SXSW baby!

Today starts my favorite 9 days of the year.

I am so excited!
6:46:55 AM    comment []  trackback []

Just a few quick items...

Few things...
First off, I wrote an update for SXSW day Four and put it in it's right place.

Second off is that we're getting a few writeups for Dos Blokes - one from the Toronto Star that got it, and one from the local Austin Chronicle that didn't quite get it, but enjoyed it. The writer from Toronto is pretty crazy.

We got legs.
4:58:05 PM    comment []  trackback []

It's over...

And it's been quite a ride. I'll go back and update everything as soon as possible, but right now it's rest and recovery time. It has been good.
5:35:38 PM    comment []  trackback []

SXSW: Day 9 (Final Day)

I get up today feeling better than any of the SXSW days. Still, I don't get out and about until 2 - and that's just to the theatre two-and-a-half blocks from my apartment. There I go to see Derailroaded with a mid-sized crowd. What convinced me to see the movie was that it was supposed to be about a guy who was in with Zappa - I thought it to mean that it was about a guy who was in Zappa's band or was some sort of confidant of Zappa's. I also wasn't interested in any of the other movies playing at the time.

I basically went into Derailroaded blind, and was introduced to Larry "Wild Man" Fischer, a novelty act based around a guy who has a lot of mental problems. It follows Larry around as he goes about his daily routines and such, living with an elderly relative. I generally love novelty acts, especially those built around the insane, but I didn't find Larry's act all that great. Larry basically screams and makes up 40-second songs. I couldn't help but to compare him to Wesley Willis and the lackluster documentary "Wesley Willis: I am the Daddy of Rock'n'Roll". I kept asking why Fischer's act didn't appeal to me - eventually it dawned on me. The footage from the early 80's and today was nearly identical in the movie - the Wild Man doesn't have much of a catalog. The songs he was doing then, he's doing now. The doc has a bunch of interviews with people who all claim to care deeply for Larry - Barnes and Barnes ( did the song, "Fish Heads"), Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), and Weird Al Yankovic , and Dr. Demento. As these people spoke about Fischer, I wished that the doc was about them. Any one of these people would make for a fascinating documentary, and they aren't camera-shy.

As I watched, I eventually became very troubled by Fischer's plight. All these people claimed to care for Fischer, but nobody ever tried to make him take his medicine. If they mentioned that they made attempts but he refused, I could've been ok with that. But nobody says that they even tried. None of these people let Fischer live with him or tried to take care of him. They just let him come and go as he pleases when he obviously has problems. (Wesley Willis often lived with his friends who forced him to take his medicine) Eventually Fischer disappears for three months and returns emaciated and sickly looking, he doesn't say too much about where he's been except that he's been sleeping in ditches and rarely eating. For the first time do his friends talk about getting him help. Eventually he does begin taking his medicine (For the first time in 40 years) and we're presented with the big side effect - "he lost the pep". The filmmaker wanted this to be a big tragic event, that we're supposed to pitty him now. I don't feel that way. Instead I see a man who needed help finally gets help. Perhaps now he can take care of himself, or at least stick around for a while.

After that, it was a hop, skip, jump and flat out run to get to Mutual Appreciation at the Paramount in time. It was very much worth it. Mutual Appreciate is from Andrew Bujalski whose other movie "Funny Ha ha!" hits limited distribution at the end of April. Mutual Appreciation is a sprawl of a story. A musician comes to New York, hangs out with his friend for a while, some stuff happens. That's about it. Instead it's more about the way people relate to each other. The dialogue is straight of of real life - uh's and ums, stutters and stops. Visually it looks like an old Cassavetes film - grainy black and white with an imperfect focus - I loved it. Mutual Appreciation looks at a bunch of moments in real life, letting you laugh as you relate - it's kind of a comedy, but the jokes are subtle to the point of being barely there. Right up my alley. MA looks at hanging out in the apartment of somebody you've just met and the awkwardness of the situation. Honesty of relationships, doing favors, a lot of carefully-observed life is put into this movie and just ever-so-slightly skewed to make the observation of it hilarious only because you've lived it. Great stuff.

