Premieres

Austin film fans were treated to two very special events last week as the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar hosted advance screenings with special guests for both Fright Night and Conan the Barbarian.

At the Fright Night screening, stars Dave Franco, Anton Yelchin and Christopher Mintz-Plasse showed up for a post-movie Q&A, as shown in the above photo.

Mintz-Plasse, who was in Austin for his third Drafthouse premiere (Superbad and Kick-Ass were #1 & #2, respectively) dominated the Q&A with the comfort and confidence born of familiarity with Austin audiences, while Yelchin and Franco were generally more shy and reserved, as you can see in the following picture.

Austin fans of actor Edward Norton (Fight Club, American History X) will be able to get a double -- or should I say triple -- dose of him this weekend with two major film events. Norton will be in town for the premiere of Stone at Fantastic Fest on Friday, September 24 at 7 pm -- a gala screening at the Paramount Theatre. He'll also be at Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz for the sold-out 8 pm showing of Leaves of Grass, which opens in Austin this weekend.

Don't assume Leaves of Grass is a "stoner comedy," as I almost did. This movie defies typecasting into one genre, as it ranges from comedy to drama to thriller. Norton stars as twin brothers -- Bill, a straight-laced Ivy League professor; and Brady, an uncultured pot grower in the backwoods of Oklahoma. Actor and director Tim Blake Nelson also wrote the screenplay, which is centered more around classical tragic themes in such a manner that viewers won't take long to forget that the characters are played by the same actor.

I sat down with several other film critics during SXSW this past March for a roundtable discussion with Norton and Nelson the day after Leaves of Grass played the fest. To find out why Nelson has inspired me to read classic Latin literature, read his and Norton's responses to our questions after the jump, and check out my review of the film appearing later this week:

Last Thursday night, the Paramount was completely sold out for the local premiere of Machete, the latest film from Troublemaker Studios. The event was a fundraiser for the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund and the Texas Motion Picture Alliance (TXMPA). Director Robert Rodriguez was on the red carpet along with a number of stars and supporting cast from the locally shot film: Danny Trejo (shown above, naturally), Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Daryl Sabara, Elise and Electra Avellan, Billy Blair, Mayra Leal, and several others.

Paul Gandersman took some excellent photos for Slackerwood from the Machete red carpet, as well as a few from the intro and Q&A inside the Paramount. This was an impressive feat since the red carpet was extremely crowded that night, both with celebrities on the actual carpet and media surrounding it. Here are some of the best pictures from that evening -- mouse over them if you want to know who's in them. For more info on Machete itself, read Jette's review. Many thanks again to Paul for the following photos.

A note from Jette: I'd like to introduce you all to our newest Slackerwood contributor, Paul Gandersman. Paul is an amazing photographer who attended the Predators red carpet and world premiere. My own red-carpet photography skills have come a long way since my first experience with them, but Paul's photos leave mine in the shade. He captured some great photos of Predators producers Robert Rodriguez and Elizabeth Avellan, director Nimrod Antal and star Adrien Brody. In addition, red carpet appearances included a couple of actors from previous Troublemaker Studios films who Joe O'Connell tells us are about to star in blacktino, a movie produced by Avellan (that I'd love to hear more about): Daryl Sabara (Spy Kids, World's Greatest Dad) and Jeff Fahey (Planet Terror).

I'm posting these photos without any descriptions in between them -- I think they stand on their own very well. For those of you needing a hint, you can mouse over the photos themselves. Enjoy.

The Troublemaker Studios-produced summer action blockbuster Predators will have its world premiere here in Austin, at -- where else? -- The Paramount. Austin Film Society is hosting the gala event on Wednesday, July 7 at 8 pm. Tickets go on sale this Thursday at noon via the Paramount website.

No word yet on which cast and crew will be there, but a red carpet is planned so we know some celebrity-spotting will be happening. I assume we'll see director Nimrod Antal there as well as Austin producers Robert Rodriguez and Elizabeth Avellan. I'm hoping for Danny Trejo, myself.

You may remember that Fox hosted some sneak peeks at bits of Predators during SXSW this year: Rod Paddock gave us the scoop on the extremely popular "first look" event, and I was up bright and early the next morning for a press conference (where I took the picture of Rodriguez at right).

