Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 1
- 11:00 AM “Mister Foe” (U.S. Premiere)
- 1:45 PM “Don’t Get Me Wrong” (U.S. Premiere)
- 1:45 PM “The Apology Line”
- 4:30 PM “The Night James Brown Saved Boston” (World Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “Joy Division” (U.S. Premiere)
- 9:45 PM “Love Songs” (Regional Premiere)
- 11:59 PM “Shuttle” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 2
- 12:00 PM “Agile, Mobile, Hostile: A Year With Andre Williams” (World Premiere)
- 3:00 PM “I Slammed My Dick in the Drawer”
- 3:00 PM “RSO [Registered Sex Offender]” (World Premiere)
- 5:30 PM “Up With Me” (World Premiere)
- 5:30 PM “Odd Shoe”
- 8:00 PM “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” (U.S. Premiere)
Dobie
- 11:00 AM “Wesley Willis’s Joyrides” (Regional Premiere)
- 1:30 PM Experimental Shorts
- 4:00 PM “Fancy Pants”
- 4:00 PM “Horsebite”
- 4:00 PM “Inflections”
- 4:00 PM “Suckcess”
- 4:00 PM “Attaque de l’hamburger”
- 4:00 PM “Picnic”
- 4:00 PM “Dehumanized Eyes”
- 4:00 PM “To The Ends Of The Earth”
- 4:00 PM “An Influential Language”
- 4:00 PM “Trebuchet!”
- 4:00 PM “Cheaters Never Quit”
- 4:00 PM “Nukes and You”
- 4:00 PM “Never Go In To A Boy’s Bathroom”
- 4:00 PM “An Inspiring Train Wreck”
- 4:00 PM “Pantalon”
- 4:00 PM “Texas High School Shorts”
- 7:00 PM “Train Town”
- 7:00 PM “The Pleasure of Being Robbed” (World Premiere)
Paramount
- 11:00 AM “Bananaz” (North American Premiere)
- * 1:30 PM “Crawford” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Goliath” (Regional Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Young@Heart” (Regional Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “The King of Texas” (World Premiere)
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SXSW Film schedule for Friday, March 14
Here is the SXSW Film schedule for Friday, March 14. All times and screenings are subject to change. Due to the massive number of films being screened, we were obviously not able to check out each film before the fest. However, we did see quite a few, and of those, the critics’ picks are denoted by an *. For more SXSW information, click here.
Austin Convention Center
- 11:00 AM “We Dreamed America” (U.S. Premiere)
- * 1:00 PM “Nerdcore Rising” (World Premiere)
- * 3:30 PM “They Killed Sister Dorothy” (World Premiere)
- * 6:30 PM “FrontRunners” (World Premiere)
- * 9:00 PM “Sex Positive” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 1
- 11:00 AM “The Wild Horse Redemption” (U.S. Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “the Art of karaoke”
- 1:30 PM “Dancing Alfonso” (U.S. Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “The Amazing Truth about Queen Raquela” (North American Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Pierre”
- 6:30 PM “The Marconi Bros.” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM The Fashion ‘Solo Impala’
- 9:00 PM Lomita ‘Broken Boy’
- 9:00 PM Kissinger ‘Sydney Stone’
- 9:00 PM Socadia ‘Always Near’
- 9:00 PM The Good Life ‘Heartbroke’
- 9:00 PM Riverboat Gamblers ‘Don’t Bury Me…I’m Still Not Dead’
- 9:00 PM Hey La La ‘Art of Toys’
- 9:00 PM The Specimen ‘Do U Damage’
- 9:00 PM Group Sounds ‘Temporarily in Love’
- 9:00 PM Music Videos
- 9:00 PM TV on the Radio ‘Me-I’
- 9:00 PM The Happy Bullets ‘The Vice & Virtue Ministry’
- 9:00 PM Dead Meadow ‘What Needs Must Be’
- 9:00 PM The Duke Spirit ‘The Step and the Walk’
- 9:00 PM Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings ‘Tell Me’
- 9:00 PM Go!Team ‘Grip Like a Vice’
- 9:00 PM Cornelius ‘FIT SONG’
- 9:00 PM Albatross ‘Giant’
- 9:00 PM Coparck ‘A Good Year For the Robots’
- 9:00 PM Gravy ‘Rock Scientists’
- 9:00 PM Yea Big and Kid Static ‘The Life Here’
- 9:00 PM Love Like Fire ‘I Will’
- 9:00 PM Blonde Redhead ‘Top Ranking’
Alamo Lamar 2
- 12:00 PM “Beijing Haze”
- 12:00 PM “The Problem with Machines that Communicate”
- 12:00 PM “The Execution of Solomon Harris”
- 12:00 PM “Mr. Mustache”
- 12:00 PM “Bachianas No. 5”
- 12:00 PM “The Soldier’s Wife”
- 12:00 PM “Small Apartment”
- 12:00 PM Reel Shorts 2
- 12:00 PM “The European Kid”
- 2:30 PM Reel Shorts 3
- 2:30 PM “KID”
- 2:30 PM “Closing Night”
- 2:30 PM “The Stain on the Sidewalk”
- 2:30 PM “Glory at Sea”
- 2:30 PM “A Catalog Of Anticipations”
- * 2:30 PM “The Second Line”
- 5:00 PM “Plan-b”
- 5:00 PM “Shot”
- 5:00 PM “Sprout”
- 5:00 PM “A New Toy”
- 5:00 PM “Clothes Horse”
- 5:00 PM “Quinceanera”
- 5:00 PM “The Aviatrix”
- * 5:00 PM “Peterson’s Savings and Loan”
- 5:00 PM Texas Shorts
- 7:30 PM “Wild Blue Yonder” (North American Premiere)
- 10:00 PM “Do You Sleep In the Nude?” (Regional Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 1
- * 11:00 AM “Throw Down Your Heart” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Mongol” (Regional Premiere)
- 4:30 PM “Punk Rock Passport”
- 6:30 PM “Mister Lonely” (U.S. Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “Explicit Ills” (World Premiere)
- 11:59 PM “Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 2
- 12:00 PM “The Apology Line”
- 12:00 PM “Don’t Get Me Wrong” (U.S. Premiere)
- 2:30 PM “Paper Covers Rock” (World Premiere)
- 5:30 PM “The Black List” (Regional Premiere)
- * 8:00 PM “Full Battle Rattle” (North American Premiere)
- 11:00 PM “Dance of the Dead” (World Premiere)
Dobie
- 11:00 AM “The Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “The New Year Parade” (Regional Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Ubuntu”
- 6:30 PM “The Ostrich Testimonies” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma” (Regional Premiere)
IMAX
Paramount
- 11:00 AM “Shot In Bombay” (North American Premiere)
- 1:45 PM “We Are Wizards” (World Premiere)
- 4:15 PM “Older Than America” (World Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “Assassination of a High School President” (Regional Premiere)
- 9:45 PM “Dreams With Sharp Teeth” (World Premiere)
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SXSW Film schedule for Thursday, March 13
Here is the SXSW Film schedule for Thursday, March 13. All times and screenings are subject to change. Due to the massive number of films being screened, we were obviously not able to check out each film before the fest. However, we did see quite a few, and of those, the critics’ picks are denoted by an *. For more SXSW information, click here.
