AFF

Austin Film Fest Closing Night!

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It's a big night at the Paramount, of course, with Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and Grace is Gone lighting up the big screen at the Bullock, but it's also your last chance to see a couple of the really great films that may not be coming to your local cineplex soon. Heck, you could spend the whole night at the Dobie and be supremely entertained:

America Unchained - in this amusing doc, a British gent decides to try driving a 1970 Torino station wagon from L.A. to New York without eating, sleeping, or tanking up at a chain restaurant/hotel/gas station. It's this last that becomes really difficult. A great audience flick. 6:00 p.m., Dobie.

First Saturday in May - There's a lot of buzz around this documentary about the Kentucky Derby, and rightfully so: it speaks from an insider's perspective and keeps things interesting by never letting the story rest for long. Even if horses aren't your thing, any sort of sports enthusiast should check this out. 7:45 p.m., Dobie.

Blood Car - In the very near future, gas is up to $30 and an enterprising young vegan inadvertently invents an engine that runs on blood. If you're thinking Roger Corman blood and guts and unpleasantness, you're half right -- it's all played for laughs, and rather successfully. If you're any kind of comedy or horror enthusiast, this is a can't-miss. 9:30 p.m., Dobie.

Tickets are $8 at the door. Visit austinfilmfestival.com for more information.

Two BIG Comedies Tonight at AFF

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I awoke this morning to an e-mail from Kelly Williams, the film program director at the Austin Film Festival, with news of two films playing tonight that comedy fans won't want to miss.

RicklesFirst the good news - we're screening two really amazing comedies at the festival on Tuesday night. You know I'm a big comedy snob, so, I would not just recommend anything.

The bad news is that that you have to pick.

I'll be at the Arbor for our TBA #3 - which is MR. WARMTH, THE DON RICKLES PROJECT - I just locked this film last week and I'm really excited about it. It is directed by John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers) and features interviews with everyone from Clint Eastwood to Robert DeNiro to Sarah Silverman - all about the great Don Rickles. It features a lot of footage of Rickles and will be awesome.

The producer of the film, Bob Engelman, is here with the film and he'll be at the screening for a Q&A after the film. He has a ton of great stories. Please come out for a great movie and Q&A!

Mr. Warmth - Tuesday, Oct. 16th at 9:30 - Regal Arbor

The other film is THE LIVING WAKE, a really original film, unlike anything I've seen come into the festival in years, plus it just won a Special Jury Award for Comic Vision at the festival this weekend. It is really funny and the writers of the film - Peter Kline and Mike O'Connell (also the lead actor - see him now before he's a huge star) will be in attendance.

The Living Wake - Tuesday, Oct. 16th at 8:00 - Dobie Theater

Thanks and I hope to see you at the festival,

Kelly

Individual tickets to these screenings are $8 at the door. Film passes for the Austin Film Festival (which runs through Thursday) are $35, which is still a bargain since you could easily see five movies in the remaining nights of the festival. Badge holders are admitted first, then film pass holders, followed by individual ticket holders. For more information please visit austinfilmfestival.com.

Austin FF Picks for Thursday, October 10

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"Best bet" articles about film festivals always seem like such a raw deal -- sure, you're hearing about the big splashy films, but what about the undiscovered gems that will fill only half the theater? They deserve better. So here in chronological order are some of my picks for films that deserve your attention more than the big studio previews playing at the Paramount. (You'll be able to see those movies in a few months at the multiplex anyway, right?)

If human interest stories are your thing, turn your attention to Owl and the Sparrow tonight at 7, part of the Viet Film Wave series. If historical biopix are more your thing, check out Neal Cassady, which traces the life of Cassady "as he goes from his trip with Jack Kerouac on the road to literary stardom, a friendship with Ken Kesey and membership in the Merry Pranksters, toward a downward spiral into drugs and self loathing."

Need something with a little more oomph? Check out Bloody Aria at the Dobie (kind of a Korean Wrong Turn but with a decent screenplay) or the more uplifting The Go-Getter at the Bob Bullock. Ah, Zooey Deschanel ....

