Chris' Picks for SxSW 2008

It's always tough to make a top ten list of films to see at a film festival -- "top" implies that other films are unworthy of notice or simply inferior to the films that made it onto the list. Maybe film #11 is the one for you. Instead I have a quick list of pictures that have caught my attention. As the festival progresses maybe I'll post a few more, since many films get two and even three screenings over the course of the week.

Midnight Shorts - Shorts always get overlooked in lists like these, so I'll feature them prominently in this one. Midnight Shorts features one of my favorite short films of all time, Frog Jesus, which premiered locally at the Austin Film Festival. SxSW wisely brought it back to town for more people to enjoy. Go see 70 minutes of great shorts, ironically starting at 11pm.

Animated Shorts - I don't really know much about the films playing in this block, except for Pablo Gonzalez' For You, My People, which seems like a really neat picture. How many political animated films from Mexico have you seen? I thought so. Go show support for the animated media by seeing some animated shorts.

'Bama Girl - From the synopsis: "A charismatic black woman at the University of Alabama runs for Homecoming Queen, going up against a century of ingrained racial segregation, internal black politics, and a secret association of all-white fraternities called 'The Machine' that has been controlling student elections at the University for most of the past century." Director Rachel Goslins will be in attendance with the film's main subject for the first two screenings, and she's blogging the whole experience over on AOL. Perhaps a film about a Southern University and its controversial traditions will be of some interest to Austin audiences. Ya think?

Woodpecker - An intriguing pseudo-doc narrative film that examines the apparent (non-)extinction of the ivory-billed woodpecker and the "gold rush" that results. Director Alex Karpovsky's previous film "The Hole Story" won awards at Sarasota, Woods Hole, and numerous other festivals, so I expect good things from Woodpecker.

Goliath - Just got back from seeing the Zellner brothers' feature debut, and must say it's a winner. Shot for almost nothing and featuring lots of local scenery and faces, it's well worth your time. It's about a man and his cat and his chainsaw. Sort of. By the way, the number on the Goliath "lost cat" posters is 435-258-6980.

Crawford - Like Goliath, I've seen this one and it will also go over big here in the Dem heart of Texas. The stars here are not just the great cast of human characters (including a high school teacher with a few heartbreaking career moments), but the Texas scenery and some really funny footage extracted from the media coverage. Crawford is a film that comes not a moment too soon.

The Art of Karaoke - One more I've actually seen, this short (which plays with Dancing Alfonso) is a great little character piece about a man who discovers his true passion -- karaoke -- late in life, and becomes a local celebrity. If you don't come away from this picture completely charmed then I'm sorry about the lump of stone you were born with instead of a heart.

American Teen, a doc about American high school cliques through the lens of one particular school, was the toast of Sundance. It's playing at 5:00 pm on Saturday only. (Unfortunately for those of us haunting downtown, it's at the Alamo South Lamar.) It has distribution so you'll get a chance to see it later but it sounds amazing.

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay - I mean, duh.

Some Assembly Required - "Over 2000 kids. 400 teams nationwide. Eight months of brainstorming, designing and building. One goal: to create the next great toy." The contest was apparently started by astronaut Sally Ride. Maybe it's the fact that my wife is a science nerd but I'm looking forward to seeing this pic.