Austin Film Society

[Editor's note: Please welcome new contributor Caitlin Moore to Slackerwood.]

It's clear that Drafthouse Films, the distribution arm of Alamo Drafthouse launched in 2010, is serious about being a major player in the film world. More specifically, the world of film that many of us are particularly interested in -- the one filled with movies that are smart and a little off-kilter, or in their own words, "provocative, visionary, and artfully unusual."

Drafthouse Films has a few hits behind them and they show no sign of slowing down, so now would be a good time to catch up if you're a little behind. Beginning next week, Austin Film Society will offer some assistance when they present The New Voice: Drafthouse Films series, which consists of three of the distributor's most acclaimed titles thus far as well as an advance screening of The Act of Killing, a much buzzed-about documentary that will be more widely released later this summer. All four movies are worth your time, so take a look at the schedule if you're interested in watching, or rewatching, some of the more challenging film releases of the past couple years. 

Bullhead -- Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012, Michael R. Roskam's Bullhead (Don's review, Debbie's review) is a dark Belgian drama that explores the corrupt world of cattle farming. The narrative rests on the hulking, steroid-dependent shoulders of anti-hero Jacky (played by the incredible Matthias Schoenaerts), whose personal pain brings delicacy to what would otherwise be a traditional crime story. Tragic, gritty and intense, this memorable film showed early on that Drafthouse Films was serious about bringing strangeness of the highest quality to its audiences. (Wednesday, July 24 , 7:30 pm at the Marchesa Hall & Theatre)

You know when someone asks if you are familiar with a certain actor, and you recognize the name but can't quite place the face? That was my first impression of Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. I of course recognized Caesar from a few films, but my knowledge of the duet's history was lacking.

This is also how I approached the Austin Film Society's "History of Television" series last night: familiar, but ready to learn more. This month's screening focused on the 1950-54 television show Your Show of Shows, starring Caesar, Coca, Carl Reiner (The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Thrill Of It All) and Howard Morris (The Andy Griffith Show, Splash).  

When I walked into the screening room, I was surprised to discover I was one of the younger attendees there. Even though I was not entirely familiar with the actors, I'd heard of the show and knew others who were familiar as well. Nonetheless, the house was packed with folks ready to laugh.

Amid the desolate Las Vegas skyline, a young single mother must decide what sacrifices need to be made in order for the survival of herself and child in writer/director Bryan Wizemann's feature-length debut film About Sunny, which Austin Film Society will screen Thursday at 7:30 pm in the AFS Screening Room as part of its Best of the Fests series. 

The drama, which premiered on the festival circuit under the less emotional and more unfocused title Think of Me, is based on Wizemann's childhood experiences with his single mother in Las Vegas. 

As a child of a single mother myself, I was drawn to the relationship between Angela (Lauren Ambrose) and her eight-year-old daughter Sunny, played by newcomer and Texan Audrey P. Scott. The duo's interactions with each other involve relatively little dialogue, and when they are having a conversation it feels trite and one-sided, making it apparent that Angela is fighting to keep her head above water. But Ambrose and Scott appear to slip seamlessly into the psyche of their characters, down to the way Angela self-consciously holds her cigarette and stares longingly out of a taxi window. 

Born from a conversation between Austin Film Society programmer Lars Nilsen and local actor/filmmaker Jonny Mars, a new AFS recurring series starts in July: "That's Genius." In the words of Nilsen, the film series will serve as "a way for film professionals to share works that they [think represent] 'genius' in the world of some film discipline."

Austin filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner -- who directed the features Kid-Thing and Goliath -- have selected the inaugural movie in this series: the 1982 animated movie The Plague Dogs [tickets], which screens on Thursday, July 25 at the Marchesa. The Zellners will host the event, and filmmaker Martin Rosen will attend for a post-screening Q&A.

The Plague Dogs, which Rosen adapted from the novel by Richard Adams, follows two dogs who escape from a lab that has been performing tests on them. As a result of the experiments the lab has been running on animals, the nearby town fears that the dogs may be plague-carriers. The voice cast includes John Hurt, Nigel Hawthorne, James Bolam ... and in minor roles, Judy Geeson and Patrick Stewart. Rosen also directed a 1978 adaptation of Adams' most famous novel, Watership Down.

David Zellner says, "The Plague Dogs is a vastly underrated animated feature that doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves. It's beautiful, haunting and sad, and in spite of it staring two anthropomorphic dogs, has more emotional resonance than most live action films could ever hope to."

German filmmaker Max Ophüls directed such acclaimed titles as The Earrings of Madame de... and La Ronde, but his last film, Lola Montès, stands out from the rest.  For one, it's the only Technicolor movie he made, with vibrant colors popping on the screen. Secondly, the flashback technique he chose to use in this film irked his production company so that they altered the cut shown to audiences in 1956. In recent years, a cut much closer to Ophüls' original vision has been restored and released to the public. Finally, Lola Montes has all the best qualities of an Ophüls film -- in CinemaScope.

This fictionalization of the life of historic figure Montes, an Irish dancer/courtesan who enchanted such men as Franz Liszt and King Ludwig I, has a ringmaster (Peter Ustinov, speaking French!) as a sort of narrator, with Ms. Montes (Martine Carol) walking a tightrope and performing death-defying acts under a big top as her tale is told. Ustinov's ringmaster assures the audience onscreen and off that they are being told the "truth" of her life.