Austin Convention Center
- 11:00 AM “The Wrecking Crew” (World Premiere)
- 1:45 PM “Second Skin” (World Premiere)
- 4:30 PM “Writ Writer” (World Premiere)
- 7:15 PM “Bulletproof Salesman” (World Premiere)
- * 9:30 PM “Intimidad” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 1
- 11:00 AM “Here’s Johnny” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Humboldt Count”y (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “In A Dream” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “the Art of karaoke”
- 6:30 PM “Dancing Alfonso” (U.S. Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Dear Zachary: a letter to a son about his father” (Regional Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 2
- 12:00 PM Reel Shorts 1
- 12:00 PM “A Day’s Work”
- 12:00 PM “Crossbow”
- 12:00 PM “Solitary”
- 12:00 PM “Mr. P”
- 12:00 PM “34x25x36”
- 12:00 PM “MAN”
- 12:00 PM “Warlord”
- 2:30 PM “Tulia, Texa”s (World Premiere)
- 2:30 PM “X”
- 5:00 PM Animated Shorts
- 5:00 PM “Fish, but No Cigar”
- 5:00 PM “Ideation”
- 5:00 PM “My First Crush”
- 5:00 PM “Office Buddie”
- 5:00 PM “MY BIODEGRADABLE HEART”
- 5:00 PM “Tower of Grantville”
- 5:00 PM “Blindspot”
- 5:00 PM “Rock in a Hard Place”
- 5:00 PM “Jeu”
- 5:00 PM “I hate you don’t touch me or Bat and Hat”
- 5:00 PM “Shut Eye Hotel”
- 5:00 PM “Blissful”
- 5:00 PM “For You, My People”
- 5:00 PM “Paradise”
- 5:00 PM “Madame Tulti-Putli”
- * 7:30 PM “Of All The Things” (World Premiere
- * 10:00 PM “Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson” (Regional Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 1
- * 11:00 AM “The Order of Myths” (Regional Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “The Temerity of Zim”
- 1:30 PM “My Effortless Brilliance” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Beautiful Losers” (World Premiere)
- 6:45 PM “Mister Foe” (U.S. Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “Love Songs” (Regional Premiere)
- 11:59 PM “Southern Gothic” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 2
- 12:00 PM “Agile, Mobile, Hostile: A Year With Andre Williams” (World Premiere)
- 2:30 PM “Here Is What Is” (U.S. Premiere)
- 5:00 PM “Yeast” (World Premiere
- 8:00 PM “‘Bama Girl” (World Premiere)
- 11:00 PM “SPIDER”
- 11:00 PM “The Golden Egg”
- 11:00 PM “Fish Out of Water - Movie Night”
- 11:00 PM “The Adventures of Baxter & McGuire”
- 11:00 PM “LOVEolution”
- 11:00 PM “Brute Force Sings Hey Little Bunny”
- 11:00 PM Midnight Shorts
- 11:00 PM “Swedish Blueballs”
- 11:00 PM “The Rambler”
- 11:00 PM “Show and Hell”
- 11:00 PM “The Heist”
- 11:00 PM “Mano-A-Mano”
- 11:00 PM “Frog Jesus”
- 11:00 PM “Knock Knock”
Dobie
- 11:00 AM “Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Bootleg Wisconsin” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Let’s Get Down to Brass Tacks”
- 4:00 PM “Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Bi The Way” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM Experimental Shorts
- 9:00 PM “Certain Green”
- 9:00 PM “Grand Wheel”
- 9:00 PM “Bathtub”
- 9:00 PM “Upwards March” (North American Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Dynasty Handbag - The Quiet Storm”
- 9:00 PM “df/dx”
- 9:00 PM “Safari”
- 9:00 PM “My Surprise Cousin Catherine”
- 9:00 PM “Kupe and the Whale”
- 9:00 PM “Doxology”
- 9:00 PM “The Book of Lenny”
- 9:00 PM “The Timebox Twins”
Paramount
- 11:00 AM “Some Assembly Required” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “The Toe Tactic” (World Premiere)
- * 4:00 PM “Body of War” (Regional Premiere)
- 6:45 PM “The Upsetter: The Life & Music of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry” (World Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “Stop-Loss” (Regional Premiere)
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SXSW Film schedule for Wednesday, March 12
Here is the SXSW Film schedule for Wednesday, March 12. All times and screenings are subject to change. Due to the massive number of films being screened, we were obviously not able to check out each film before the fest. However, we did see quite a few, and of those, the critics’ picks are denoted by an *. For more SXSW information, click here.
