Jette Kernion's blog

SXSW announced its film lineup today, which is full of all kinds of features and documentaries. The big splashy Hollywood news is that the movie 21 Jump Street, starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, will premiere at the fest as its Centerpiece Film. In addition, the closing-night film will be the music documentary Big Easy Express from Emmett Malloy.

One marquee movie with a Texas connection is the Dallas-set Killer Joe, reuniting Bug filmmaker William Friedkin and playwright Tracy Letts, and starring Matthew McConaughey (and that's not the only film he's in that will play SXSW). Other notable movies playing the fest include Bobcat Goldthwait's God Bless America, the Will Ferrell-starring Casa de mi Padre and Guy Maddin's Keyhole ... among many many others announced.

SXSW Film has no Lone Star States category this year, but the overall lineup of narrative and documentary features includes many local and state connections. We'll have a full list later this month of all the Austin and Texas features and shorts screening at the fest this year. In the meantime, here are some Lone Star-connected films that stuck out in today's announcement:

• Gayby (Narrative Feature Competition)-- Jonathan Lisecki has expanded his popular 2010 short of the same name. It stars Jenn Harris and Matthew Wilkas (from the short) as well as Dule Hill and Samantha Buck. The cast also includes Austinites Alex Karpovsky and Anna Margaret Hollyman. Dallas-to-Austin filmmaker Clay Liford (Wuss) is director of photography.
• Somebody Up There Likes Me (Narrative Spotlight, pictured at top) -- The latest feature from Bob Byington (Harmony and Me) will have its world premiere at the fest. The movie stars Keith Poulson, Nick Offerman (also in Casa de mi Padre), Jess Weixler and Kevin Corrigan. The cast also includes local actors Chris Doubek, Andrew Bujalski, Allison Latta, Anna Margaret Hollyman (also in Gayby) and Jonny Mars ... and once again, Bob Schneider as a wedding singer. The trailer is already available on the film's website. 

To celebrate our new partnership with Austin Film Society, Slackerwood and AFS are having a happy hour tonight and we hope you'll join us.

Date: Wednesday, Feb. 1 (tonight!)
Time: 6-8 pm
Location: Red's Porch, 3508 S. Lamar (in the back)

Many Slackerwood contributors will be there -- I'm not sure so many of us have been in one place at the same time before. We'll have snacks and beer, so get there before we run out. (Sadly, we won't have any Duff, I just thought that would grab your attention.) And a special thank you to Red's Porch and North by Northwest for sponsoring the event.

Here's the latest Austin film news:

• Austin is getting a new festival -- not a film fest but a television festival, something new and a bit different. The ATX Festival will take place June 1-3 this year. The fest organizers are currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise start-up funds, and some of the giving levels will earn you discounted badges for the festival.
• One of my favorite films from Fantastic Fest 2010, Sound of Noise, is finally getting theatrical release in the U.S. soon thanks to Magnolia Pictures. The quirky movie about "musical terrorism" opens in limited release on March 9. No word yet about an Austin release date, but I hope they open it here at least a week later because, you know, SXSW. Read my review from Cinematical and you might understand why I'm excited and impatient.
• Sundance ended this weekend but I still want to point you to this enjoyable profile in The New York Times of Austin filmmakers Nathan and David Zellner as they brought their feature Kid-Thing to Park City. I find it funny that the Variety review says the feature should be "potentially broadening their loyal fanbase," but the IndieWIRE review says it's "too irreverent for any kind of mass market." The movie will play Berlin Film Festival next and I hope SXSW after that (fingers crossed).
• Local filmmaker Don Swaynos will also have a film at Berlin this year at the same time, although not at the same festival. His short Six Hundred and Forty-One Slates will premiere at the Berlin International Director's Lounge, which focuses on experimental film and media.

The Hellion filmmakers have sent us another pair of web episodes from their escapades in Park City. Specifically, we're getting videos from E.J. Enriquez, who's actually shooting and editing them -- he also did some camera work on Hellion itself.

