Jette Kernion's blog

Two days to SXSW. Two days to SXSW. Here's the latest Austin film-related news, some of which will be of particular interest to SXSW-goers, but some of which is about free stuff for everyone.

• If you have a SXSW Film badge, you can use it not only for the usual conference and movie access, but also to see Motorhead perform on Wednesday night at Austin Music Hall.
• And you don't need a badge at all to head over to the Apple Store in Barton Creek Mall for two free Meet the Filmmaker sessions during SXSW. On Saturday, March 13 at 3 pm, journalist Aaron Hillis will interview filmmaker Emmett Malloy, whose music documentary The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights is playing SXSW and will also be available via cable TV VOD starting March 12. On Monday, March 15 at 7 pm, local filmmaker Bryan Poyser will discuss his latest film, Lovers of Hate, which is playing SXSW and will also be available on cable TV VOD when the fest starts.
• Did we mention yet that IFC has bought the international distribution rights to Lovers of Hate? The film premiered at Sundance and was sold to IFC before it plays SXSW. Congrats to Bryan Poyser and his producers, cast and crew.

The SXSW Film Festival schedule looks excellent this year, and even though you didn't buy a badge, maybe you're thinking about catching a few of the films over the course of the eight-day fest. Don't you want to hang out with Film Fest Geek Barbie?

But perhaps you haven't bought a film pass or SXSW film tickets before, or you remember it being a hassle last time. Fear not -- here are some tips on enjoying the films at SXSW even if you don't have a badge this time. You'll miss the conference, but if you plan ahead, you can catch a bunch of good movies.

Your options if you don't have a badge:

SXSW Film Pass -- The film-fest equivalent of the Music fest wristband. You're in a second-tier line, and are admitted into a screening after the badgeholders line has been let into the theater, if space permits. Passes for 2009 are $70 and are now available at Waterloo Records or any Austin-area Alamo Drafthouse. If you see multiple movies a day, this is a steal.

I realize I'm repeating my own joke with the headline, but it's too good not to reuse ... and when will I get to use it again? Ahem. Anyway, here's the Austin film-related news, starting with awards:

• Sandra Bullock, who owns local restaurant Bess and co-owns Walton's Fancy and Staple, also does a spot of acting when she's not running local businesses. Last night, she took home the Best Actress Oscar for her role in The Blind Side.
• The night before, she won a Razzie for her role in All About Steve ... and showed up at the awards ceremony, where she gave out DVDs of the film to all the Razzie members in attendance. Very nice.
• Austin was also represented at the Oscars by Ryan Bingham, who along with T-Bone Burnett won an Academy Award for Best Song, "The Weary Kind," from the movie Crazy Heart. Not only did Bingham and Burnett cite the work of the the late local musician Stephen Bruton on the film, but Jeff Bridges also remembered Bruton in his speech after winning Best Actor.

I'm going to jump in right here and admit that my expectations for District 13: Ultimatum were extremely low. I know one person who walked out of the film when it played Fantastic Fest last year, and I was warned that this movie wasn't going to be nearly as enjoyable as the first District 13 movie. So I figured I'd suffer the storyline and take pleasure from any good fight scenes or parkour scenes that might appear.

And you know, sometimes this is the way to watch a movie, expecting it to be not so hot. When it's less bad than you suspected, you end up with an enjoyable movie experience. Same thing happened to me at Live Free or Die Hard -- my husband, who was looking forward to a fun movie, felt disappointed, while I figured it would be awful and therefore liked any bits that weren't. District 13: Ultimatum is certainly better than Live Free or Die Hard, and at least there are no really stupid CGI effects. It's kind of like a 90-minute-long Burn Notice, but without the humorous supporting characters, bikinis and yogurt.

Believe it or not, film news is happening in Austin that has nothing -- really nothing -- to do with SXSW. Here's a sample:

• On Sunday afternoon, author Alison Macor will be reading/signing her book Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids: Thirty Years of Filmmaking in Austin, Texas. I intend to be there and am looking forward to a good read ... well, probably not until after SXSW, unfortunately. (I know me. I'll read the book while trying to do fest prep. Sleep is the enemy, as Debbie keeps telling me.) Over at the Austin Chronicle, Kimberley Jones has an interview with Macor, and you can read an excerpt from the book about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The book signing is on Sunday at 3 pm at BookPeople.
• Austin Film Festival has announced a discount on Lone Star Badges for the 2010 fest -- they're now only $75 through March 7. Also, anyone who purchases a Lone Star Badge during this time frame is eligible to win a free upgrade to a Weekend Badge ($255 value) during the Oscars -- Moviemaker has the details on this contest. See their website for details. The Lone Star Badge is a one-day conference pass that also gets you first-tier admission into all films, so it's a very good deal at this price.

Let's see what the latest Austin and SXSW film news is today.

