Premieres

Crazy Austin Premiere of 'Baghead' on Thursday

Baghead cast at SXSW screening

Last week, for the first time, I used the term "neener-neener-neener" in the title of something I'd written. My inner six-year-old was too excited that instead of an NYC premiere, and Austin getting the movie a month later (which you know is the unfortunate norm), Baghead was going to start its limited run right here in Austin, and New Yorkers would just have to wait to see the Duplass brothers' latest film. You can read the details of the release strategy in my "Neener" article for Cinematical. I am sure that Jay and Mark Duplass would be pleased to hear that they were an indirect cause of juvenile glee for Austinites.

Baghead also gives Austin the pleasure of hosting the kind of premiere you don't normally see in Manhattan -- out in the woods, with free s'mores for audience members. Austin Film Society and Alamo's Rolling Roadshow have cooked up Thursday night's screening out at Star Hill Ranch, where parts of the movie were shot. Tickets are still available through the AFS site. If you really want to get fancy, you can pay extra for a multi-course feast before the film. Jay and Mark Duplass will be there too ... with bags on their heads? Who knows?

Check out the email interview I did with the Duplass brothers before SXSW this year, in which they offer deep and meaningful insight into the inspirations for Baghead. The photo above is from the Q&A after the Baghead screening at SXSW and while it's far from the best photo I took, it captures the attitude of cast and crew at the time. I have to say, I saw the official trailer for the film this weekend, and it doesn't quite capture the fact that this is a funny movie, poking fun at what people have called "mumblecore" as well as adding a splash of horror.

If you can't make it to Thursday night's screening, you can catch Baghead in Austin at Alamo on South Lamar and the Arbor. You can enjoy not only the movie itself, but the satisfaction of seeing it before the rest of the country. Neener!

Austin Premiere of John Sayles' 'Honeydripper'

in

Tickets go on sale Friday at noon for the Austin premiere of John Sayles' latest film, Honeydripper, screening at the Paramount on Tuesday, Jan. 22. Director John Sayles, producer Maggie R­enzi, and actor/musician Gary Clark Jr. will all be in attendance.

I've been looking forward to seeing Honeydripper for some time. The movie is set in rural Alabama in the 1950s and centers around a blues club, the Honeydripper Lounge. Besides Clark, the cast includes Danny Glover, Stacey Keach, Mary Steenburgen, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Keb Mo. Check out the official website for more info on the movie and some related videos (interviews with Sayles, etc.)

Austin Film Society has all the details on the events surrounding the premiere -- there are several different levels of ticket prices. The most expensive ticket (still only $25) gets you admission to an after-party at the Continental Club where Clark and Eddie Shaw will perform. A slightly cheaper ticket gets you into Antone's the next night for a concert with Clark, Shaw, Pinetop Perkins, and Hubert Sumlin. You also can buy tickets for the screening only, which range from $7-12 depending on where you sit. You have to buy tickets through the Paramount, so remember to tack on a few extra bucks to those ticket prices for various service charges and so forth.

I've heard Sayles and Renzi speak before (on an excellent panel at SXSW 2006 about regional indie filmmaking and Lone Star) and I can't wait to hear them at this upcoming Q&A.

Finally, I decided this week that I need to remember and m­ake use of YouTube videos that might be of interest, so here's the trailer for Honeydripper.

­

­

Another Option for Tonight: Poultrygeist

in

I probably should have written up a whole Movies This Week post last night, but -- you know. December. Holidailies. No time. All that. Mea culpa.

However, I felt that even at the eleventh hour, I should let you know that Alamo Lake Creek is showing the latest masterpiece from the notorious Troma Entertainment studios, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, starting today. And if you decide to see this film at tonight's 7:30 pm showing, director Lloyd Kaufman will be on hand.

If you don't know anything about Lloyd Kaufman, check out this interview with him on Austinist. He sounds like he'd provide one of the livelier post-screening Q&As you might ever experience.

Poultrygeist will be showing nightly at Alamo Lake Creek all week long. Hey, it even has Ron Jeremy in it. How can you resist?

Adventures in Red Carpet: Grindhouse at the Paramount (Part 1)

I've waited so long to write about the Grindhouse red carpet here (not to mention that I wrote the above phrase a whole month ago -- I'm such a procrastinator) that the film has its allure ... however, what goes around comes around. With the upcoming premiere at Cannes of Quentin Tarantino's segment Death Proof as a stand-alone film, perhaps people will be interested in seeing the film's celebrities all glitzed-out at the Paramount back in late March. As a tribute to the original double-feature cut of Grindhouse, I've split this entry into two parts. (Or maybe because the entry was too long.)

First, you should read my Cinematical article about the Austin red carpet to see the best photos I took, including a fabulous one of Tarantino. He finally stood still long enough for me to take a photo that didn't look like a blur! I was thrilled. However, I took so many photos that I have plenty to share here too.

