AFF

Similar to the way butter can sometimes be that last thing to transform a recipe of seemingly unrelated ingredients into a delicious meal, writer Jason Micallef's script for Butter manages to bring together a diverse cast and even sometimes puts them in unfamiliar territory to create a uniquely original and hilarious comedy. On paper this might not sound like a movie that could possibly work, but it does, and it does it with gusto. Butter is straight up one hell of a hilarious film.

Bob Pickler (Ty Burrell) carves butter. Not much more to him than that, he leads a simple life making amazing carvings out of butter and he couldn't be happier. His wife Laura (Jennifer Garner) loves the privileges and fame that come from being Mrs. Bob Pickler, wife of a champion butter sculpter. But after 15 years of being the gold standard when it comes to butter carving, Bob is encouraged to let someone else try to achieve the buttery glory. This does not please Laura.

Meanwhile, we are treated to wonderful narration by a little orphan girl named Destiny (Yara Shahidi) whose life experiences have made her quite the noble philosopher. She's seeking her place in life and when she's adopted by a couple in the same town as the Picklers, she might have finally found her calling.

I was discussing Austin Film Festival with a friend yesterday and surprised to learn he had never heard of BriTANick, the wildly hilarious duo Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher. The two have been writing, acting and producing comedic short films online for several years and last year brought Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses (which you can and should watch online) to SXSW. They have begun to appear in TV and feature film roles, including the upcoming Joss Whedon surprise Much Ado About Nothing. They came to AFF this year with the outstanding Searching For Sonny, written and directed by Ft. Worth native Andrew Disney.

Jason Dohring stars as Elliot Knight, an unsuccessful 28-year-old pizza delivery driver. Depressed by his lack of accomplishments, Elliot's neuroses include envy of Jesus Christ for being wildly successful before the age of 30.

Jason receives a surprise invitation to his 10-year class reunion from his estranged best friend, Sonny (Masi Oka). As soon as he arrives at the reunion, he meets up with twin brother Calvin (Nick Kocher) and classmate Gary (Brian McElhaney). Together, the three of them set out to find Sonny, following clues left on their postcard invitations, and uncover a larger scheme involving their former high-school principal.

In their online videos, Kocher and McElhaney's double act usually requires them to trade the straight man role back and forth. Dohring's deadpan lead allows them both to ham it up here, making Searching for Sonny wildly hilarious.

Narrated by Clarke Peters, Searching for Sonny combines the non sequitur style of a BriTANick comedy with a film noir. The combination results in something akin to Bryan Fuller's work in Pushing Daisies, only less romantic and cute. Kinky and subversive, dark and outrageous, Searching for Sonny is the funniest movie I've seen all year. I'm eager to see more work from Andrew Disney.

Sometimes it can be a gift and a curse being a movie geek living in this great town of Austin, Texas. We do things our own way, we're weird, and we embrace that fact with open arms while the red counties look in cautiously at our liberal nature. We make films here. Sometimes they're awesome and sometimes they're not. Usually though, they fall in between. Austin High is one of those in-between films, and it's the type of movie most people in Austin will love, but others who don't "get it" won't really grasp and will therefore shun the film.

Austin High is a film that could be great. It's got funny moments, a good story, effortlessly good performances ... but as a film overall, it might be a little too Austin.

Samuel Wilson (Michael S. Wilson) is the principal of the high school he attended while growing up in here in Austin, Lady Bird High. Although he's grown up to become an adult who helps mold the minds of the future's youths, he still likes to get high with his buddies. Yeah, they're the same buddies he got high with in high school and they still meet up in the same spot to toke up in the morning.

There was a lot going on at Austin Film Festival on Sunday, and unless you could clone yourself, you may have missed it. Thomas Jane dropping trou for The Nice Guys script reading for one.  (More photos after the jump.)

Just when you thought the Brits had cornered the market on reinventing the zombie genre, writer/director Keith Wright brings us a fresh new take in Harold's Going Stiff, which won the Austin Film Festival Narrative Feature Competition this week.

Using a mockumentary structure, Wright introduces us to pensioner Harold (Stan Rowe), whose stiffening joints and painful muscles aren't merely old age. he titular Harold is the first known sufferer of "O.R.D." or Onset Rigor Disease, an infliction that starts with painfully stiffened muscles and ends up with the classic diminished intelligence, lack of speech and violence of a zombie-like state. His new visiting nurse Penny (Sarah Spencer) cheerfully tortures Harold with painful therapies to help him keep the disease from progressing. In the meantime, controversy reigns over vigilantes hunting down the afflicted who've reached the final stage of the disease.  