• The big big news: Robert Rodriguez is bringing a rough cut of Predators, which he's produced, to SXSW. He and director Nimrod Antal will present a "First Look" at the movie, which was partially shot in Austin, on opening night (Friday, March 12) at Alamo Ritz at 10:15 pm. The dark side of this news is that the bigger Ritz theater only holds about 200 people, maybe a few more if they squeeze folks into the balconies. Even though the event is open only to SXSW badgeholders, you'd probably have to line up outside the Ritz before the opening-night film even starts in order to get a seat. (People are already talking about lining up that afternoon.) So sadly, I'm unlikely to be reporting on this event myself.
• In addition, the SX Fantastic "Super Secret Screening" has been announced: it's the world premiere of 13, Gela Babluani's bigger-budget remake of his 2006 film Tzameti. The film stars Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Ben Gazzara and (Fantastic Fest favorite) Alexander Skarsgard.
• SXSW film passes are now on sale: $70 for eight days, which is an excellent deal for second-tier access to a lot of good movies around town. Individual tickets are $10 so if you see 8 movies you're ahead financially (plus, ahead in the admission lines). You can buy passes at Alamo Ritz, South Lamar, and Village, and at Waterloo Records. Look for our special guide for passholders and ticket buyers next week.

You may recall that in my 2009 in Review article, I named the Austin Film Festival's "Made in Texas" monthly screenings as "Film Series I Most Want to Return in 2010." I'm happy to report that Made in Texas is returning this month -- I'm sure my article had everything to do with it -- and will run through September.

The series kicks off on Wednesday, March 10 with Roadie, the 1980 Alan Rudolph film that was shot on location around Austin. The movie stars Meat Loaf and Art Carney, but the cast also includes Sonny Carl Davis (The Whole Shootin' Match), Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel, and a number of other musicians.

The films will be shown monthly on Wednesdays at 7:30 pm in the Texas Spirit Theater at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. Admission is free for AFF and Texas State History Museum members, and $5 for everyone else.

Austin Film Society is rolling out a new Essential Cinema series starting on Tuesday night: "Smashing the Rules: Films of Oshima Nagisa." The films span a nearly 20-year period in the Japanese director's career. The most notorious in the series is probably the 1976 film In the Realm of the Senses -- I remember being shocked in college when someone told me about a certain explicit scene. But as AFS Director of Programming Nafus tells us, "Every one of his films is like a roller coaster ride through the subterranean areas of the human psyche."

All the films in the Essential Cinema series are on Tuesday nights at 7 pm at Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar. (Notice the series skips a week during SXSW.) You can get tickets online through the AFS site. While admission is free for AFS members, definitely get your tickets in advance because Essential Cinema screenings tend to fill up quickly. I've listed the films after the jump.

It was just yesterday that Jenn Brown and I were plotting our SXSW coverage strategy for Slackerwood (and other outlets) and hoping B-Side would host a Festival Genius site for scheduling SXSW Film. All of us at Slackerwood who have covered film festivals have loved the scheduling application from B-Side and found that it made fest planning vastly easier.

So we were very sad to learn that Austin-based B-Side Entertainment will be closing its doors this week. Filmmaker Magazine's blog is reporting that the company has been unable to find new investors and is out of funds. B-Side employees have all been laid off, many of which we've become familiar with at local film festivals -- including occasional Slackerwood contributor Chris Holland -- and we are obviously personally unhappy about the news as well. Back at SXSW 2007, I interviewed B-Side founder Chris Hyams (pictured at right) for Studio SX (sadly, SXSW no longer seems to have it archived) and his company sounded like an exciting business model.

Here's what Hyams has to say about the closing on the B-Side website: "I am sad to have reached the end of this chapter, but am incredibly proud of what we've achieved. I am confident that our efforts will have a lasting impact on this business. I am also confident that the B-Side team will bring their experience to new ventures that will pick up where B-Side is leaving off."

SXSW may have a lot of splashy marquee films from all around the globe, but some of us here in Austin want to see what our hometown is bringing to the film festival this year. I'd say it's a good year for Austin and Texas at SXSW but I say that every single year.

Here's the annual Slackerwood list of features playing SXSW 2010 that have Austin connections of one kind or another. The list begins with films shot in Austin, then moves onto other local ties. If we left your film off the list and it was shot here or includes local cast or crew, post a comment or drop us a line and we'll be happy to include it.

• Dance with the One -- This feature was produced by the University of Texas Film Institute (UTFI). Director Michael Dolan and many cast/crew members are from Austin. It's set in Texas, but I don't know yet if/how much it's set here in town.
• The Happy Poet -- I don't know much about this film by Paul Gordon, except that more than one filmmaker going to SXSW this year has told me to see it. But many of the film's stills (like the one pictured above) show recognizable local spots, and a movie about a poet who opens his own organic food trailer sounds very Austin-ish to me.