Ophüls layers the story both narratively (flashbacks on top of current sequences) and visually, creating a sumptuous spectacle. He plays with our sense of space as characters run up and down floors in an opera house, or turn around on a carousel-type-gizmo on a circus floor. At times the director narrows our focus by blurring out the sides of the screen.

Your chance to see the fantastic Lola Montès in 35mm on the big screen comes in July, when Austin Film Society screens the film as part of its Traveling Circus series.  Except for the Gutman shorts, the movies in this series are showing at AFS at the Marchesa.  Ticket prices range from $8-12, depending on whether or not you are a member of AFS, or would like to donate a little extra toward the AFS at the Marchesa campaign.

The Austin Film Society is hosting a screening of Shepard & Dark at Alamo Drafthouse Village on Sunday afternoon at 4 pm. [ticket info]

Treva Wurmfeld's documentary has received good buzz on the festival route, but hasn't had a theatrical release date yet, so this is a rare opportunity to catch the film.

During Sandra Adair's conversation at AFS in March, she showed us a clip, since it was a recent movie she edited. She, director Wurmfeld and producer Amy Hobby will be in attendance at Sunday's showing.

Sam Shepard, actor/playwright, and Johnny Dark, comedian/actor, had a long epistolary relationship during their on-again-off-again friendship. The two met in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. In the early years of their acquaintance, they lived together, even becoming in-laws as Shepard married Dark's stepdaughter. Dark kept all the letters Shepard wrote him and a university is interested in acquiring them -- the Wittliff Collections at Texas State, which explains the local ties to the film.

Shepard & Dark offers an unvarnished look at these two men, deliving into their family histories. In the clip Adair showed us, Shepard recalled memories of his alcoholic father and his dad's death in New Mexico. Even as time and location have separated these men, they still share a connection, strained though it may be.

Austin/Texas connections: Several Austinites were involved, including Sandra Adair, who edited the film, and Graham Reynolds, who composed the score. The Wittliff Collections (which also retains Sam Shepard's papers) are at Texas State University in San Marcos.

[Poster via Shepard & Dark Facebook page]

By Margot Newcomer

It was a successful night at the Friday night screening of Hands On A Hardbody a couple of weeks ago, presented by Austin Film Society and Texas Independent Film Network. The event kicked off with director S.R. (Robb) Bindler inside of a pickup truck, and long lines of people waiting to put their hands on the Nissan Hardbody parked in front of the Marchesa Theatre.

The documentary was first shown in Austin almost 15 years ago at the Dobie Theatre. Since then, the Texas-shot movie's been hard to find unless you were able to track down a VHS copy (often sold for around $200).

The excitement before the screening continued to build as guests in the lobby bought the new, remastered DVD (which is now available via the Hands on a Hardbody website). One woman enthusiastically traded her worn-out VHS tape for a brand new disc.

Part One of my photo essay covered the red carpet for the Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards last month. Here are a few more red carpet photos as well as some taken during the ceremony and after-party.

For this part of the photo essay, I'd like to thank Austin Film Society for sharing their photos from the event -- it was dark and I'm not a professional photographer. AFS has a Flickr set of Texas Film Hall of Fame photos where you can see more.

The above photo is from the red carpet -- Austin filmmaker Robert Rodriguez doing a quick interview. And next we have another red-carpet photo: actress Robin Wright, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame later that evening. I had been watching her the week before in a marathon viewing of House of Cards so it was almost uncanny to see her in person.

At long last, here are my (and others') photos from last month's gala Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards. I figure photos don't get stale and we'll all enjoy them just as much as we would have earlier -- even more than if I'd published them during SXSW. (I can always find an excuse.) It was a really lovely and fun evening and I know you'd rather see the photos than read about the event, so here goes. This is actually a two-part feature since I have so many photos to share.

These photos are mine and they're primarily from the red carpet before the awards ceremony. Let's start with the emcee of the evening, Austin actress and musician Dana Wheeler-Nicholson.

Before Before Midnight opens in Austin on May 23, Austin Film Society will host a special screening of all three of Richard Linklater's movies: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and the latest installment.

On Sunday, May 19 at Marchesa Hall & Theatre, you can view the trilogy in order.  See Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) meet cute on a train in Before Sunrise (my Lone Star Cinema review), run into each other in a Paris bookstore and have trickier discussions in Before Sunset (my Lone Star Cinema review), and have far more personal talks about life and relationships while ambling around Greece in Before Midnight.

Tickets for either Before Sunrise or Before Sunset are $10 for AFS members or $20 general public.  You can watch all three for $20 (AFS members) or $40 (general public) [more ticket info].

Individual tickets aren't available for the May 19 Before Midnight screening; however, there's a separate special event for the May 23 theatrical premiere of Before Midnight at the Violet Crown Cinema [ticket info]. At the VCC, Linklater, Hawke and Delpy will be in attendance and take part in the pre-screening cocktail party.

During the week between these two festivities, AFS and Ain't It Cool News have teamed up with local restaurants and bars offering special deals and themed specials.  If you go to one of the spots (the list hasn't been released yet) and tweet a photo of you and your sweetie to @afs1985 using the tag #AFSBeforeMidnight, you're eligible to win an AFS dual LOVE level membership.