Austin Convention Center
- 11:00 AM “We Dreamed America” (U.S. Premiere)
- * 1:00 PM “At the Death House Door” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Wesley Willis’s Joyrides” (Regional Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Goliath” (Regional Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “One Minute to Nine” (North American Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 1
- 11:00 AM “Living with the Tudors” (North American Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “The Amazing Truth about Queen Raquela” (North American Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Cook County” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Half-Life” (Regional Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “IBID” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Nosebleed”
Alamo Lamar 2
- * 12:00 PM “Secrecy” (Regional Premiere)
- 2:30 PM “MY BIODEGRADABLE HEART”
- 2:30 PM “Fish, but No Cigar”
- 2:30 PM “My First Crush”
- 2:30 PM Animated Shorts
- 2:30 PM “Shut Eye Hotel”
- 2:30 PM “Ideation”
- 2:30 PM “Madame Tulti-Putli”
- 2:30 PM “Office Buddies”
- 2:30 PM “Blissful”
- 2:30 PM “Rock in a Hard Place”
- 2:30 PM “For You, My People”
- 2:30 PM “Paradise”
- 2:30 PM “Blindspot”
- 2:30 PM “Tower of Grantville”
- 2:30 PM “Jeu”
- 2:30 PM “I hate you don’t touch me or Bat and Hat”
- 5:00 PM “Do You Sleep In the Nude?” (Regional Premiere)
- 7:30 PM “Shot”
- 7:30 PM “Clothes Horse”
- 7:30 PM “Quinceanera”
- 7:30 PM “A New Toy”
- 7:30 PM “The Aviatrix”
- 7:30 PM “Sprout”
- 7:30 PM “Peterson’s Savings and Loan”
- 7:30 PM “Plan-b”
- 7:30 PM Texas Shorts
- 10:00 PM “Flawless” (Regional Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 1
- * 11:00 AM “Throw Down Your Heart” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Joy Division” (U.S. Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Wellness” (North American Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Mongol” (Regional Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” (U.S. Premiere)
- 11:59 PM “Otis” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 2
- 12:00 PM “Here Is What Is” (U.S. Premiere)
- 2:30 PM “Medicine For Melancholy” (World Premiere)
- 5:00 PM “Woodpecker” (World Premiere)
- 8:30 PM “Sunlit Shadows”
- 8:30 PM “The Lost Coast” (World Premiere)
- 11:00 PM “I Slammed My Dick in the Drawer”
- 11:00 PM “RSO [Registered Sex Offender]” (World Premiere)
Dobie
- 11:00 AM Austin School of Film presents “M.A.F.I.A.”
- 1:30 PM “Train Town”
- 1:30 PM “The Pleasure of Being Robbed” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “The New Year Parade” (Regional Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Present Company” (World Premiere)
Paramount
- * 11:00 AM “New Orleans Mon Amour” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Bananaz” (North American Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Lou Reed’s Berlin” (U.S. Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “The King of Texas” (World Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “Choke” (Regional Premiere)
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
SXSW Film schedule for Tuesday, March 11
Here is the SXSW Film schedule for Tuesday, March 11. All times and screenings are subject to change. Due to the massive number of films being screened, we were obviously not able to check out each film before the fest. However, we did see quite a few, and of those, the critics’ picks are denoted by an *. For more SXSW information, click here.
Austin Convention Center
- * 11:00 AM “The Matador” (World Premiere)
- * 1:30 PM “FrontRunners” (World Premiere)
- 7:45 PM “Second Skin” (World Premiere)
- * 10:15 PM “Intimidad” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 1
- 11:00 AM “The Ladies”
- * 11:00 AM “Flying On One Engine” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “In A Dream” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Natural Causes” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Half-Life” (Regional Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “Humboldt County” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 2
- 12:00 PM “Glory at Sea”
- 12:00 PM “The Stain on the Sidewalk”
- 12:00 PM Reel Shorts 3
- 12:00 PM “KID”
- 12:00 PM “Closing Night”
- * 12:00 PM “The Second Line”
- 12:00 PM “A Catalog Of Anticipations”
- 2:30 PM “Wild Blue Yonder” (North American Premiere)
- 5:00 PM “Shot In Bombay” (North American Premiere)
- 8:00 PM “Rainbow Around the Sun” (World Premiere)
- * 10:30 PM “Nerdcore Rising” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 1
- 11:00 AM “The Temerity of Zim”
- 11:00 AM “My Effortless Brilliance” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Paper Covers Rock” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Yeast” World Premiere
- 6:30 PM “The Upsetter: The Life & Music of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Nights and Weekends” (World Premiere)
- 11:59 PM “Dance of the Dead” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 2
- 12:00 PM “Odd Shoe”
- 12:00 PM “Up With Me” (World Premiere)
- * 2:30 PM “Full Battle Rattle” (North American Premiere)
- 5:00 PM “Medicine For Melancholy” (World Premiere)
- 7:30 PM “‘Bama Girl” (World Premiere)
- 11:00 PM “Knock Knock”
- 11:00 PM “Mano-A-Mano”
- 11:00 PM “Frog Jesus”
- 11:00 PM “Show and Hell”
- 11:00 PM “The Heist”
- 11:00 PM “SPIDER”
- 11:00 PM “Fish Out of Water - Movie Night”
- 11:00 PM “The Adventures of Baxter & McGuire”
- 11:00 PM “Brute Force Sings Hey Little Bunny”
- 11:00 PM Midnight Shorts
- 11:00 PM “Swedish Blueballs”
- 11:00 PM “The Rambler”
- 11:00 PM “The Golden Egg”
- 11:00 PM “LOVEolution”
Austin Suite @ ACC - BADGES ONLY
- 10:30 AM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Lift”
- 10:30 AM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Steal This Film II”
- 10:30 AM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Mans New Best Friend: A Dogumentary”
- 10:30 AM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Here’s Johnny”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Late Fragment”
Dobie
- 11:30 AM “Dancing Alfonso” (U.S. Premiere)
- 11:30 AM “the Art of karaoke”
- 1:45 PM “The Wrecking Crew” (World Premiere)
- 4:30 PM “Let’s Get Down to Brass Tacks”
- 4:30 PM “Bootleg Wisconsin” (World Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “Bi The Way” (World Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “X”
- 9:30 PM “Tulia, Texas” (World Premiere)
Paramount
- 11:00 AM “We Are Wizards” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Some Assembly Required” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Older Than America” (World Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “The Toe Tactic” (World Premiere)
- 9:45 PM “Dreams With Sharp Teeth” (World Premiere)
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
SXSW Film schedule for Monday, March 10
Here is the SXSW Film schedule for Monday, March 10. All times and screenings are subject to change. Due to the massive number of films being screened, we were obviously not able to check out each film before the fest. However, we did see quite a few, and of those, the critics’ picks are denoted by an *. For more SXSW information, click here.