A husband slaving over the stove for dinner. A Valentine's dinner set for three. This is not the usual setup for a romantic drama, but it is for the promising debut A Swingin' Trio.

Kelvin Phillips and Carla Jackson's first feature is a tense tale of secrets, lies and revelations interspersed with the cool jazz stylings of the Jeff Lofton Trio. Homer (Johnny Walter) is a writer married to successful producer Trude (Timeca Seretti). He has all the time in the world while collecting rejection letters on his literary masterpiece. Meanwhile, Trude can't seem to detach herself from her phone and her business deals, breezing through the house as if it's a hotel. Homer has something special planned for Valentine's Day dinner, but it's not just his signature seafood gumbo. 

If you're a fan of music-heavy movies, you will likely love Sironia. If you usually shy away from them, especially when the lead is a musician himself, you'll be pleasantly surprised with Brandon Dickerson's feature film debut. 

"Life is what happens when you're making other plans." In the case of Thomas (Wes Cunningham), when plans for stardom start requiring compromise, he and his expectant wife escape to Sironia, Texas for a simpler life. As it usually happens, the act of running from instead of running to is never fast enough. 

Early in Sironia, the movie seems like it might follow the trope of artistic integrity versus money, and be merely a vehicle for showcasing Cunningham's songs. However, Sironia isn't a vanity film, and the longer it progresses the more impressive it gets. While Cunningham's music is integral to the story and in fact written prior to the script, the songs are seamlessly worked in and never overwhelm the core story. It's not quite a cinematically realized concept album like Once, although in both cases the music is integral to the film. Sironia isn't just about a moment in time, but about lives trapped by holding on to a particular moment.

"You hurt my feelings," a small girl tells her male nanny (manny?) in the opening segment of this slice-of-life, independent film. John (John Merriman) seems an odd choice of a babysitter; he passively lets the kids climb all over him and tends to stare out into space and lose himself in contemplation. What is he contemplating? Why his ex-girlfriend Courtney (Courtney Davis) would break up with him to date a guy named Macon (Macon Blair) who admits that he shares more than a passing resemblance to Johnny.

You Hurt My Feelings moves with the seasons, slowly letting us peek into elements of John's personal life. One of the suprising aspects of the movie is how like a silent film it seems. There are scenes where John and Courtney don't speak aloud, but their motions and facial expressions speak for them. Unlike a silent film, however, the only soundtrack to this movie is composed of incidental noises and songs.

Filmed in Austin, An Ordinary Family highlights the difficulties for a family with a religious background when a member comes out of the closet. After years away from home Seth (Greg Wise) returns for a week with his partner William (Chad Anthony Miller) to meet the family. Each member of the family has a different reaction. For example, brother-in-law Chris (Steven Schaefer) at first finds the situation comical and slightly uncomfortable, but develops a strong bond with William.

The center of the story, however, is Seth's brother Thomas (Troy Schremmer), a Presbyterian minister. Thomas struggles to find peace in order to reconcile acceptance of Seth and William with his faith. It was his intolerance that drove Seth away, and they must come to terms with each other for Seth to consider returning home to rejoin the family permanently.

What an exhausting but rewarding time I had at Austin Film Festival on Sunday. The Hair of the Dog Brunch always provides a wonderful opportunity to meet and mingle with filmmakers as well as cast and crew of short and feature films screening at AFF -- check back later for a photo essay from the brunch.

I met several filmmakers involved with the Texas Monthly's "Where I'm From" film contest, including I Heart SA filmmakers Robert B. Gonzales and Sarah Fisch (seen above with Elizabeth Avellan and Mariella Sonam Perez), who also writes as Chupacabrona for the Texas visual art website Glass Tire. A discussion about disparities between males and females that I've observed in online journalism and filmmaking led Sarah to introduce me to Mariella Sonam Perez (Going to Grandma's) who is one of the founders of the nonprofit organization South Texas Underground Film (STUF). STUF engages and inspires the South Texas film community by screening films without discrimination, creating new  movies, teaching the art of filmmaking to the young and old and networking with fellow filmmakers local and abroad.