Local Indies

Richard Garriott: Man on A Mission is an inspiring full-length documentary by local filmmaker Mike Woolf that chronicles Austin serial entrepreneur and game developer Richard Garriott as he becomes the first second generation astronaut to travel into space. The film takes viewers on a detailed countdown to launch as Garriott makes his way through his year of training. From Star City, Moscow, to NASA, to Yuri Gagarin’s original launch pad -- viewers are Garriott's co-pilot in his journey to the stars. Through Garriott's experiences, the audience not only gets a fresh look at the under-appreciated history of the Russian space program but also is exposed to never-before-seen footage from inside the re-entry capsule.

The liftoff to space seen in Man on a Mission was a lifetime in the making. Garriott built his fortune as one of the founding fathers of massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORGs), most notably his first game Ultima. From his first game sale in high school to his millions with Ultima Online, he has invested in private space travel including the Spacehab modules. He is a primary funder of the X-Prize and Space Adventures, the only company that can take private citizens to the ISS -- Garriott is the sixth one to fly to orbit.

What's the best way to say "creepy and at times bordering on the distasteful ... but in a good way"? When you figure it out, let me know so I can describe Lovers of Hate, the latest film from Austin filmmaker Bryan Poyser, which premiered at Sundance this year before screening at SXSW and on IFC Video on Demand (where it's now available to watch). Normally I'm not fond of movies with unlikeable characters doing things that make me wrinkle my nose in distaste, but somehow Poyser and his excellent cast and crew pull it off in an arresting manner.

Rudy (Chris Doubek) is the saddest sack blowing around Austin -- his wife kicked him out and he has nowhere to live except his car, and his job prospects are dwindling by the moment. All he wants is a shower, and his wife Diana (Heather Kafka) back. In the middle of this, his brother Paul (Alex Karpovsky) shows up, a famous children's author in a Harry Potter sort of way. Paul's books are based on stories Rudy used to tell him when they were growing up, and Rudy hasn't finished his own magnum opus (with the same title as the film), so he's nursing a helluva grudge. He convinces his wife to pretend they're still a couple while they have dinner with Paul, but the shaky premise simply can't hold up. Rudy's also suspicious of his brother Paul having designs on Diana. What he wants is for Paul and himself to travel to a secluded house where Paul's been staying in Park City, so they can both finish their writing, but somehow nothing turns out quite as planned.

Each year the SXSW Film Festival and Conference supports the Austin film community by hosting special screenings by local film-related nonprofit organizations. As part of the Austin Media Arts Committee (AMAC) series,  Austin Film Society, Austin School of Film and Reel Women have each compiled two programs that showcase their members' work. All SXSW badgeholders and non-badgeholders are encouraged to come out and check out the showcases. Audiences will also have the opportunity to vote on their favorite Reel Women short, and the winning filmmaker will receive a special award package.

The Austin School of Film has not released their lineup yet for their screenings on Sunday, March 14 at noon and Monday, March 15 at 2 pm. The Austin Film Society and Reel Women have made their programs available. Here's the 2010 lineup:

Austin Film Society Program for Saturday, March 13 at noon (70 mins)

• Make a Wish, dir. David Ward
• Squeezed Out of Business, dir. Chithra Jeyaram
• The Alligator, dir. Jeff Marrow
• Seeds of Change, dir. Kelly West
• Big Hands, dir. Aaron Holloway
• Manos de Madre, dir. Greg Kwedar

Austin Film Society Program for Sunday, March 14 at 2 pm (70 mins)

• Platypus Rex in: ABC-Hole, dir. Bob Ray 
• I Love You, Will Smith, dir. Bradley Jackson 
• Never Do This, dir. Scott Rice 
• To Do That, dir. Jason Brenizer 
• Der Vater, dir. James Moore 
• El Pez, dir. Brian Scofield 
• Shades of the Border, dir. Patrick Smith 
• The Shrimp, dir. Keith Wilson

Among the many world premieres at SXSW in just two weeks is Geoff Marslett's Mars, a sci-fi rom-com indie brimming with local and nationally known talent. Earlier this week, Jette and I caught up with Marslett and talked about Austin, film and food over a long brunch at Olivia on South Lamar. 

Marslett is a veteran of short films, and a self-taught animator on faculty at Tfe University of Texas at Austin. His films have been featured at CinemaTexas, SXSW, and even in Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Film Festival (vol. 7).  Perhaps best known for the award winning Monkey Versus Robot as well as Bubblecraft, Marslett has worked on 14 of his own shorts as well as contributing to other films such as Last Man Standing: Politics Texas Style.  In 2009, Marslett was named one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" by Filmmaker Magazine.

Three years ago, Marslett started working on Mars, with a 17-day live-action shoot followed by two years of animation work. This was a labor of love and obsession, with Marslett and his team of animators and interns working impossible hours to complete the film over the last two years while he also juggled a teaching schedule at UT's RTF program. 

