AFF Review: Austin High

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.

One day, though, a new vice-principal who happens to be an Austin outsider comes in and wants to shake things up. She gets Samuel to be more strict, and little by little he begins to see things change that made him love his job, his friends, his school and most of all his city ... and not for the better.

Putting aside all of the things that would make this a biased film review, Austin High is a very funny film. The marijuana humor is pretty rampant throughout and it's been proven there's a market for films like that. Lead actor Michael Wilson turns in a good performance, and the rest of the cast includes a number of familiar faces, including local favorite Sam Eidson (My Sucky Teen Romance) as the quiet science teacher.

One performance of note was that of Taylor Stammen, who plays Samuel's daughter Sydney. She's a bit of a Miley Cyrus lookalike but it's obvious from her first moments onscreen she's way more talented an actress. Her character exhibits a type of maturity that Austin High really needs, and while it was kind of surprising for that jolt of maturity to come from someone so young, it really worked.

Now for the tough love. Austin High could be great, but it seems to be a little too content to be a local film shown at a local festival. There are moments when a joke is repeated several times in the same scene, or a local "celebrity" is shown onscreen and there's a pause in the movie to explain who it is we're looking at. If Austin High took itself a little more seriously as a film, it would be exponentially better.

Despite the things about this film I didn't like, the old phrase "Nobody picks on my little brother but me" holds true in this case. As an Austinite, I will defend the effort these filmmakers and actors put forth to make Austin High, and it is in fact a really funny movie. Its focus is a little lost at times, and on the whole it might be a film that only a local could love, but that's what makes the film work. Austin High keeps it weird pretty much the whole time, and that's just how we roll. We keep things weird here.

To find out more about the movie, read Jordan's interview with the filmmakers.