Austin Convention Center
- * 11:00 AM “Sex Positive” (World Premiere)
- * 1:30 PM “They Killed Sister Dorothy” (World Premiere)
- * 4:00 PM “The Matador” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Bulletproof Salesman” (World Premiere)
- * 9:00 PM “FrontRunners” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 1
- 11:00 AM “Living with the Tudors” (North American Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Here’s Johnny” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Cook County” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Heavy Load” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Dear Zachary: a letter to a son about his father” (Regional Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 2
- 12:00 PM “34x25x36”
- 12:00 PM “Crossbow”
- 12:00 PM “Solitary”
- 12:00 PM “Mr. P”
- 12:00 PM Reel Shorts 1”
- 12:00 PM “A Day’s Work”
- 12:00 PM “Warlord”
- 12:00 PM “MAN”
- 2:30 PM “The European Kid”
- 2:30 PM “Reel Shorts 2
- 2:30 PM “Bachianas No. 5”
- 2:30 PM “The Soldier’s Wife”
- 2:30 PM “The Problem with Machines that Communicate”
- 2:30 PM “Small Apartment”
- 2:30 PM “The Execution of Solomon Harris”
- 2:30 PM “Beijing Haze”
- 2:30 PM “Mr. Mustache”
- * 5:00 PM “Of All The Things” (World Premiere)
- 7:30 PM “Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?” (Regional Premiere)
- 10:00 PM “Do You Sleep In the Nude?” (Regional Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 1
- 11:00 AM “Wellness” (North American Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “‘Bama Girl” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Explicit Ills” (World Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “Yeast” (World Premiere)
- 9:30 PM “One Minute to Nine” (North American Premiere)
- 11:59 PM “Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 2
- 12:00 PM “Sunlit Shadows”
- 12:00 PM “The Lost Coast” (World Premiere)
- 2:30 PM “A Necessary Death” (World Premiere)
- 5:30 PM “The Black List” (Regional Premiere)
- 8:00 PM “Shuttle” (World Premiere)
- 11:00 PM “Southern Gothic” (World Premiere)
Austin Suite @ ACC - BADGES ONLY
- 10:30 AM “GLOBAL DOC DAYS: Saviours”
- 10:30 AM “GLOBAL DOC DAYS: Learning Gravity”
- 2:30 PM “GLOBAL DOC DAYS: My Daughter the Terrorist”
- 2:30 PM “GLOBAL DOC DAYS: Board Control”
- 2:30 PM “GLOBAL DOC DAYS: Raw Youth”
Dobie
- 12:00 PM “Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet” (World Premiere)
- 2:30 PM “Train Town”
- 2:30 PM “The Pleasure of Being Robbed” (World Premiere)
- 5:00 PM “Present Company” (World Premiere)
- 7:30 PM “The Apology Line”
- 7:30 PM “Don’t Get Me Wrong” (U.S. Premiere)
- 10:15 PM “Ubuntu”
- 10:15 PM “The Ostrich Testimonies” (World Premiere)
Hideout
- 6:00 PM “SXSW @ The Hideout: Austin School of Film
- 8:00 PM “SXSW @ The Hideout: Austin School of Film
Paramount
- * 11:00 AM “Crawford” (World Premiere)
- 1:15 PM “Older Than America” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “New Orleans Mon Amour” (World Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”
- 9:45 PM “Battle in Seattle” (U.S. Premiere)
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
SXSW Film schedule for Sunday, March 9
Here is the SXSW Film schedule for Sunday, March 9. All times and screenings are subject to change. Due to the massive number of films being screened, we were obviously not able to check out each film before the fest. However, we did see quite a few, and of those, the critics’ picks are denoted by an *. For more SXSW information, click here.
Austin Convention Center
- 11:00 AM “Some Assembly Required” (World Premiere)
- * 1:45 PM “They Killed Sister Dorothy” (World Premiere)
- 4:15 PM “Super High Me” (Regional Premiere)
- * 7:00 PM “Full Battle Rattle” (North American Premiere)
- 9:45 PM “Nights and Weekends” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 1
- 11:00 AM “The Wild Horse Redemption” (U.S. Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Here Is What Is” (U.S. Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “The Ladies”
- * 4:00 PM “Flying On One Engine” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “In A Dream” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “IBID” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Nosebleed”
Alamo Lamar 2
- 12:00 PM “KID”
- 12:00 PM “A Catalog Of Anticipations”
- 12:00 PM “Glory at Sea”
- 12:00 PM “Closing Night”
- 12:00 PM Reel Shorts 3
- 12:00 PM “The Second Line”
- 12:00 PM “The Stain on the Sidewalk”
- 2:30 PM “Paradise”
- 2:30 PM “Rock in a Hard Place”
- 2:30 PM “My First Crush”
- 2:30 PM “Office Buddies”
- 2:30 PM “Shut Eye Hotel”
- 2:30 PM “Blindspot”
- 2:30 PM “Fish, but No Cigar”
- 2:30 PM “MY BIODEGRADABLE HEART”
- 2:30 PM “I hate you don’t touch me or Bat and Hat”
- 2:30 PM “Madame Tulti-Putli”
- 2:30 PM “Tower of Grantville”
- 2:30 PM “Blissful”
- 2:30 PM “Ideation”
- 2:30 PM “Jeu”
- 2:30 PM “For You, My People”
- 2:30 PM Animated Shorts
- 5:00 PM “Flawless” (Regional Premiere)
- 7:45 PM “The Visitor” (Regional Premiere)
- * 10:30 PM “Nerdcore Rising” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 1
- 11:00 AM “The Temerity of Zim”
- 11:00 AM “My Effortless Brilliance” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Odd Shoe”
- 1:30 PM “Up With Me” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Paper Covers Rock” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Baghead” (Regional Premiere)
- * 9:00 PM “Throw Down Your Heart” (World Premiere)
- 11:59 PM “Dance of the Dead” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 2
- 12:00 PM “Woodpecker” (World Premiere)
- 2:30 PM “Medicine For Melancholy” (World Premiere)