Adventures in Red Carpet: Grindhouse at the Paramount (Part 2)

In Part 1 of the Grindhouse Adventures in Red Carpet (which you should read before this entry), I had just managed to take non-blurry photos of Quentin Tarantino and was very pleased. One thing I didn't mention in Part 1 was the zombie invasion. For some reason, the crowd of fans at the Paramount included zombies ... or people dressed as zombies, I couldn't be sure, except they seemed not to be eating brains. Some were just watching the fun, but some obviously wanted to join the media:

The next celebrity on the red carpet was Jordan Ladd, who played one of the first group of women in Death Proof (aka "the one in the Alamo Drafthouse t-shirt"). I didn't realize, until I looked her up on IMDb, that she's Cheryl Ladd's daughter. I like this photo because first of all, I'm wondering what someone said to cause her to make that face; and second of all, well, just look in the background on the left:­

David Lynch in Austin (without cows)

in

Filmmaker David Lynch decided to include Austin in his multi-city promotional tour of his latest film, Inland Empire, which he is self-distributing. On Wednesday night, every seat in the Paramount was filled for the local premiere of the three-hour film, followed by a Q&A session with Lynch.

Paramount marquee for David Lynch

 

I had hoped that Lynch would hold a red-carpet event with a cow, or perhaps hang out on the corner of Congress and Sixth with a cow to advertise Inland Empire, like he did to promote Laura Dern's performance. I'd heard he was planning to include a cow in the tour. However, no cows were sighted anywhere near the Paramount.

I was happy enough to have the chance to hear and see Lynch himself.

AFF screens Death of a President tonight

in

Death of a PresidentThe "TBA screening #2" on Austin Film Festival's schedule has been revealed: the controversial feature Death of a President. The BBC-produced movie uses existing news footage to create a fake documentary in which Bush is assassinated. The movie is having its first U.S. public screening right here in the capital of Texas.

You can see the movie tonight at 7 pm at the IMAX theater -- yes, the one inside the Texas State History Museum, interestingly enough. After festival badgeholders and passholders have been admitted, anyone can buy tickets for the remaining seats. I'm probably going to see Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn myself (Paramount, 7:30 pm) -- it's a tough choice.

Last night I watched Special, which so far is my favorite film of the festival. Michael Rapoport plays a mild-mannered meter maid who participates in a trial experiment for a new antidepressant, with bizarre results. The movie plays again on Wednesday night at Alamo Lake Creek, and I'd recommend it to festivalgoers. I also caught the midnight screening of Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror, which I thought would be good cheesy late-night fun, but which didn't quite deliver.

FF Super Secret Screening: Apocalypto

in
So the super-secret added-at-the-last-minute screening was Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, with Gibson and the film's star in attendance. I feel so burned at having missed Funky Forest and so mystified that this historical action drama was presented at a genre festival that there's no way I could write objectively about it at this point. Suffice it to say my attitude towards surprise screenings has not improved. Fantastic Fest as a whole, however, is great. More tomorrow (later today) when I've had some sleep.

Kevin Smith broke my (red carpet) cherry

I've been covering film news for Cinematical for about a year now, and before that I wrote about film on Celluloid Eyes. And in my deep dark past (aka college days), I used to cover local and entertainment news for various publications.

One thing I hadn't ever done was to cover a red carpet event. I didn't know much about the red carpet world, apart from what I occasionally saw if I turned on the Oscars too early. We don't have cable and I rarely watch entertainment news on TV. "Red carpet" didn't seem like something a print reporter would benefit from attending, which is why I turned down a chance to cover a red-carpet event at Fantastic Fest last year for Zathura. (Also, I found out about it 10 minutes beforehand, and had no idea what I'd say to Jon Favreau.)

But Kevin Smith came to town for the Clerks II premiere a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to cover the event. Natalie Schuessler, the media contact at Austin Film Society (which sponsored the premiere), told me that space was tight for the actual premiere screening, but I could attend a press screening earlier in the week and then participate in the red carpet session with Smith before the premiere. I thought this would be an excellent way to get a taste of the world of red carpet interviews.

Scanner premiere tickets running out

Austin Movie Blog is reporting that tickets are selling fast for the local premiere of A Scanner Darkly on Wednesday 6/28 at The Paramount. (I guess the SXSW screening didn't count as a premiere ... the movie wasn't quite finished then.) So if you're planning to attend, buy tickets ASAP. The screening will be followed by a Q&A from director Richard Linklater and other cast/crew members.

Here's the difficulty, for me: Austin Film Society, one of the premiere's sponsors, isn't selling the tickets through its usual online service. You have to buy the tickets through The Paramount's box office, which means you have to drive downtown to The Paramount during its (limited) box-office hours. And park downtown to do it, too. The AFS online ticket service has had its problems over the years, particularly with large or in-demand event (most memorably, the server crashed during QT 6 sales), but right now I would really appreciate using it to buy tickets for this premiere. Even a phone option would be nice. The Paramount's usual ticket service may work well for theater and live performances, but many moviegoers are spoiled by the ease of online purchases for screenings. At least I am.

I've already seen A Scanner Darkly at SXSW and previewed it for Cinematical. I'd like to see the movie again, completed, outside of festival crunch mode. And I would certainly recommend the film, whether you catch it at the local premiere or after it releases on July 7. You may not actually like the movie, but it's fascinating.

Syndicate content