Category: film rants

SXSW: lucky Wednesday

More movies I would particularly recommend:

I heard that The Education of Shelby Knox will air on the PBS documentary series P.O.V. in June (details on the PBS site). I am hoping that Troop 1500 airs on PBS or at least plays in Austin again under the Texas Documentary Tour.
Wednesday did not begin well. It was rainy and chilly outside and I did not relish the idea of parking on the street to see a movie at ACC (Austin Convention Center, not Austin Community College). I didn’t relish the idea of doing much of anything besides curling up in bed with a mug of cocoa.

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SXSW: Tuesday with migraine

Tuesday was pretty uneventful. I don’t have a lot to report. I saw only one movie, despite ambitious plans to see three.
I don’t know if the movies are triggering migraines, or if it’s the sudden change in weather having a bad effect on my sinuses, or if I’m stressed at work in the mornings and then when I get to the movie theaters in the afternoons the sudden switch from work stress to theater happiness triggers a migraine. Or what. Maybe I need new glasses. But I sit down in the nice dark theater and I can feel the beginning of a headache. Or a migraine. Or something evil.
And this has been happening every single day. I am not supposed to take a migraine pill every single day, it makes horns grow on your head or your face turn into a blueberry or something.

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SXSW: Monday? ai-yi-yi

Update on Dobie Theater parking: If you are going to a SXSW movie at Dobie, you can get your parking ticket validated for up to 5 hours. Which is enough for one movie, but probably not two if you get there early and there’s a long space between the two films. You’d probably have to go out and in again. Still, that’s not a big sacrifice to make for free parking.
I went to Dobie on Monday to see Kissing on the Mouth. I was pleased to see that the screening took place in the Egyptian theater, which is the largest Dobie theater and generally has the best seats. However, it is still a difficult theater if you are short. I had to sit up very straight the whole time and I still had someone’s head in my view in one corner of the screen. This is why I don’t see a lot of movies at Dobie, even though they show great films and the theaters are decorated in a very cool way.

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SXSW: lazy Sunday

So far, movies I would recommend that have another screening scheduled during SXSW:

  • Stagedoor—Now this is my idea of a good family film.
  • The Aggressives—Not at all a family film, but a very good documentary that might not get widespread distribution, so see it if you get the chance.
  • The collection of animated short films—More on that later in this entry. Get there early, it is very popular.

Best venue so far: Arbor Great Hills, believe it or not. Although it is a Regal cinema, they are not showing “The 2wenty” before the SXSW films. It is very pleasant to sit in a quiet theater with good house lights before a movie starts. (I wish the Arbor were like this year-round, damn it.) The seats are very comfy, too. It’s a good-sized theater and the out-of-towners are not likely to make the drive, so it’s easier to get good seats.

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SXSW: first Saturday

Saturday, 2:45 pm (home)
I saw Stagedoor this morning. Not to be confused with Stage Door, of course (although I did actually see that film again last weekend, coincidentally enough). Stagedoor is a documentary about the Stagedoor Manor summer camp, a theatrical program in the Catskills where all kinds of kids go to participate in productions. The documentary focused on five kids, but didn’t delve too deeply or focus too much on just these five kids. The movie spent a lot of time looking at the overall camp culture.

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SXSW: first Friday night

I’m writing things as I go along. These are just various impressions I got from going to the festival. Hopefully I’ll have time to write full reviews later for some of these movies.
Friday, 9:20 pm, Alamo South parking lot
I just saw The Chumscrubber. This was not what I thought it would be. I was worried it would involve people dealing with a decomposing corpse or something.
The summary I read was misleading because it listed all the name actors, who are older—Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes, Allison Janney, etc. However, the main characters in this movie are all teenagers (I guess the teen actors aren’t as well known; I didn’t know them, but I am out of touch with them kids today … gads, what a terribly old-farty thing to say). [After checking IMDb on Saturday] One looked very Culkin-ish, and sure enough, Dean’s little brother was played by Rory Culkin. And I am very much out of touch, because Jamie Bell, the lead, also played the title role in Billy Elliot.