- 5:00 PM “Pierre”
- 5:00 PM “The Marconi Bros.” (World Premiere)
- 7:45 PM “Ano Una” (Regional Premiere)
- 11:00 PM “RSO [Registered Sex Offender]” (World Premiere)
- 11:00 PM “I Slammed My Dick in the Drawer”
Austin Suite @ ACC - BADGES ONLY
- 10:30 AM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “YVES KLEIN; La Revolution Bleue”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “PODLOVE - I Love LIke Blood”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “A Fighting Chance”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Elvis Lives in Parkes”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “What the Future Sounded Like”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Donkey in Lahore”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “PODLOVE - Virtual Freedon”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “My Brother Vinnie”
Dobie
- 11:30 AM “The Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice” (World Premiere)
- 2:00 PM “Obscene” (U.S. Premiere)
- 4:45 PM “Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma” (Regional Premiere)
- 7:30 PM “The New Year Parade” (Regional Premiere)
- 10:00 PM “Agile, Mobile, Hostile: A Year With Andre William”s (World Premiere)
Hideout
- 6:00 PM SXSW @ The Hideout: Reel Women
- 8:00 PM SXSW @ The Hideout: Reel Women
Paramount
- 11:00 AM “Wild Blue Yonder” (North American Premier)
- 1:15 PM “Beautiful Losers” (World Premiere)
- * 4:00 PM “At the Death House Door” (World Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “The Promotion” (World Premiere)
- * 9:45 PM “Run, Fatboy, Run” (Regional Premiere)
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
SXSW Film schedule for Saturday, March 8
Here is the SXSW Film schedule for Saturday, March 8. All times and screenings are subject to change. Due to the massive number of films being screened, we were obviously not able to check out each film before the fest. However, we did see quite a few, and of those, the critics’ picks are denoted by an
Austin Convention Center
- 11:00 AM “Shot In Bombay” (North American Premiere)
- 1:45 PM “We Are Wizards” (World Premiere)
- * 4:15 PM “Sex Positive” (World Premiere)
- 6:30 PM “Bulletproof Salesman”
- 9:00 PM “Dreams With Sharp Teeth” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 1
- * 11:00 AM “Secrecy” (Regional Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Wesley Willis’s Joyrides” (Regional Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Born Without”
- 6:30 PM “The Old Thieves: the Legends of Artegio”
- 9:00 PM “Bi The Way” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 2
- 12:00 PM “Crossbow”
- 12:00 PM “A Day’s Work”
- 12:00 PM “Warlord”
- 12:00 PM “Mr. P”
- 12:00 PM “MAN”
- 12:00 PM “34x25x36”
- 12:00 PM Reel Shorts 1
- 12:00 PM “Solitary”
- 2:30 PM “Small Apartment”
- 2:30 PM Reel Shorts 2
- 2:30 PM “The European Kid”
- 2:30 PM “The Soldier’s Wife”
- 2:30 PM “Mr. Mustache”
- 2:30 PM “Beijing Haze”
- 2:30 PM “The Execution of Solomon Harris”
- 2:30 PM “Bachianas No. 5”
- 2:30 PM “The Problem with Machines that Communicate”
- 5:00 PM “American Teen” (Regional Premiere)
- * 7:30 PM “Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson” (Regional Premiere)
- 10:30 PM “Rainbow Around the Sun” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 1
- * 11:00 AM “Of All The Things” (World Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “Wellness” (North American Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “The Lost Coast” (World Premiere)
- 4:00 PM “Sunlit Shadows”
- 6:30 PM “Mister Lonely” (U.S. Premiere)
- 9:15 PM “Explicit Ills” (World Premiere)
- 11:59 PM “Shuttle” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 2
- 12:00 PM “Woodpecker” (World Premiere)
- 2:30 PM “A Necessary Death” (World Premiere)
- 5:30 PM “The Black List” (Regional Premiere)
- 8:15 PM “The Marconi Bros.” (World Premiere)
- 8:15 PM “Pierre”
- 11:00 PM “Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie” (World Premiere)
Austin Suite @ ACC - BADGES ONLY
- 10:30 AM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Born Without”
- 10:30 AM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “The Old Thieves: The Legends of Artegio”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “China’s Grip on Africa”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Beijing Opera on a Persian Rug”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Brat Camp China”
- 2:30 PM GLOBAL DOC DAYS: “Ancient Chinese Sports”
Dobie
- 11:30 AM “Ubuntu”
- 11:30 AM “The Ostrich Testimonies”World Premiere
- 2:00 PM “X”
- 2:00 PM “Tulia, Texas” (World Premiere)
- 4:30 PM “Let’s Get Down to Brass Tacks”
- 4:30 PM “Bootleg Wisconsin” (World Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “Natural Causes” (World Premiere)
- 10:00 PM “Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet” (World Premiere)
Hideout
Paramount
- * 11:00 AM “The Order of Myths” (Regional Premiere)
- 1:30 PM “The Toe Tactic” (World Premiere)
- * 4:00 PM “Crawford” (World Premiere)
- * 6:30 PM “Then She Found Me” (Regional Premiere)
- * 9:30 PM “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay” (World Premiere)
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
SXSW Film schedule for Friday, March 7
Here is the SXSW Film schedule for Friday, March 7. All times and screenings are subject to change. Due to the massive number of films being screened, we were obviously not able to check out each film before the fest. However, we did see quite a few, and of those, the critics’ picks are denoted by an *. For more SXSW information, click here.