Episode 4 -- no, it's not titled A New Hope and you know I don't want to hear that kind of thing -- was shot at the world premiere of the short film at Sundance earlier this week. This video is a departure from the other chronicles in the sense that it's genuine and sweet and a little touching, as opposed to merely silly. I just want to give Kat Candler a big hug. It's the longest of the videos so far but still moves quickly.

When local producer Kelly Williams asked me about sending Slackerwood some links to video episodes the Hellion crew would shoot for the Austin film's Sundance premiere, I thought this would be a wonderful way to share tips for filmmakers about the smartest, savviest ways to bring your movie to a film festival. I thought we'd get a glimpse of the real fest experience from the filmmakers' perspective.

And it turns out that yes, we are getting a glimpse of the fest experience from the filmmakers' perspective, and it is unbelievably goofy. In a good way. Here are the second and third episodes in the "Hellion Sundance Chronicles," and while one of them might be a What Not To Do lesson, they're definitely fun to watch. And short, which is what I like best in online videos.

In episode #2, Hellion executive producer Farah White arrives in Park City and, er, is introduced to the fest environment by director Kat Candler.

As Don mentioned last week, one of the Austin shorts going to Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival is Hellion, directed by Kat Candler. Candler and producer Kelly Williams are at Sundance right now (Williams is also on a Slamdance jury). They've decided to shoot an episodic series of short videos about their adventures in Park City, which they'll be sending us this week to share with you.

Here's "Hellion Sundance Chronicles #1," in which the filmmakers are still in Austin, preparing to bring Hellion to a major film festival. It's less than two minutes long ... enjoy!

So this year, we at Slackerwood decided it would be fun to create an aggregated Top Ten Movies of 2011 list. Nearly all our regular contributors submitted lists, then I assigned points and tabulated the results and, well, here we are.

What I don't like about this aggregated list is that it doesn't reflect the amazing range of selections from our contributors this year. In several cases, you could look at two of the lists and find no movies in common. So along with the Top Ten list itself, I've added a few interesting statistics about the choices we made this year.

Individual lists aren't included here -- you can read all our 2011 in Review articles to find out exactly which movies our contributors liked. Also, I want to explain what "2011" means for the purpose of this list. I asked that contributors include either films that had a U.S. release in 2011, or that played a local film fest in 2011 but do not yet have U.S. distribution. This means our lists could include movies like Albert Nobbs, which played Austin Film Festival 2011 but won't open in Austin until later this month; as-yet-undistributed AFF selection You Hurt My Feelings; and Japanese film A Boy and His Samurai, a Fantastic Fest 2011 favorite that hasn't yet been released in America.

And now, the list:

The week has barely started and already we have some great Austin film news to share.

• Congratulations this morning to Austin filmmaker Heather Courtney. Her documentary Where Soldiers Come From, which premiered at SXSW 2011 (my review), won the Truer Than Fiction award at the Film Independent grant award and nominees brunch on Saturday. Courtney gets a $25,000 grant as part of the award. Take Shelter, directed by Austinite Jeff Nichols, was also honored on Saturday -- producer Sophia Lin won the Piaget Producers Award. Local post-production Stuck On On must be pleased ... they worked on both these movies.
• The Austin-shot feature Holy Hell, which Jenn reviewed at Austin Film Festival in 2009, is finally available for you to watch, but not in one of the traditional ways. Austinist reports that the movie has been edited and repackaged into episodic chapters that you can watch on an iPad. The first 15-minute "chapter" is free, then you pay a dollar for each subsequent chapter. I don't have an iPad, but if any of you do and can try this out, let us know how the experience works for you.
• I can't believe I didn't mention this earlier, but the funniest movie I saw at Fantastic Fest last year now has U.S. distribution. Juan of the Dead (aka Juan de los Muertos), the Cuban zombie flick, will be released via video-on-demand/online streaming by Focus Worldwide, the VOD arm of Focus Features. This isn't theatrical distribution, but it means we'll at least be able to watch the movie again. The release date hasn't yet been announced. While we wait, read Rod's review.

Here's a handy list of all our "2011 in Review" columns featuring top-ten lists, favorite photos, don't-miss films and other contributors' selections from last year's movies. We'll update this list as more features are posted.