Celebrity Sightings

I just realized I haven't brought up the bumpers this year yet. Absolutely love them, from (Super) "Mario" re-conceived as a live-action thriller, to "The Line" mocking festival lines. Kudos to SXSW and Austin filmmaker Joe Nicolosi for the fun bumpers (as well as not taking it too seriously). If you need to see examples of "Knitta" just look around when you're in line at the Alamo South Lamar. I don't know the title of the one featuring John "Zach Galifianakis looks like me" Merriman, but I wasn't the only one giggling.

Despite my plan to not have a plan this year, I managed to catch a lot of films today, including Where Soldiers Come From, Last Days Here, A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt and Natural Selection. Let me say today was an A+ day for films. I really liked them all, and the only downside was Cap Metro's #484 Night Owl that should have left 6th and Congress at 1:40 am not making its way down South Lamar.

My experience this year at SXSW has been fairly relaxed as I decided to take time off from the red-carpet frenzy for a more unstructured approach. Being without a firm schedule was a little unnerving at first, but I've discovered that it's a great way to let SXSW serendipity lend a hand to great experiences.

One of those moments happened yesterday when I skipped the AFF Hair of the Dog Brunch to attend an early screening of Natural Selection at the newly renovated State Theatre. Despite the time change, a good crowd turned out for this narrative competition film. I was not disappointed, as I was thoroughly entertained and touched by the story and characters of Natural Selection -- check back this week for my review.

After the screening, I was invited to the premiere party for Natural Selection, which included a modest gathering of the cast and crew with family, friends and supporters. We were pleasantly surprised when actor/musician John Corbett (Sex and the City, Serendipity) showed up with a couple of his bandmates -- turns out that he and Natural Selection supporting actor Jon Gries (Napoleon Dynamite, Men in Black) -- seen above with Corbett and Tara Novick -- are longtime friends. Check out more photos after the jump:

I'm working on a photo essay from Thursday night's Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards, which I'll post soon. Our new photographer, Cole Dabney (also the founder of the Austin Film Critics Association and a kick-ass videographer), worked the red carpet for Slackerwood this year. He got some amazing photos of all kinds of celebrities -- at the awards event, everyone enters via the red carpet -- but so far this is my favorite.

The gentleman on the left is musician Ted Nugent, who regaled the evening's attendees with an energetic version of The Star-Spangled Banner. For whatever reason, he was on the red carpet at the same time as Austin author/UT instructor/former producer's rep John Pierson. Most excellent, dudes.

[Photo credit: Cole Dabney]

Some days even seeing just two films feels like an accomplishment. I only saw two today, but they were both so powerful, it made for a full day. And I have to set my clock's back?  It's gonna be a rough morning in a few hours.

I got up too late to get to the first movie I planned on seeing, so I wandered around a bit, picking up a Dublin Dr Pepper at the Royal Blue Grocery on Congress before heading over to the Paramount.  If you're an outsider who likes fizzy drinks at all, if you've never had a Dublin Dr Pepper, you have never had a real Dr. Pepper.  The bottle may be small, but it's delicious stuff. [Jette's note: Alamo Ritz has Dublin Dr Pepper now, too.]

I was in line early for my film, but I was anticipating a full house, since the subject relates to current events.  But everyone else was in line for the State theater's screening of The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway.  This year is a great year for free food, and thanks to the food trailer phenomenon, they keep on bringing it right to the lines.  This time it was ice cream treats, making for a very happy crowd.  And apparently post-screening, Pee-Wee himself was handing out ice cream treats. 

I found out last night that actor Bill Paxton will be in Austin next week. (Don't confuse him with Bill Pullman. I nearly did so myself.) The Fort Worth native will be at Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar on Monday night to screen the first feature he directed, Frailty, from 2001. Then on Tuesday, he'll receive a 2011 Texas Medal of Arts Award at the Long Center. Tickets are still available for both these events.

I didn't see Bill Paxton when he was last in Austin in March 2007, at SXSW and the Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards. Fortunately, I did find this photo on Flickr and Austin Film Society gave me permission to republish it here. Paxton was initiated into the Texas Film Hall of Fame by the late great musician Stephen Bruton, also pictured above.

I mentioned the production of When Angels Sing a few weeks ago: Tim McCanlies (Secondhand Lions) is directing this adaptation of a Turk Pipkin story, and it's produced by Elizabeth Avellan. The cast includes many familiar faces from the music industry: Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Lyle Lovett, Sara Hickman and Harry Connick, Jr., plus Connie Britton.

When Angels Sing was recently shooting over in Northwest Park by Shoal Creek Blvd. in the Allandale neighborhood. I found some photos on Flickr from the shoot. Jim Lallen, who lives in Allandale, graciously gave me permission to publish some of his photos here. He was only able to take a few before someone on the production shooed him away.