A little bit of a down time later and I'm at Steven Tobolowsky's Birthday Party. Tobolowsky is an actor who has been in a lot of things, but never is the lead guy or the draw. He's the familiar face that you see everywhere. Ned Briarson in Groundhog day, if that helps. Anyways, it turns out the guy is a magnificent story teller. He goes and tells stories of his life rich with detail and passion. It's pretty amazing how you can be sucked into his stories. He's got some pretty great ones too - from being held hostage to being threatened by a dolphin. He tells them so well that you absolutely believe him from post to post. The movie is most similar to a Spalding Grey piece only modernized. Instead of a desk with an oversized book, Tobolowsky hangs out at home with some friends, or talks to the camera while making some sausages. Easy, laid back. The movie is a wonderful watch, I can only guess what will happen to it.

From that movie it was off to... nowhere. The movies that were available I had already seen or wasn't interested in. An abrupt end to a good thing.
8:51:50 PM    comment []  trackback []

SXSW: Day 8

Started the day relatively early and caught the second screening of the day. My health was improving, so I was able to get going pretty well. I headed down to the Dobie theatre to catch Kissing on the Mouth. There I ran into John Pierson. We talked before the movie, mostly during the SXSW trailer.

The SXSW intro trailers, by this point, had become something rapidly different than they started out as. The trailers had been in production since October , and with the name Bob Odenkirk attached to them, everyone was looking forward to them. Well, not looking forward to them, as much as thinking they'd be better than last year's (a collection of examples of different genres of film). However, the problem with this year's trailers became evident on Day Two - there were only two made and they were nearly identical. Basically, a budding director goes to Hollywood and buys a star map complete with keys. He goes into a house and finds his way into the basement where people in dark robes and performing some sort of ritual. The director asks to be let into the filmmaking cult and either Jeff Goldblum or Ron Livingston lets him in. The charm quickly wore off for a lot of people. The trailers seemed incredibly long by Day 5 and by Day 7 they were being heckled - people yelling out various alternative answers for the dialogue.

John said he'd seen the trailers in early February and knew they weren't going to hold up. However, there was a bright side - the Sundance trailers could've been seen as offensive - changing "independent" filmmaking to "inept" filmmaking, showing fictional instances where people were killed by bad filmmaking. SXSW at least wants you to become a filmmaker by breaking into famous people's houses (although it should be noted that neither Jeff Goldblum or Ron Livingston have directed any movies according to IMDB).

After the trailer, the movie kicked right up. Kissing on the Mouth became the talk of the festival because it's write-up said it was an "Adults only" movie and the publicity still included a female nipple. This, right away, taught me a valuable lesson - always do both those things, regardless of the actual content of the movie, to get buzz and people to show up. Kissing on the Mouth was also lauded because it had a lot of nudity in it. A whole lot. The novelty wore off quickly. The basic plot of the movie, which was barely there, was that a girl started sleeping with her ex again, and nobody was happy with the situation, including them. The movie addressed this plot slowly, overlaying other parts with interviews of 20-somethings about issues such as marriage (which, had basically different people expressing the same sentiment). The movie was made for a song, shot on handheld DV and edited directly after shooting. For such a setup, I didn't find it edited particularly well. It constantly had punch in shots of feet, over and over again. Somebody would talk and we'd see their feet for a while. Punch-in shots are tricky to work, and even harder to do right. These didn't strike me as being done too terribly well. However, it was very well acted, using stumbling dialogue (uh's, um's, etc) with a sparse script that lead itself to a lot of improvised dialogue.

However, overall, the movie really didn't go anywhere. While I could agree with a lot of the sentiments expressed by the story and the interviews, I couldn't help but think that it was trying to be a lot more than what it was. I think they were trying to mesh narrative and documentary together, but it just didn't work, especially in comparison to Cavite and it's treatment of showing real stuff while in a fake story. Overall Kissing in the Mouth was boring. It was a big sprawl that just really didn't end up going anywhere, and was slow getting there. The nudity was mostly unnecessary and wasn't even handled particularly well. In the Q&A they said they didn't mean it to be particularly shocking - it wasn't, it was interesting for a bit, then quickly boring, just like the rest of the movie.