Austin Convention Centers
- 6:30 PM “Goliath” (Regional Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Second Skin” (World Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 1
- 6:30 PM “The Amazing Truth about Queen Raquela” (North American Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “Half-Life” (Regional Premiere)
Alamo Lamar 2
- 7:30 PM “IBID” (World Premiere)
- 7:30 PM “Nosebleed”
- * 10:00 PM “Intimidad” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 1
- 6:00 PM “Humboldt County” (World Premiere)
- 9:00 PM “The Upsetter: The Life & Music of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry” (World Premiere)
- 11:59 PM “Otis” (World Premiere)
Alamo Ritz 2
- 5:00 PM “Obscene” (U.S. Premiere)
- 8:00 PM “Ano Una” (Regional Premiere)
- 11:00 PM “Swedish Blueballs”
- 11:00 PM “Mano-A-Mano”
- 11:00 PM “SPIDER”
- 11:00 PM “Fish Out of Water - Movie Night”
- 11:00 PM “Knock Knock”
- 11:00 PM “The Heist”
- 11:00 PM “Frog Jesus”
- 11:00 PM “Show and Hell”
- 11:00 PM “The Rambler”
- 11:00 PM “The Adventures of Baxter & McGuire”
- 11:00 PM “Brute Force Sings Hey Little Bunny”
- 11:00 PM “The Golden Egg”
- 11:00 PM “LOVEolution”
- 11:00 PM Midnight Shorts
Dobie
- 4:30 PM “Riverboat Gamblers ‘Don’t Bury Me…I’m Still Not Dead’”
- 4:30 PM “The Duke Spirit ‘The Step and the Walk’”
- 4:30 PM “Hey La La ‘Art of Toys’”
- 4:30 PM “The Specimen ‘Do U Damage’”
- 4:30 PM “Yea Big and Kid Static ‘The Life Here’”
- 4:30 PM “The Good Life ‘Heartbroke’”
- 4:30 PM “Kissinger ‘Sydney Stone’”
- 4:30 PM “Lomita ‘Broken Boy’”
- 4:30 PM “Gravy ‘Rock Scientists’”
- 4:30 PM “Dead Meadow ‘What Needs Must Be’”
- 4:30 PM “Love Like Fire ‘I Will’”
- 4:30 PM “The Fashion ‘Solo Impala’”
- 4:30 PM “Coparck ‘A Good Year For the Robots’”
- 4:30 PM “Group Sounds ‘Temporarily in Love’”
- 4:30 PM “The Happy Bullets ‘The Vice & Virtue Ministry’”
- 4:30 PM “Blonde Redhead ‘Top Ranking’”
- 4:30 PM “Socadia ‘Always Near’”
- 4:30 PM “Albatross ‘Giant’”
- 4:30 PM “Cornelius ‘FIT SONG’”
- 4:30 PM Music Videos
- 4:30 PM “Go!Team ‘Grip Like a Vice’”
- 4:30 PM “TV on the Radio ‘Me-I’”
- 4:30 PM “Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings ‘Tell Me’”
- 7:00 PM “Doxology”
- 7:00 PM “df/dx”
- 7:00 PM “The Book of Lenny”
- 7:00 PM “My Surprise Cousin Catherine”
- 7:00 PM “The Timebox Twins”
- 7:00 PM Experimental Shorts
- 7:00 PM “Kupe and the Whale”
- 7:00 PM “Grand Wheel”
- 7:00 PM “Dynasty Handbag - The Quiet Storm”
- 7:00 PM “Upwards March” (North American Premiere)
- 7:00 PM “Certain Green”
- 7:00 PM “Safari”
- 7:00 PM “Bathtub”
- 9:30 PM “Fancy Pants”
- 9:30 PM “Inflections”
- 9:30 PM “Suckcess”
- 9:30 PM “Attaque de l’hamburger”
- 9:30 PM “Picnic”
- 9:30 PM “An Influential Language”
- 9:30 PM “Horsebite”
- 9:30 PM “Texas High School Shorts”
- 9:30 PM “Cheaters Never Quit”
- 9:30 PM “To The Ends Of The Earth”
- 9:30 PM “Dehumanized Eyes”
- 9:30 PM “Pantalon”
- 9:30 PM “An Inspiring Train Wreck”
- 9:30 PM “Never Go In To A Boy’s Bathroom”
- 9:30 PM “Nukes and You”
- 9:30 PM “Trebuchet!”
Paramount
- 6:00 PM “Super High Me” (Regional Premiere)
- * 9:30 PM “21”
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
Rex Reed gets 'Nude' at SXSW
Film critic Rex Reed is a household name to many of us. Dimply, cheeky, snarky and sharp, Reed writes for The New York Observer, and is the subject of veteran New York film critic Marshall Fine’s new documentary feature “Do You Sleep in the Nude?”
The film screens at SXSW at 10 p.m. Monday, 5 p.m. Wednesday and 10 p.m. March 14 at the Alamo South.
There’s an excellent interview with Fine about the film right HERE.
Watch the trailer HERE.
Mr. Reed
Plug into your inner pugilist:
On March 15, LA Boxing will host an open casting call for stunt fighters and action actors for the forthcoming film “Templar: Honor Among Thieves” by award-winning writer, producer and director Rene Hinojosa.
This is part of a series of events going on at the gym, which offers a wide range of classes specializing in boxing and mixed martial arts training.
The open call is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 15 at LA Boxing (11416 RR 620, suite A). Call: 258-IBOX.
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
February 25, 2008
One more star added to the celeb galaxy at SXSW
Our comrade in all thangs movies, Matt Dentler, who happens to direct SXSW Film, tips us off to one more celebrity sighting to be had at the big March film fest. He stars in last night’s Best Picture Oscar winner and his name rhymes with Gosh Shmolin. And he’s bringing a short film.
Find out who at Dentler’s fine blog HERE.
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
February 14, 2008
SXSW announces schedules
SXSW Film has released its full schedule of panels and screenings for the March festival. Check out the official site for the comprehensive lists.
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
February 12, 2008
SXSW Film announces more panels
The folks over at SXSW Film, which kicks off on Friday, March 7, have announced a few more panels for the festival. Among the newly-announced additions to the schedule are:
- “A Conversation with Billy Bob Thornton & Dwight Yoakam”
- “Coming Soon: The Making of a Trailer”
- “An Actor’s Workshop with Jeffrey Tambor”
- “Drugs, Politics, and Race: A ‘Harold & Kumar’ Panel”
- “What the Writers’ Strike Taught Us”
These panels join the following (with descriptions from the SXSW site):
Filmmaking used to be an elite club and up-front financing was a necessity. But with advancement in digital technology, and more alternative distribution routes, the options are virtually endless. These days, no budget equals no problem. Come listen to filmmakers and experts talk about the subject and learn how to jump start your film without the help of financiers and rich uncles.
You can get paid to create a videoblog (vlog)? Meet some the people who have made internet video a full-time endeavor, and find out how they got that job, where they think it’s all going, and how you can get into it, too.
Jeffrey Tambor - the acclaimed TV, film and theater actor - explores different avenues leading to a great performance. Tambor will rehearse and refine scenes with actors onsite, to break down the performance process. This workshop is intended for those interested in bridging the gap between actor and director. Attendees are encouraged to bring questions.
Sophisticated visual effects and computer-generated animation used to be big-ticket items, best left to the $100 million blockbusters from Pixar and the Hollywood majors. But new tools are making visual effects and CG-animation more accessible to independent filmmakers, and also spawning smaller VFX and CG shops willing to work with indies. We’ll get an update from several innovators on the front lines.