In the above photo ("Action"), you can see Kris Kristofferson preparing to shoot a scene with a younger actor, barely visible -- I am wondering if this is Houston actor Chandler Canterbury, credited on IMDb as being in the cast. Kristofferson plays a character listed on IMDb as "The Colonel." I've got another photo after the jump ("The Crew") that includes a glimpse of director Tim McCanlies (in a cap and striped shirt in the background).

aGLIFF knows how to party. I know from experience: the crowds are fun, witty and very welcoming. So just imagine their annual Red Carpet Gala complete with a live Academy Awards telecast this year, so big it's moving to Austin Studios. If anyone can create celebrity sensation, aGLIFF's party planners can.

On Sunday, February 27, paparazzi, a red carpet and a champagne reception await you as the hostess with the mostest, Rebecca Havermeyer, will be on hand to greet you like the Austin celebrity you are. When you get to your private table, your waiter will be ready with some Oscar-themed cocktails, starting at 5:30 pm. Above, you can see Miz Havermeyer chatting up then-Austin filmmaker Kyle Henry, whose Fourplay: San Francisco short played aGLIFF 2010 with overwhelmingly positive reactions. (Henry's in Chicago now, but we still can't stop thinking of him as belonging to Austin.)

If you missed my Fantastic Fest 2010 Guide: How to Drink Like an Austinite, than you might not know that I'm a craft beer enthusiast. I am also a member of Black Star Co-op, the world's first cooperatively owned and worker managed brewpub. I stopped by the pub this week to try out featured beers from Jester King, a new brewery located between Oak Hill and Dripping Springs.

A fellow member at the bar struck up a conversation about our agreed-upon favorite -- the Wychmaker Rye Pale Ale -- and told me he was one of the earliest members of the co-op. With almost 2,500 members, being one of the early charter members is pretty impressive. However, he said that he's been so busy working and promoting a movie that he'd not been able to visit the newly opened pub until now. Of course I had to ask about his film -- an animated romantic comedy. His name? Geoff Marslett.

Marslett premiered his animated film Mars at this year's South by Southwest Film Festival. Mars was developed in a graphic novel style, using a unique animation process Marslett created for this feature film.  Jenn Brown interviewed him in this SXSW Spotlight and also reviewed the movie. Mars is on its way to New York for a one-week run from December 3 - 9 at the reRun Gastropub Theater in Brooklyn. Tell your New York friends to get tickets early for this small 60-seat theater as Marslett and other members of the cast and crew will be in attendance this weekend.

Over at Cinematical, I wrote about Austin Film Festival's table reading of Maggie Carey's screenplay The Hand Job. The script reading took place at Rollins Theatre in the Long Center and drew a huge crowd, not just because of the script but because the readers included some well-known local actors as well as bigger celebrities like Jessica Alba and Bill Hader.

Check out the Cinematical article for the full details on the script reading. For that article, I used pictures from AFF's photographer, but I thought I'd share some of my own photos here, although the quality may not be quite as high. Warning: One of these photos has a picture of an overhead slide that explains part of the film's title and contains what some call "adult language" (although in a very juvenile way).

The cast for the script reading, from left to right: John Merriman (Narrator), Savannah Welch (Heather/Hot Girl), Gabriel Luna (Adam), Madi Goff (Wendy), Michael Stahl-David (Rusty), Alexa Vega (Fiona), Jessica Alba (Amber Clark), Aubrey Plaza (Brandy Clark), Daryl Sabara (Cameron), Bill Hader (Willy), Colin Hanks (Judge Clark), Barbara Chisholm (Mrs. Clark), Mark Potts (Duffy), Matt Bearden (Chip), and Todd Berger (pick-ups).

In addition to appearing for the red carpet premiere of Brother's Justice at this year's Austin Film Festival, the lead stars and filmmakers sat down with media while they were in town. I enjoyed a pleasant and humorous conversation with lead actor and director Dax Shepard, as well as cinematographer/director David Palmer and producer/actor Nate Tuck, pictured above.  

Brother's Justice (Jette's review) is best described as a mockumentary with Shepard aspiring to become an international martial-arts star. Check out what the filmmaking trio had to say about Brother's Justice as well as their thoughts on Austin actors and filmmakers, including the Wilson and Duplass brothers.

Dax, this isn't your first time in Austin. Can you talk about some of your prior experiences here?

Dax Shepard: In 2004, I shot Idiocracy here so I lived in Austin for three months. It is to date my favorite location, including New Zealand, which was pretty spectacular. I do hope to live here at some point. If I can get them to relocate Parenthood I'll be in heaven. To get into this film festival was really great. Even if the film festival sucked, it was still a trip to Austin so we were going to win no matter what.