If you're in a documentary kind of mood, check out local filmmaker Anne Lewis' film Morristown, which examines the plight of migrant workers in a global economy.

Night owls should check out the Troma-esque Street Team Massacre at the Hideout.

All shows are $8 at the door or buy your film pass ($35 for unlimited films!) or badge at the Driskill Hotel.

Austin Film Festival Begins Today

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DriskillThe screenwriter's conference kicks off at the Driskill Hotel this afternoon and the Festival itself starts tonight with Chicago 10 at the Paramount. Personally I'm looking forward to The Go-Getter with Zooey Deschanel at the Bob Bullock, which is the first of the four TBA films.

All of the TBAs have been announced as of this morning. They are:

- The Go-Getter (#1)
- Day Zero (#2)
- Mr. Warmth - The Don Rickles Project (#3, new flick from John Landis)
- Grace is Gone (#4, the John Cusack "Oscar bait" picture)

More previews and reports to come.

 

 

Tonight: Film and Food

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Austin Film Festival's "Film and Food" event is, quite frankly, one of the best parties of the year. It starts in just a few hours but you can pick up tickets at the door (it's in the Driskill Hotel) and besides having awesome food from a variety of Austin restaurants and an open bar, the proceeds benefit a great film-related cause.

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Read more about Film and Food here.

Austin Film Festival: American Fork

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On Thursday the 2007 edition of the Austin Film Festival takes over the Driskill Hotel, the Paramount Theatre, and various other venues around town. Even if you're the kind of cinephile who balks at downtown parking or just driving in general, there's no excuse for missing the screenings near you. Whether you find yourself the converted ballroom upstairs at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel, the Regal Arbor, or the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, there are great films to be seen. Here's the first installment of a few AFF previews coming your way at Slackerwood.

American Fork

American ForkOnly in independent film could a picture like American Fork get made. What studio executive in his right mind would greenlight a movie that plays a three-hundred pound protagonist for his sensitivity instead of broad laughs? A handful of indie favorites (Bruce McGill, Kahtleen Quinlan) and unlikely character players (including the unexpectedly wonderful William Baldwin, who also shows up at AFF 2007 in A Plumm Summer) populate a strong story supported by deft cinematography and a lively score.

If American Fork feels like a kinder, gentler Napoleon Dynamite, there's a reason -- they share a number of crew members, including producer/editor Jeremy Coon. The two films also share a certain quirkiness and a sense of tragic comedy, but I think American Fork may lose some Napoleon Dynamite fans for its refusal to camp things up. It will certainly win admirers for its sympathetic presentation of its main character, Tracy Orbison (Hubbel Palmer, who also wrote the screenplay) and on the whole I think American Fork is a better movie.

But while Fork offers a more complete story and a set of wholly believeable characters, it won't gain a cult status quite like Dynamite's. A lot of the fun in Napoleon Dynamite comes from its extreme turns between the cruel and carefree. Fork walks a more moderate road. The picture wallows in the mundane to great effect and occasionally delivers a heartbreaking bit of dialogue, but keeps its feet stubbornly on the ground where other films might veer off into fantasy.

The comparison to the earlier film is easy and natural, but a bit unfair: American Fork has more serious things to say, greater depths to plumb. It stands tall -- and wide -- on its own. American Fork is an easy festival favorite.

American Fork plays Saturday afternoon at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek and Monday evening at the Bob Bullock History Museum.

Dismember the Alamo: Zombie Film Festival Invades Lake Creek

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Zombie lovers take note: The Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek presents Dismember the Alamo on October 23 - 25th with evening screenings of zombie flicks both new and old. The lineup so far: Pathogen (with writer/director Emily Hagins in attendance), Re-Animator, blackspoitation "classic" Sugar Hill, Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, Fido, Return of the Living Dead, and a selection of zombie shorts that will be screened free to a first-come, first-serve crowd.

