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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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congratulations John DeFore! You are the only person that was able to cough up criticism for A WInters Bone. I suppose Variety, Hollywood Reporter and all the other experts in the field. I’d suggest you don’t quit your day job just yet.
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I bought one of the $70 passes and was only turned away from one screening - I saw 11 films (nine feature-length films and two shorts showcases) over the course of three days. The thing that’s depressing about SXSW Film is that people flock to the
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