Next up: Four Eyed Monsters. The Slamdance pick that was getting lots and lots of praise. I went into this one hoping for good things. It starts of pretty interesting, showing the life of this for-hire video editor. Then he turns to the internet for love. Then it becomes like a feature version of Love Math, only creepier. The guy finds the girl, but doesn't talk to her, of course, instead he stalks her, taking photos of her. He emails her the photos and her natural reaction is to be flattered. Ok, ok, suspension of disbelief, alright, I'll try. It's gotten me past the horrible sets, so maybe just going with it will be ok. He agrees to meet her on the condition that they don't talk to one another, that no speaking is to take place, arguing that talking is what ruins things. They should communicate, yes, but they shouldn't talk. Arguing that the means of communication is more important than the message they meet up and write notes to each other. They write notes and try to reinforce their quirkiness. Then it goes nowhere. Just a bunch of them writing their notes saying how quirky they are, then she ships off to art school where they club the audience over the head saying how much their relationship is art.

Then comes the ending. They can't find a way to end it so they just start deconstructing their sets from the movie and put together the movie. Then it shows the guy on the phone getting his movie accepted to Slamdance. I thought that was absolutely classless and completely tacky. Just something about recreating it and putting it in the actual movie just really rubbed me the wrong way. I was very glad the movie was over. If you're looking to watch something about not talking, there's an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer doesn't talk - that's really good.

After watching Kissing on the Mouth and Four-Eyed Monsters I was sick of movies about relationships shot on handheld Mini-DV. So, I went over to watch another movie screening in competition - Waterborne, starring not one, but two stars from Office Space (Samir and The O-Face guy). I wasn't too sure about the premise going into it - a terrorist poisons the LA water supply and people have to cope without water. However, I was really surprised by the movie, instead of being heavy handed about terrorism, instead it's a movie about how people have to deal with the circumstance they're given. The movie gave a really interesting look at how people deal with problems and how panic is more dangerous than the actual catastrophic event. The movie is shot in beautiful (and steady!) HD that's washed out to create just a great look. The movie was wonderfully shot, a nice change on the day. The movie was a bit of a sleeper for me, but I really enjoyed watching people deal with the issues and fight over simple drinking water. Even nicer to watch it at the drafthouse where you can easily order a drink the middle of it.

Hopped on down to the Paramount to check out the Comedians of Comedy. I wasn't gung-ho on the show (unlike some people, who were incredibly excited for the movie) but it looked passable and there wasn't much else I wanted to see. It was a huge surprise. The movie was flat out hilarious. There's not much really to tell about the movie - it's part documentary on the comedians on the road and part of their routines. Most of their routines are just incredibly funny, I was really blown away. Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn and Zach Galifianakis are all hilarious (Zach's introduction in the movie is just great). Maria Bamford is a weak link, but has her moments. The movie suffers a little bit in that it doesn't have a storyline, like the documentary Comedian (the Jerry Seinfeld documentary) did. The movie is being distributed by NetFlix, so it's going to have it's own little distribution scheme. I don't know that it'll reach it's audience that way, but it should be interesting to see if it does.
11:05:43 PM    comment []  trackback []

Another brief SXSW update

One more day left. Then some rest, then I'll write everything up. I swear.
Today:
Kissing on the Mouth: Lots of nudity, very little story
Four Eyed Monsters: Sundance movie where art students make a movie about their own quirky relationship - it's exactly what you think
Waterborne: A really good look at the human element of a terrorist attack
Comedians of Comedy: A hilarious doc on 4 comedians
Dos Blokes: Does really well before a small audience
10:57:08 PM    comment []  trackback []

SXSW: Day 7

The week mark of SXSW was capped off with the weakest night of movies by far. The music part was just kicking up so it was pretty obvious where the focus was. There wasn't too much that appealed to me, so I saw what I could.