When it comes to making a film, “nobody knows anything,” and novice filmmakers know even less. Poor choices can ensure that no one will watch what you’ve made. Early attention to legal and technical issues could mean the difference between having a viable film, or just an expensive calling card. Are you ready to talk about your project? Who should you talk to and what should you say (or not say)? Veterans of the industry discuss how filmmakers most often sabotage themselves, and discuss how to avoid it by doing your homework.
How can indie directors/producers get their work onto the growing number of digital screens in the US, and what are the economics of encoding your film so it can be downloaded digitally and onto a cinema’s server? We’ll also explore how digital cinema is changing the balance of power between Hollywood studios and independents, and what new developments lie ahead.
Use the Internet before the Internet uses you. Thanks to blogs, web-video, and social networking sites, the online universe is a valuable (but no less intimidating) landscape for artists. How do you get the best out of blogs and other sites, to maximize your potential for an audience? Or, how do you get yourself introduced to the booming industry of online journalism and video sharing? These experts will dig deep into these ever-changing trends.
For some filmmakers, getting their work to the masses becomes a very personal task. And, even when a conventional DVD or cable deal is part of the equation, some decide to take on the theatrical release solo. What is this process like? Seasoned filmmakers and members of the industry chat about the complicated world of “self-distribution,” and whether or not they would do it again.
SXSW is happy to announce the inclusion of acclaimed musician Moby, as part of the 2008 SXSW Film Conference. Moby will participate in a session entitled “A Conversation with Moby,” hosted and moderated by Doreen Ringer-Ross of BMI. The session, scheduled for Tuesday, March 11, will take a look at the musician’s relationship with cinema, from composing original scores (Southland Tales) to contributing and licensing his music for film and TV projects (The Bourne Ultimatum, Heat). In addition, it will include a look at “moby gratis,” the musician’s new endeavor to offer some of his music, free-of-charge, to independent filmmakers.
Documentarian Stanley Nelson, one of the most prolific nonfiction filmmakers working today, will attend SXSW 2008 next March to take part in a discussion of his work and his process. The acclaimed filmmaker (Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, The Murder of Emmett Till) will showcase samples from his award-winning career as part of the 2008 SXSW Film Conference. Nelson’s career includes a bevy of lauded historical documentaries, and he will share how he’s achieved such an impressive body of work. Nelson will also dissect the way he approaches historical documentaries with a fresh and inventive sensibility. From the gripping portrait, The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords, to the popular music doc, Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice, Nelson’s filmography speaks for itself as a glimpse into the sometimes-overlooked aspects of American history. Join Stanley Nelson for his panel session, “Stanley Nelson: History in the Making,” at SXSW 2008.
The entire lineup of panels and schedule will be available on the SXSW Web site on Friday, Feb. 15. Buy film passes now at Waterloo Video for $70. Check out the official SXSW site for more information.
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February 10, 2008
SXSW Film passes are on sale
As we told you last Tuesday, SXSW has announced its full slate of films for the March festival. For those of you non-badge holders, SXSW has told us that film passes are now being sold for $70 at Waterloo Video (behind Waterloo Music, for those who were not aware). Passes allow entry to movies once badge holders have been accommodated, and are a fantastic alternative for those not looking to splurge on a badge. Individual film tickets will cost $10 per movie this year, we’ve been told, but from past experience, we can tell you that a pass is worth the money if you intend to hit more than a couple of movies, as individually-ticketed entry is generally pretty hard to come by.
Check out all of our SXSW Film coverage here or head over to the official SXSW site for more information.
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February 5, 2008
SXSW's strong 2008 line-up announced
Who needs to go to Sundance when SXSW is importing a chunk of the best from this year’s Park City soiree — including the big Austin-linked movies — to town in March?
Among a wealth of major titles by Martin Scorsese, Julian Schnabel, Kimberly Peirce, Harmony Korine, Helen Hunt, David Schwimmer, Michael Almereyda, Morgan Spurlock and of course Harold and Kumar, are sprinkled these Austin-oriented films that played Sundance with a splash:
Margaret Brown’s glowingly reviewed Mardi Gras doc “The Order of Myths”
Mark and Jay Duplass’ raved-about, Bastrop-shot comedy-thriller “Baghead,” which was scooped up by Sony Classics at Sundance
Nathan and David Zellner’s bizzaro Austin-made dark comedy “Goliath”
Other big Austin names are Ellen Spiro’s (with Phil Donahue) Iraq doc “Body of War,” which was shortlisted for the Oscar this year; Spencer Parson’s narrative feature debut “I’ll Come Running”; and Rene Pinnell’s doc portrait of his legendary filmmaking uncle Eagle Pinnell “The King of Texas.”
Three of the biggest-hitting films at Sundance also play: Alex Gibney’s dizzily informative “Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson”; Elvis Mitchell’s probing doc “The Black List”; and Nanette Burstein’s much-lauded doc “American Teen.”
Lots of more good stuff where that came from in the complete SXSW film list RIGHT HERE.
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January 29, 2008
SXSW nabs Kimberly Peirce's Austin-shot war flick
Recall a couple of summers ago when Ryan Phillippe was in town shooting a somewhat vague Iraq war picture?
That film is “Stop Loss,” and according to the really obnoxious personal site of one of its stars, it will play SXSW in March. (SXSW has neither denied nor confirmed.)
The film’s IMDB entry describes the plot: “Back home in Texas after fighting in Iraq, a soldier refuses to return to battle despite the government mandate requiring him to do so.”
Directed by Kimberly Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”), “Stop Loss” was shot in, among other places, Austin, Lockhart and San Antonio in 2006.
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January 15, 2008
SXSW line-up fattens up
More titles and talent at SXSW Film 2008:
Media titan and former Disney head Michael Eisner, actress-director Helen Hunt and sci-fi scribe Harlan Ellison will appear on panels, and the sequel to “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” and the new Harmony Korine feature will screen at SXSW, the fest has just announced.
Says SXSW:
“Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” finds the dim heroes (Kal Penn and John Cho) getting themselves in trouble trying to sneak a bong onboard a flight to Amsterdam. Now, being suspected of terrorism, they are forced to run from the law and try to find a way to prove their innocence.