Predators was shot here in Austin (as well as in Hawaii), but I don't think any of it was shot outside of Troublemaker Studios, so we may not see any recognizable landmarks in the film. After all, it is primarily set on the Predator planet, so far as I can tell. Although I'm not normally a big summer action-film lover, I liked what I saw at the SXSW preview and the cast is a very interesting combination: Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga and -- the man who probably steals the film -- Laurence Fishburne.

You were expecting some Cine Las Americas news this morning, right? I didn't make it to the one fest screening at Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar on Tuesday night. I was at another screen in the same theater for a special star-studded screening of Iron Man 2 complete with gifts, Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau.

I don't have pictures, in part because no cameras were allowed in the theater -- and yes, at least one sneaky type was escorted out for bringing in a cell phone despite multiple warnings not to do so Security was tight, and for good reason. This was the first public screening of Iron Man 2 apart from the film's red-carpet premiere.

The event was the hot-ticket item for movies in Austin tonight, which is saying something. Every screen at the Alamo on South Lamar was booked already, most for special events, so there was no chance of an overflow screen being used. We were all seated about an hour early but in this digital age, so few of us had watches that it felt surreal.

When the event finally began, we were told we would see a video intro to the film, which has been done at special screenings before. But some of us just knew that this wasn't going to be a simple sneak peek. The gal next to me, who has a crush on director Jon Favreau, thought I was pulling her leg when I said I was absolutely sure he'd show. Not that I was told anything, but he was here for the very first Fantastic Fest's opening-night film (Zathura), so why wouldn't he be here ... especially since the twitterpation about this event started with him tweeting about this special screening? The video was a snarky comedy bit with Favreau trying to wrangle Downey's snipes about geeks. I told my seatmate to keep an eye on the doors, and she was enthusiastically surprised to see Favreau walk in.

There are superhero movies and there are anti-hero movies and rarely do the two mix so well as in Matthew Vaughn's aptly named adaptation of Kick-Ass, the comic book series by Mark Millar, and the ultimate homage to hero movies.

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is an ordinary high school student who just wants to get the girl, and oh yeah, fit in.  He even goes so far as to try to make friends with Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), son of a reputed crime boss. Dave's obsession with superheroes inadvertently turns him into a YouTube superstar as the vigilante "Kick-Ass." When Kick-Ass lets it go to his head, he ends up encountering other masked heroes and things get pear-shaped.

With Kick-Ass opening on Friday, it seemed like time to revisit the film's screening on the opening night of SXSW. This year's festival started with a record crowd turning up for Kick-Ass, with many of the film's stars and creators in town. Although Clark Duke (Hot Tub Time Machine), pictured above, had not been to SXSW before, he revealed that this wasn't his first time in Austin. He admitted that he loved Austin and had planned to move here after college, but landed in Los Angeles instead.

Filmmaker and actress Katie Aselton (The Puffy Chair) had a little fun on the red carpet for the SXSW premiere of her husband Mark Duplass's warm-hearted comedy Cyrus, in which she had a small role. Katie also directed and starred with Dax Shepard in the romantic drama The Freebie, which played SXSW Film this year. More photos from the Cyrus red carpet feature Jay and Mark hamming it up for the camera, and can be seen on the Slackerwood Flickr page.

If you want to find out more about Aselton, read Steph Beasley's interview with her at Austinist, where they discuss moviemaking and marriage and exchange mutual compliments.

[Photo credit: "Katie Aselton Credentialed", by Debbie Cerda for Slackerwood on Flickr]

So far, SXSW Film has been a whirlwind of panels, red-carpet premieres, films, interviews and celebrity sightings, with barely enough time to breathe and eat before the next "can't miss" event on my schedule. What's been most amazing is how comfortable and relaxed major stars and filmmakers have been at SXSW premieres, including Jean Pierre-Jeunet (Micmacs à tire-larigot) and Jay and Mark Duplass (Cyrus) hamming it up for the cameras. The biggest highlight by far has been Edward Norton, who I've seen several times over the weekend. He and Tim Blake Nelson were busy with the premiere of their film Leaves of Grass on Friday night at the Alamo South Lamar -- you can see him below on the red carpet for that film.

At our interview on Saturday afternoon Edward stated that he was looking forward to catching a movie while at the festival. Therefore, it was not a surprise to see him make a quiet and subdued entrance into the premiere of Cyrus on Saturday evening (pictured above).