The first movie was Pucker Up - every year SXSW has a movie about some sort of lost art or lost sport that people ignore that has it's own competition complete with a bizarre cast of characters. This year, it was Pucker Up - a movie about competitive whistlers. Now, I have to add a disclaimer - I cannot whistle. At all. Not one bit. Fortunately they address this, they start with the phrase "There are those who can whistle and those who have tried". A great start. The movie starts out pretty strong, unfortunately, it couldn't keep it up. The biggest problem was their audio was messed up. I was told that it had problems at both locations that the movie played, meaning the problem wasn't in the setup, but the movie itself. These problems really damaged the movie, as it's mostly about audio.

The movie shows off the many whistling tricks that the experts can do, which are impressive, but there's only so much that they can do. There's some weird methods of whistling, but they're briefly addressed and pushed aside for the standard form of whistling, arguably the most boring kind. I was really impressed with people who could whistle and mimic bird calls and various other forms, the regular whistle just got boring after a while. I'm not alone in this opinion: the National Whistling Convention that the competition was taking place was nearly empty. There were the entrants and that's about it. Made me think that maybe some of these dying arts should just go ahead and die.

The movie made me think back to last year's doc that filled this slow - A League of Ordinary Gentlemen, about bowling. I just couldn't stop thinking about how much better it was than Pucker Up. Pucker Up becomes a very paint-by-numbers competition documentary, trying to get some tension going about who will win the contest, but it's never able to maintain that competition, parts that should be tense moments just come out of nowhere. A runoff between two of the best should have a lot of build up leading to an even more tense part, in Pucker, it just has a guy walk on stage and say "There's a tie" - you didn't know if he was introducing another whistler or anything. Combined with the competition aspect, they tried to show the novelty parts of whistling, from different styles to an Italian island where people communicate by whistling. These interesting bits are introduced and quickly gotten rid of. I wanted more of that, less of the competition.

The movie is well made and well constructed, but in the end, it just doesn't deliver like I wanted it to. Too much focus on a competition that I really didn't care all that much about left me dry. In the end, it left me with an overall mediocre feeling. I'm sure there was a crop of odd sport docs, and I was hoping that the festival filter system would weed out all but the best, if this was the best, this year's crop is weak.

After Pucker Up, there wasn't a movie that I really wanted to see, so I met up with some people who were going to see Reeker. I'm not much of a horror movie person, still, but I went ahead and saw it, there wasn't another movie that I wanted to see.

Reeker is the story of how betraying an ecstasy dealer can go wrong. That leads to the typical mysterious unstoppable monster that has no consistency, can do anything it wants to, except at a critical moment. The movie had some inspired moments, mostly dealing with it's blind character, but in the end, it really wasn't that great, and it had the most common horror movie problem - in an overt desire to have a twist that the viewer didn't see coming, it fails to make any sense at all. In the end, it left me cold and mostly uninterested.
10:55:49 PM    comment []  trackback []

Yeah, yeah...

Updates when they come.
Quickie Style:

Pucker Up: Disappointing doc about whistling
Reeker: Lackluster horror movie.

Easily the weakest night of the festival.
8:21:11 PM    comment []  trackback []

SXSW Day 6

There wasn't too much happening early in the day so I didn't really get started until 4, kinda late.

However, it started off great. I went down to the Paramount to see The Puffy Chair, a Sundance import that a lot of people were talking about. The film is about a guy who purchases a large purple recliner off of E-bay, drives to pick it up with his girlfriend, picking up his brother on the way, to deliver it to his father for the father's birthday. Shot on some good looking DV it could conceivably be passed off as a documentary (a doc with a lot of coverage, but a doc nonetheless). I'm told that the cut off age on this movie is 30 - if you're under 30 you'll love it, if you're over you won't care for it that much.