“Battle in Seattle” — Directed by Stuart Townsend. An all-star, edge-of-your-seat glimpse at the 1999 WTO demonstrations in Seattle, told from the perspective of protesters (Michelle Rodriguez, Martin Henderson, Andre Benjamin), police (Woody Harrelson, Channing Tatum), and city officials (Ray Liotta).
“Crawford” — Directed by David Modigliani. A balanced and comprehensive documentary look at the town of Crawford, TX, and how it evolved once George W. Bush moved there.
“Mister Lonely” — Directed by Harmony Korine. A Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) befriends a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton), who takes him to live at an unusual commune for others like them.
“The Promotion” — Directed by Steve Conrad. Two supermarket managers (Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly) face-off against each other when a possible company promotion is brought to the table.
“The Toe Tactic” — Directed by Emily Hubley. In this hybrid of live-action and animation, a young woman grieves for her father while unaware of the magical world around her.
All this and much more at SXSW-2008.
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January 14, 2008
The Guardian loves SXSW Film
From The Guardian:
The new Sundance is … SXSW The big question at last year’s Sundance wasn’t: “What’s the best movie?” It was: “What’s Paris Hilton doing here?” It was inevitable that Sundance would eventually become a victim of its own success. Since it broke the likes of Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Reservoir Dogs in the late 80s and early 90s, its fortunes have risen (and fallen) in proportion to the fate of American “independent” cinema, to the extent that it’s now a celebrity bunfight, with promotional tents and luxury ski chalets aplenty. The film component of the meteorically successful Texas music event South by Southwest, by contrast, is younger, hipper and more laid-back. It’s also “about the movies”, which means the selection is less commercial, and the visitors are mainly unknown film- makers and studio cool-hunters. Its current claim to fame is the unearthing of “mumblecore”, the lo-fi strand that gave us “Funny Ha Ha” and “The Puffy Chair” (due out here in April). Culturally and climatically, SXSW is hot right now — Paris is probably packing her bikini as we speak.
Thanks to Matt Dentler’s excellent blog on IndieWire for the heads-up.
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January 8, 2008
SXSW announces two more films
“Dreams with Sharp Teeth” is the feature directorial debut of Werner Herzog’s producing partner. The documentary focuses on enigmatic science-ficiton writer Harlan Ellison. Watch the trailer on Twitchfilm.net.
“Run Fat Boy Run” promises to be a hilarious little gem starring impish redhead Simon Pegg of “Hot Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead” fame and directed by “Friends” alumn David Scwhimmer. Already a smash hit in the U.K., the film, according to IMDB, tells the story of a chunky, clueless guy who leaves his pregnant fiancée on their wedding day only to discover — 5 years later — that she is his one true love. Aw. View the trailer here.
Register now for your SXSW film badge.
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January 7, 2008
SXSW volunteers
South by Southwest film-music-interactive needs all you work-for-free volunteer peeps for SXSW version .08 in March.
Say they: “Jobs range from festival production to conference activities including registration, information, trade show, technical support, and much more. Day and night positions are available during the conference. Volunteers must be able to work a minimum of 30 hours or four nights during the event, depending on their crew type.”
Applications HERE. Make sure you read details about the Jan. 20 Volunteer Call at the Hilton Hotel.
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January 2, 2008
SXSW names its opening movie
And that movie is “21,” directed by Robert Luketic and based on Ben Mezrich’s book “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.”
Launching the film festival March 7 at the Paramount Theatre, the movie stars Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne.
“21” joins other SXSW titles we’ve mentioned here before. Get them all, plus all the SXSW scoops you need, HERE.
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December 19, 2007
Spiro's movie coming to SXSW
Austin filmmaker Ellen Spiro tells us that her acclaimed documentary “Body of War” will have its local premiere, a big “splash,” March 13 during the South by Southwest Film Festival.
The soundtrack album, titled “No More,” with new music by Eddie Vedder, will enjoy its launch at the SXSW Music Festival that same week.
Spiro co-directed “Body of War” with Phil Donahue. It has been shortlisted for a Best Feature Documentary Oscar and was named best doc of the year by the National Board of Review.
And then there’s this from the Los Angeles Times, whose critic names “Body of War” as a favorite for nabbing the Oscar nomination. He names it plus “For the Bible Tells Me So,” “Lake of Fire,” “No End in Sight,” “Sicko,” “Taxi to the Dark Side” and “War/Dance” as frontrunners for the nom.
The Times explains:
Voters love documentaries by such firebrand liberals as Michael Moore, who won for “Bowling for Columbine” in 2002 and now competes with “Sicko.” But he could be upstaged by Phil Donahue, co-producer and co-director of “Body of War,” the story of a soldier paralyzed in Iraq. He’s promoting it aggressively around Hollywood, fuming, “This has been an unaffordable, unconstitutional, unwinnable, immoral war!”
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December 13, 2007
Get greenlit and win some green
Our own SXSW Film has joined forces with ON Networks for the new Greenlight Awards, which is taking submissions for fresh episodic digital series.
Texas filmies Richard Linklater and Luke Wilson are among the judges.
Get all you need, from rules to cash-prize info, right HERE.
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October 2, 2007
Flaming Lips plan to debut film at SXSW
“It is coming,” Coyne tells Billboard.com. “In fact, it’s better than ever. Because it’s taken so long, we’ve become better filmmakers. There’s better computer effects. I think it will be much better.”
From Billboard.com:
Coyne says the Lips are currently working on final editing and transferring the film into a High Definition format, adding “some in-depth special effects” in the process. Once it’s premiered, he envisions taking “Christmas on Mars” on a kind of “tour;” rather than simply showing it in theaters, Coyne wants to hold special screenings to give fans “a Flaming Lips experience of another kind.” “I want the Flaming Lips audience to shape this,” Coyne explains. “It’ll be like our live show, which evolves as it goes. We’ll show it to the audience and let them talk out there on message boards, and then maybe we’ll take that and go back and change it and put it out there again and see what they think. It’ll be a different experience than sitting at home and watching a DVD, for sure. I don’t know if a lot of bands can do that, but the Flaming Lips sure can.”
For those of you who are not famous rock stars, SXSW Film is continuing its call for entries, accepting submissions of feature-length and short films in categories including narrative, documentary, animation, music video and experimental. The early submission deadline is Nov. 16 and the final submission deadline is Dec. 7.
Phot by Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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