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pre-SXSW: Dennis Quaid at Jester

Friday, 4 pm: Waterloo Ice House, Sixth and Lamar.
As part of my class at UT, we had a special class today to make up for having next week off for Spring Break. The speakers were George Freeman, an agent for William Morris who represents lots of actors and directors whose names I recognized, and Dennis Quaid. I couldn’t resist, even though the class was at 2 pm on a Friday and I had lots to do at the office.
The class was held in an auditorium at Jester Center. Jester is a huge-ass dorm on the UT campus. When I lived in the basement there for one year, it was rumored that at the time, Jester was the biggest dorm in the US. It was also rumored that the building plans had been based on a prison. The lobby/public area does look rather grim (and it hasn’t changed in 12 years … make that 13 years, damn). The auditorium made the studio where we usually meet in CMB (the rusty building) look cozy.
Still, it was a pleasure to look down at the front of the room and see Dennis Quaid, and I will now be very shallow and tell you that I don’t know how old that man is, but he looks hot. (IMdb says he’s 50. Okay.) I watched him walk up to the stage in some rather ratty-looking jeans, noticed that he had all kinds of things crammed in the back pockets, wondered what else a man would stick in his back pocket besides his wallet, then realized that during all this wondering, I had been fixated on his ass for waaay too long. He turned around and I noticed that his front jeans pockets were also crammed with stuff, and then I told myself rather sharply to look over at George Freeman or the clock or something before I got improperly fixated on anything inappropriate.

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movies this week: screw that, I’m going

One line stood out in the weekly email newsletter from Alamo Drafthouse this week:
“And there you’d been thinking that SXSW was the only big film event you had to look forward to this month. Ha! If you do it right, you’ll be exhausted before South By Southwest even starts.”
Yes, I will.
March is starting to look downright insane. I bought my SXSW film festival pass on Tuesday night. Every year, the department where I work gets terribly busy right around SXSW time, and so I decide I really can’t make the time to go. I’ve seen coworkers buy festival passes that they aren’t able to use. I didn’t want to deal with the frustration and I always said, “Maybe next year.”
This year, I said, “Screw that. I’m going.”
I am taking some time off work in the middle of a hectic time at work, which is pretty dumb, but I don’t care. You cannot plan your life around product release schedules, mainly because they always seem to shift so that the vacation you’ve been planning for months suddenly occurs in the middle of crucial beta testing.
I would take the whole week off work if I could, because I want to see manymany movies and write about them and it would be nice if I could get to the gym at least once during a week when I will spend a lot of time with my butt parked in theater seats … but even working half-days will probably create some deadline difficulties.
And I should work this weekend to make up for the time lost, but I want to see Bride and Prejudice and I’m going to a wedding and did I mention I am auditing a class at UT? It’s a film class so I have to make time for screenings, too. I can’t go to The Muppet Movie sing-along on Sunday night because I need to watch a film for the class.
And there are other various personal projects that I decided to undertake and can’t back away from right now.
So I think that Alamo Drafthouse is being downright mean, opening their new Alamo South theater (on S. Lamar) this weekend and showing all kinds of interesting movies next week before the SXSW film festival starts. I can’t see The Iron Giant because I have a class. If I see Rashomon I will miss the only opportunity all week to work out. (Fortunately, the Rashomon is a little too pricey for me.)
Under the circumstances, perhaps you understand why I cannot even deal with a movie titled Be Cool. And I don’t need The Pacifier, either. (What is this, Dumb Titles in New Releases Week? They’re all two words long and laaaaame.)

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movies this week: why I love Austin

I noticed it last week: a particularly long listing of special screenings and film-related events in Austin. And that wasn’t comprehensive by any means. I don’t usually include movies being shown in non-theatrical venues, like at Spider House or Pedazo Chunk (is Pedazo Chunk still open? Their Web site doesn’t work). I also don’t include the TV-related stuff like Alamo’s Buffy Sing-Along, which I’m told is quite popular.
This week, the list is just as long. And it’s not going to get any shorter. The new Alamo South Lamar opens next Friday, March 4, and they have scheduled all kinds of fun film events as part of their grand opening from March 7-10. The SXSW film festival runs from March 11-19, and you can buy festival passes now at Waterloo Video. And once it warms up outside, Rolling Roadshow will start showing films in parks again.
New releases? Who cares about seeing the latest Hollywood product in a big chain theater when there are so many interesting one-time-only events going on in town? (Okay, I want to see Bride and Prejudice, but that’s about it.) Check out the film schedules for the Alamo theaters, for the Paramount, and for the Texas Union Theater. (Why didn’t anyone tell me the Texas Union showed Army of Darkness on Ash Wednesday? And Shaun of the Dead the day after? I am bookmarking that calendar.) And so many of these movies are free or cheap … you can indulge your love of seeing movies in theaters at a very low cost.
I love Austin. We’ve got everything from Takashi Miike films to The Muppet Movie playing on screens here.
On the other hand, with this incredible bounty of films around town, I think I may have persuaded myself to cancel our Netflix account. Oops.

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