Celebrity Sightings

I didn't go to the Semi-Pro preview screening at Alamo South Lamar last weekend, and boy did I miss out. Attendees were required to wear outfits resembling the team uniforms from the movie: a singlet for the Flint Tropics, gold shorts and sweatband, and those long athletic knee socks I remember my dad wearing to exercise in the 1970s. I had to wonder how many people would go to the trouble to buy or make such a costume, just for a free movie. Okay, so Will Ferrell would be there too -- that might make a difference.

Photos from the event show a packed theater full of wildly enthusiastic Austinites, with every single one dressed in the requisite gear. Some had groovy Seventies wigs, too. Even Alamo founders Tim and Karrie League were wearing the outfits, although I've seen Tim wear much weirder things in the name of film, so that was no surprise. I suppose it's also no surprise that Alamo South had a basketball goal set up in the lobby and people were playing impromptu games before and after the film.

More than 150 photos (including the one above) were taken by David Hill photography, which has a complete set of 168 images from the event. In addition, Sarah of Posh Deluxe has written a terrific entry about the Semi-Pro screening that includes photos. And Austinist interviewed Will Ferrell this weekend, and has photos of the actor from that session.

Next time, I'll go get -- and wear -- the damn outfit. (Especially if I have a better camera by then, since my current camera would never be able to capture the glorious golds of the uniform as well as these photos do.)

[Photo credit: David Hill Photography on Flickr. Original photo here. Used under terms of Creative Commons license.]

Woe be unto you, comedy lovers, if you were not Austin Film Festival members this last week and you therefore missed the Festival's sneak preview of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and the subsequent concert by the title character himself.

Director Jake Kasdan (who co-wrote the film with Judd Apatow) showed up at the Highland Galaxy 10 Theaters to introduce the film, which is even more hilarious than one could have hoped. I enjoyed Knocked Up and Superbad, but this is a high point for the Apatow collective, due in no small part to a script that never lets up and of course to the performance of John C. Reilly. Reilly has been a powerful supporting character (Talladega Nights, Tenacious D) until this point but given center stage he is stunningly, achingly funny.

The story is a satiric biopic of a moronic rock star with a tragic past, a way with lyrics, and the inability to say no to drugs or sex. Trying desperately to make up for the accidental death of his talented brother, Dewey strikes out into the world to make something of his musical career. Cox's first wife, Edith (Kristen Wiig), believes in him but thinks he's destined to fail (as she puts it). Dewey finds solace in drugs and in the arms of Darlene (a vamped-up Jenna Fischer, no trace of "Pam" here), a new backup singer. We follow Dewey through the decades of his life and his eventual realization of his life's true purpose. (More about the film and some concert video after the jump.)

I missed the Weird Wednesday screening of The Girls from Thunder Strip last week that featured actor/stuntman/filmmaker Gary Kent in attendance (I am too wimpy for weeknight midnight movies, sadly). Fortunately, Anne Heller, who wrote about Kent's film The Pyramid for Slackerwood, was at Alamo on South Lamar that night. She sent me the above photo of Kent, taken by Alamo programmer Lars Nilsen during the Q&A session after the 1966 film, in which Kent plays a rapist named "Teach."

Anne also videotaped the introduction to the film by Lars and Gary Kent. Kent has some delightful stories to tell, especially about Spawn Ranch, where The Girls from Thunder Strip was shot ... and where the mechanic was some guy named Charles Manson. Thanks to Anne and to YouTube, we can all enjoy Kent's stories. (The video is embedded after the jump.)

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One of the best things about Alamo Drafthouse Downtown has been the audience's general respect and appreciation for the movies they are watching, whether it's a beloved classic or an obscure exploitation flick. People may laugh or applaud or even cheer, but they're rarely derisive. The respect has been built over time, with help from Alamo regulars and some gentle reminders from Alamo owner Tim League, programmer Lars Nilsen, and others. There are times when it's impossible not to laugh a little at a bad movie, and of course you have to deal with the occasional obnoxious audience member -- although Alamo really will take their asses out, I saw this happen to a drinky bunch during Forgotten Silver years ago -- but overall you will never find a better audience experience.

The ultimate audience experience at Alamo occurs during Butt-Numb-a-Thon. When I finally got into a BNAT on standby last year, I learned for myself what everyone had told me: A theater packed with 200 people all there to watch movies, eager to love the movies they were watching, with no cell phones or babies or people who wanted to be elsewhere -- is the best part of the event. If someone doesn't like a specific movie, they go out into the lobby, take a quick break outside, or even put their head on the table near them and take a nap. (There was a lot of napping around 4 am.) I probably would not have seen Rocky Balboa on my own since the trailers were so off-putting, and I am sure that if I had, I would not have enjoyed it nearly as much as I did with the enthusiastic audience at BNAT. Even the movies I didn't like so much were a pleasure to watch in that environment.