Texas Independence Day is March 2, and local PBS station KLRU will commemorate the day with "Texas Independents' Day," an event involving several local filmmakers whose work has reached a national audience. For the first time, three Austin-based projects have been selected for this season of the PBS Emmy-award winning series Independent Lens: The Eyes of Me (my review), Sunshine (pictured above) and The Horse Boy (my review). All three films premiered in the Lone Star States category at the 2009 South by Southwest Film Festival. PBS estimates that 2 million viewers will tune in to Independent Lens this year.

On Tuesday, March 2, UT professor/local documentary filmmaker Paul Stekler (Last Man Standing) will moderate a panel discussion at the Austin City Limits studio with directors Michel O. Scott (The Horse Boy), Karen Skloss (Sunshine) and Keith Maitland (The Eyes of Me). Following the discussion, KLRU will host a live screening of the Independent Lens broadcast of The Eyes of Me at 9 pm. Doors are at 7 pm, with the panel discussion at 8 pm before the screening. Space is limited, so be sure to RSVP here.

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.

As someone who closely follows Austin film news, it's impossible for me to talk about Whip It -- or to watch it -- without facing the issues of its setting and production. The rollerderby movie was written by a former Austinite, is set in Austin and a nearby small town, makes Austin practically a character ... and apart from a few days of shooting scenes of notable locations here, was shot in Michigan. Should we count it as an Austin film? Does it matter, especially for non-locals?

Regardless of where it was filmed, Whip It -- now available on DVD and Blu-Ray -- is a charming film, aimed at a teenage crowd but enjoyable by grownups as well. I don't need to tell you how refreshing it is to watch a movie written and directed by women, in which the girls and women are all fairly strong and well-rounded characters who do much more than dream about or follow the menfolk.

Bliss (Ellen Page) is a high-school girl in small-town Central Texas. Her mom (Marcia Gay Harden) has pushed Bliss and her younger sister into the regional beauty pageant circuit, insisting that it will help them later in life. Bliss is also working part-time with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) at a local diner with a giant pig on it. While in Austin shopping for clothes, Bliss finds out about rollerderby and is fascinated. She decides to sneak off to join a banked-track rollergirl team, the Hurl Scouts, lying about her age. A whole new world opens as she becomes Babe Ruthless.

The SXSW 2010 Film Festival feature-film lineup was announced Wednesday night, and it's full of goodies. I am still sorting through them all with lots of "oooh!" noises. Some of these are films I wished I could have caught at Sundance (but I'm allergic to snow), some are films I've been hearing about for awhile, some are very cool-sounding surprises.

You can find the whole feature lineup over at the SXSW Film website -- the shorts haven't been announced yet -- but here are a few of the highlights:

• Headliners include the Duplass brothers' film Cyrus (I told you so); MacGruber, starring Val Kilmer, Jason Bateman and the underrated actress of 2009, Kristen Wiig; Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Micmacs -- which played BNAT in 2009 along with Kick-Ass, the fest's opening-night film; Mr. Nice, which stars Rhys Ifans (and Christian McKay in a small role ... don't swoon, Debbie); and Sundance favorite The Runaways.
• Spotlight premieres include Audrey the Trainwreck (edited by St. Nick director David Lowery), Aaron Katz's Cold Weather, and Tim Blake Nelson's Leaves of Grass.

It's hard to believe it's been almost six months since the slacker revenge film Red White and Blue wrapped shooting in Austin. An update in August from writer/director Simon Rumley revealed that he was hard at work editing the film. Simon and co-producer Bob Portal have now completed work with the last stages of post-production with their sound editors and Post house Prime Focus. The film is now fully color timed/graded and sound mixing is completed, ready for Hi Def delivery.

Great news, as it has been officially announced that Red White and Blue is having its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival in the Netherlands on January 29. Rotterdam is the festival where Simon first premiered his previous film The Living and the Dead, which had its American premiere at Fantastic Fest in 2008.  

The first feature from Austin's filmmaking team of David and Nathan Zellner, Goliath, hit the DVD shelves (and Netflix) on Tuesday. David Zellner wrote and directed the locally shot comedy, and plays the main character; Nathan produced and edited the film, and has a small but quite memorable role. I interviewed the Zellners before their film played SXSW 2008.

The movie is about a nameless everyschlub (David Zellner) who is dealing with a divorce and some nastiness at work, and at the same time can't find his beloved cat Goliath. Every move he makes is strange and unworkable: shouting a message onto his ex-wife's voicemail, firing a coworker (Wiley Wiggins) at exactly the wrong time, trying to use a balloon to sail a Missing Cat poster through the air. A quick look at his Web browser history seems to tell it all.

Goliath is not a plot-heavy movie. Here's this poor guy who just wants one thing in life and because it's withheld, it makes him crazy. He's not quite sympathetic -- at times I would almost want to give the guy a hug except for that horrible mustache. And then he says or does something really horrible or unforgivable, like the conversation he has with his wife after they sign the divorce papers.