That said, being 22, I absolutely loved it. The movie is a raw look at the relationships between people, and I found it really relatable. The directionless relationship, dealing with a brother, saving money via scams, dealing with misrepresentation on ebay... while I don't doubt that people over 30 have gone through these situations, I found them to be very young and young-person oriented. I'm not sure why though. I'm sure that a lot of people over 30 enjoyed the movie, just how that dynamic was presented to me... I found it very interesting. Anyways, the Puffy Chair is a funny movie through all of it's relational exploration, it's biggest laughs come from some of the most emotional parts. It's the odd sort of movie where the tougher the issues the characters deal with, the more you laugh.

The Puffy Chair deals with tough issues in a surprisingly well mannered way. More surprising that the film was in the "Emerging Visions" category for a first or second time feature film. It's very mature in it's construction and treats it's characters with respect. Director Jay Duplass (who also plays the lead) is a very talented man.

From there I hustled on down to the Alamo South Lamar to go see Automatic. I didn't know what Automatic was about, but I met the filmmakers the night before, so I saw it at their request. I slipped into the theatre and was able to write up my food order just before the lights dimmed. They play the trailer for the festival and then begins this ugly-looking, inaudible mess. It starts to build some plot line about a missing purse and some underaged girl or something, I couldn't really tell. The waiter then came by and snatched my order away, first thing that pops into my head is "crap. Now I can't walk out". Next shot is artificially zoomed in DV that lots terrible. The muddles through for a few minutes to basically no conclusion and then credits - including a different title. What I watched was just a short. A terrible short, but just that. The movie then began and I was greatly relieved.

I guess it goes back to the old Vaudevillian concept of "following", but having a bad short screen before your movie is actually a good thing - it makes you look that much better. seeing some good shots, and being able to hear the actors made me receptive to just about anything after the short. Automatic is the tale of interconnected relationships and an inability to change your own actions. It has sort of a doomed message to it, sort of about helplessness. The most rewarding tale in the movie is one of the love of a man and his half-sister.

From there I couldn't find a movie that had a description that grabbed me, so I hopped down to the downtown drafthouse to catch The Sinus Show's presentation of Xanadu - the 1980 Olivia Newton-John movie about a roller skating night club. The movie was terrible, but the Sinus treatment was great fun. The Sinus show, for those who don't know, is basically three comedians telling jokes over movies similar to Mystery Science Theatre 3000. They used to be Mr. Sinus Theatre 3000, but several lawsuits have whittled the name down to "The Sinus Show". It was a lot of fun, I hadn't seen Xanadu or been to a Sinus show. I'll have to go again sometime.

To cap off the evening I stuck around the drafthouse for a little movie known as Dos Blokes. I went to the Paramount to promote it, figuring I could get walk-outs from Drop Dead Sexy. I was in full regalia, a green sport coat and big sunglasses yet people still took me seriously. So much the producer of Drop Dead gave me some invites to his afterparty (which, was pretty lousy). Got a few people to head that way, a lot of them had already seen Dos Blokes and really enjoyed it. I headed back to see that Marlo, the star of the show, had shown up for this one and was really excited to see how it played for the audience.

Our promotions paid off - the crowd was downright excited for the movie. I handed out one of our post cards to a guy I'd met before, which drew attention from the people around him, so I gave some to those people, who included Wiley Wiggins of Waking Life fame. The guy who introduced the movie stumbled through his set-up for The Roost, only to have people yell out asking if there was a short, then asking if the short filmmakers were in attendance. We probably knew the person who did it, but I have no clue who it was. Dos Blokes played well, eliciting applause again. After that, we left. Can't watch The Roost every night.
10:45:14 PM    comment []  trackback []

SXSW Day whatever quickie style

As per usual, quickie style then I'll redo them to the normal way
Puffy Chair: Awesome. Surprised me how good it was

Automatic: Made by a bunch of good guys, interesting stuff The Sinus Show Presents Xanadu: Hadn't seen Xandadu before, but the Sinus treatment of it was fantastic
Dos Blokes: Absolutely killed again.

Gonna get up and see some shorts tomorrow~
10:29:09 PM    comment []  trackback []