SXSW: The Wendell Baker Story

...So with some time to kill I met a few friends in the line for the new Wilson brothers project, "The Wendell Baker story" - and it was a good thing that I did, it seemed like they didn't have a cast and crew screening of the movie ever, so anywhere from 450-500 seats were reserved (The Paramount has 1300 seats, but there's one section that's never used, box sets are never used, so the totals go way down when you consider that.) While sitting and waiting for the movie everything seemed normal until one moment where suddenly flashes went off everywhere. Just all at once they started going off - turned out Owen Wilson had just walked in. That explains it. Andrew and Luke Wilson showed up quickly afterwards, but they didn't attract as much attention - partially because some shutterbugs were told their cameras would be confiscated. I sat next to Motorcycle Michael at the showing - Motorcycle's a big part of Austin film - anytime the Chronicle has a showing of a movie (Like my Universal screenings) they send him in to talk up the Chronicle to the crowd. He's a very unrelenting, gregarious guy - he yells everything. All of the time. It works for screenings ("HEY EVERYONE, WE'RE GONNA HAVE SOME FUN TONIGHT, WE GOT A MOVIE PLAYING! THESE GOOD FOLKS WERE KIND ENOUGH TO SEND US A MOVIE TO WATCH - IT'S CALLED 'I LOVE HUCKABEES' .... WHAT?.... NO, IT'S GOT A HEART THERE, YOU DON'T SAY 'HEART', IT MEANS LOVE!") some hate him, some love him. I just find him funny, really. Show starts with SXSW Programmer (and blogger) Matt Dentler coming up on stage, which prompted Motorcycle to yell out "MATT" as loud as he could (louder than normal even). Didn't phase him. Andrew and Luke were brought out to big applause and Andrew graced us with about three sentences which can be summed up with "enjoy the show" (which, coincidentally, was the third sentence)

Wendell Baker was a pretty fun movie, Luke Wilson plays a guy who doesn't like traditional work, so he finds his own - forging drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. He goes to jail for a while, is subsequently paroled and released into the care of a state-run facility for the elderly run by Owen Wilson (just to get it out of the way, Andrew Wilson didn't act in the movie, only co-directed). The movie sprawls over Wendell chasing after his new dream of being a hotel manager and getting back his ex-girlfriend. It had a lot of names attached to it - Kris Kristofferson, Seymore Cassel, Eddie Griffin, etc. It's a lot for a festival film (although Michael Winterbottom's Code 46, which played in the same 'opener' slot and then went on to disappear completely, had Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton in it). "The Wendell Baker Story" marks the directorial debut of Andrew Wilson and, quite honestly, it shows. While the movie was overall a lot of fun, it had a lot of weaknesses that really showed through. A lot of things just were not set up right. I had no idea that a character that was supposed to be a shut-in, was a shut-in. He was shown in his room, while other characters were inside most of the time, just seemed like he was a quiet guy. He leaves the room and it's revealed that he hadn't been out in 7 years. Came out of nowhere, really.

A lot of what happens in the movie reminds me of one part of Tom Sawyer, where Tom is lost in the South somewhere, he's all alone, when he sees a cart approaching, it gets closer and closer and closer and who's in it, but Huck Finn. Just one of those moments that makes you say "Oh how convvvviiiiieeeenent!", this movie is filled with them. Some setups get to be ridiculous. It's not exactly what you'd expect from the Wilson brothers, and that stigma is going to kill it. If it was just from any random first feature writer/director a lot would be pretty forgivable, but with the movie basically being touted as a Wilson brothers project, they're going to have problems (to further illustrate - nobody really knew what it was about, except that it was shot in Austin [most Austin shots since Slacker it seemed like] and had the Wilson's and they had to see it).

Movie finishes credits roll to cheers and applause, and more cheers and applause come as certain names come up. Which names? I can't tell you. They were on the scrolls with a hundred other names in vague positions - crew favorites. The cheering section was having a ball. Motorcycle even got into it, seeing the casting director he yelled out, "OH YEAH, I KNOW JO EDNA, EXCUSE ME BOYS, I'M GETTING OUT!" and with that he shuffled right by us. Credits roll and roll and then... the house lights come up and... nothing. No word from the directors, no Q&A... all of this is very odd. Usually you get some sort of word on the inside about the movie afterwards, especially if the director or lead is there. With all three Wilson brothers (though Owen is rumored to have snuck out) everybody was expecting something.

Of course... there are reasons why they'd duck their own Q&A. After production the Wilson brothers skipped town - leaving lots of people without their pay. They must have worked out a payment plan, a net 30, easy chex plan, something, because earlier the teamsters union was threatening to block the road and block the theatre when it was playing. Everything went off without a hitch, so the unions must've gotten their dues (and they would've blocked everything, given the chance), but I can see why they'd want to dodge questions from supporters in the audience.
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