I've waited so long to write about the Grindhouse red carpet here (not to mention that I wrote the above phrase a whole month ago -- I'm such a procrastinator) that the film has its allure ... however, what goes around comes around. With the upcoming premiere at Cannes of Quentin Tarantino's segment Death Proof as a stand-alone film, perhaps people will be interested in seeing the film's celebrities all glitzed-out at the Paramount back in late March. As a tribute to the original double-feature cut of Grindhouse, I've split this entry into two parts. (Or maybe because the entry was too long.)

First, you should read my Cinematical article about the Austin red carpet to see the best photos I took, including a fabulous one of Tarantino. He finally stood still long enough for me to take a photo that didn't look like a blur! I was thrilled. However, I took so many photos that I have plenty to share here too.

In Part 1 of the Grindhouse Adventures in Red Carpet (which you should read before this entry), I had just managed to take non-blurry photos of Quentin Tarantino and was very pleased. One thing I didn't mention in Part 1 was the zombie invasion. For some reason, the crowd of fans at the Paramount included zombies ... or people dressed as zombies, I couldn't be sure, except they seemed not to be eating brains. Some were just watching the fun, but some obviously wanted to join the media:

The next celebrity on the red carpet was Jordan Ladd, who played one of the first group of women in Death Proof (aka "the one in the Alamo Drafthouse t-shirt"). I didn't realize, until I looked her up on IMDb, that she's Cheryl Ladd's daughter. I like this photo because first of all, I'm wondering what someone said to cause her to make that face; and second of all, well, just look in the background on the left:­

I am at the Alamo Drafthouse cop-movie marathon, taking a brief break during Sudden Impact and waiting eagerly for Freebie and the Bean, which will be followed by Hot Fuzz, and I would like to take a minute to note something in a way that is uncharacteristic of me. But I can't resist: That Edgar Wright is HOT. There may be a photo coming soon, which will not do him justice. Now back to Dirty Harry.

Filmmaker David Lynch decided to include Austin in his multi-city promotional tour of his latest film, Inland Empire, which he is self-distributing. On Wednesday night, every seat in the Paramount was filled for the local premiere of the three-hour film, followed by a Q&A session with Lynch.

 

I had hoped that Lynch would hold a red-carpet event with a cow, or perhaps hang out on the corner of Congress and Sixth with a cow to advertise Inland Empire, like he did to promote Laura Dern's performance. I'd heard he was planning to include a cow in the tour. However, no cows were sighted anywhere near the Paramount.

I was happy enough to have the chance to hear and see Lynch himself.

It's becoming obvious to me that I am terrible at spotting well-known faces in a crowd. Someone is always having to point them out to me: "Look, Bruce Willis is here!" (at a Guy Forsyth concert years ago) and "That was Eli Roth, didn't you realize?" I do pretty well with local film people -- I can spot Mike Judge and Richard Linklater, and anyone could spot Quentin Tarantino (okay, he's not "local" yet, but he's getting there). If you want a prime example of me not recognizing filmmakers, check out my Ann Richards story over at Celluloid Eyes. (Note that I recognized Richards.)

I was waiting in line last night for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning screening on the opening night of Fantastic Fest. The Alamo South Lamar lobby was decked out for the festival -- a coffin in one corner, various vendor tables around the room. Some people from a local haunted house, The Nightmare Factory, were passing out coupons and flyers. A few were in costume. A News 8 camera crew was there too, taking pictures of us in line. The Nightmare Factory brought in a guy dressed in an oversized demon costume with long, puppet-like hands, and the camera crew started shooting that.

Suddenly this older couple walked in -- looked very Texas, with the man in a gimme cap and the woman a little more dressed up than he was. They practically collided with the demon guy, and looked around the theater, seeming a bit disoriented. I felt terribly sorry for them. I figured they'd probably come to the Alamo to see Little Miss Sunshine, and had no idea that this whole weirdo festival was taking place. I wondered what they'd do next.

And then the News 8 camera crew rushed up to the guy, and he smiled at them and started talking to the reporter, and I realized that the man in the cap was R. Lee Ermey, one of the co-stars of the movie we were about to see. I wish I could have taken a photo, but I had to leave my camera in the car because there was security at the screening.

And damnit, I should have known Ermey, because back in 2003 during JournalCon Austin, which I helped organize, the big buzz among the conferencegoers was that Ermey was in the lobby of our hotel, and was the nicest guy in the world. You'd think that I'd done it on purpose and that he was one of the planned conference attractions.

But once again, I proved myself incapable of recognizing people I really ought to know. At least I recognized Jordanna Brewster at the Chainsaw after-party when she ended up inadvertantly standing about two feet away from me.

(I've got pictures from the after-party ... look for them this weekend sometime.)