That's quite a varied lineup, even for a bunch of zombie movies. ­Fido, though flawed, has some intriguing imagery and manages to make a zombie character sympathetic, while Sugar Hill should just be a hoot. (And when was the last time you think that one played on a big screen in Austin?) The Lake Creek branch of the Alamo has really been trying to step up its game, programming-wise, and this is the best move they've made so far.

(Well, that and providing a screen to the Austin Film Festival for some up-North screenings during the fest. It's worth mentioning that next week Lake Creek will host a number of genre-interest titles from AFF like Trail of the Screaming Forehead and The Zombie Diaries, as well as some other great indie fare like American Fork and Judy Toll: The Funniest Woman You've Never Heard Of.)

All screenings at Dismember the Alamo are $5 each (except for that free shorts program). See the Dismember the Alamo web site for screening times and more information.

Fall Festival Roundup

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If you're a film geek, September and October are pretty great months to live in Austin. Within the space of five weeks there will be nearly five hundred different features and shorts on display, many of them well outside the mainstream and which won't be screening again in Austin for months -- if ever. Here's a quick guide to the three big festivals of the Fall in the capital of Texas.


Fantastic Fest (Sept. 20-27)

In their words: "Fantastic Fest is a week-long festival featuring the best in new science-fiction, fantasy, horror, animation, crime, Asian, and all around badass cinema."

What they play: Fantastic Fest has tighter focus than its cousins and (potentially) more bang for the buck if you're into genre film. Fantastic Fest is the place to see the weird, the wonderful, the what-the-eff-was-that movies of the yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Claim to fame: Organized by Tim and Karrie League of the Alamo Drafthouse and programmed by such guiding lights as Matt Dentler (SxSW), Lars Nilsen (Weird Wednesday), and Harry Knowles (Ain't It Cool News), Fantastic Fest has geek cred coming out the wazoo. The Leagues pull out all the stops to get the festival's filmmakers into town for the show. If the names Bruce Campbell and Shusuke Kaneko aren't familiar, however, you might not care about the celebrity-types wandering the Alamo halls during this festival. Though I guess Mel Gibson did pull a surprise appearance last year, so who knows?

Visit the Fantastic Fest website.

There's Still Time to be the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin

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The Austin Film Festival crew is doing it again -- calling out into the wilderness for your comedy shorts. You've got until August 16th to submit.

To be crowned the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin, download the entry form and drop it off with your film at the new AFF offices. (No entry fee!) The finalists will be screened at the Cap City Comedy Club on August 20th (semifinals) and 27th (finals). Both nights will feature live comedy as well as the short films.

The winner gets two all access badges to the festival in October and their film will screen at the festival. These days that's one of the easier ways to get into a major film festival, so local filmmakers should be jumping at the chance.

Check it out now at the Austin Film Festival site.

Movies This Week: Early Works, Troma, and SF at the Paramount

Let's see what Austin has to offer in terms of special screenings and free movies this week. If I missed something, please let me know in the comments section.

  • Thursday night, Austin Film Festival is hosting "Very Early Works," a collection of short films from local filmmakers who have gone on to bigger and better things. The evening includes short films from Steve Collins (Gretchen), Scott Rice (Perils in Nude Modeling and those funny, funny Script Cops shorts that served as AFF in-house trailers last year), the Zellner brothers (Redemptitude), Mike Akel (Chalk), Jeffrey Travis (Flatland). Plus there are shorts from filmmakers who aren't yet quite so well-known, like Toddy Burton and John Merriman. Some of the filmmakers will be around to discuss their shorts. "Very Early Works" is being held at Alamo Lake Creek, and you can buy tickets at the door.

    If you don't live in Austin, check out the "Eat My Shorts" posting on Cinematical Indie a while ago where I found early shorts online from some of these filmmakers as well as others from the "Mumblecore" movement (I also explain what I think that means). Read the entry and see those shorts for free.

  • Alamo Lake Creek is starting a new weekly film series called Tromatic Thursdays, in which the theater brings us films from the prestigious Troma studios. This week's classic offering is Tromeo and Juliet, a timeless love story. The movie screens at 10 pm and admission is free. (More events after the jump.)
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