SXSW

On Sunday, cast and crew of Simon Rumley's latest film, Red White and Blue, slipped away from SXSW to another theater for a private screening before the official world premiere of the film. The events reunited the entire cast and crew for a special celebration and viewing of the final cut of the film. The theater was eerily quiet as everyone focused on the dark and gruesome sequence of events unfolding on the screen. Actors Noah Taylor, Marc Senter and Nick Ashy Holden (pictured above) were all sitting together. As a filming location for last summer's shoot, I enjoyed recognizing my house in several scenes. Just look for the Fantastic Fest poster in the film and you will understand why I have trouble leaving the curtains open at night.

Red White and Blue is reminiscent of Rumley's The Living and the Dead in that once again he is not afraid to expose raw nerves -- like a bad car crash, you can't help but look -- but stylistically it's the cinematography and direction takes on a different approach. Stay tuned for Jenn Brown's review of Red White and Blue.

Red White and Blue plays SXSW one more time: Friday, March 19 at 9 pm at Alamo South Lamar.

[Photo credit: Noah Taylor, Marc Senter, and Nick Ashy Holden, by Debbie Cerda for Slackerwood, on Flickr. More photos are available on our Flickr page.]

Richard Garriott: Man on A Mission is an inspiring full-length documentary by local filmmaker Mike Woolf that chronicles Austin serial entrepreneur and game developer Richard Garriott as he becomes the first second generation astronaut to travel into space. The film takes viewers on a detailed countdown to launch as Garriott makes his way through his year of training. From Star City, Moscow, to NASA, to Yuri Gagarin’s original launch pad -- viewers are Garriott's co-pilot in his journey to the stars. Through Garriott's experiences, the audience not only gets a fresh look at the under-appreciated history of the Russian space program but also is exposed to never-before-seen footage from inside the re-entry capsule.

The liftoff to space seen in Man on a Mission was a lifetime in the making. Garriott built his fortune as one of the founding fathers of massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORGs), most notably his first game Ultima. From his first game sale in high school to his millions with Ultima Online, he has invested in private space travel including the Spacehab modules. He is a primary funder of the X-Prize and Space Adventures, the only company that can take private citizens to the ISS -- Garriott is the sixth one to fly to orbit.

I feel like a wimp. I used to be able to do 4-5 films every day. But then I didn't have interviews to do and transcribe and reviews to write. And I didn't get to bed until 5 am. Yep, I'm a wimp. And Day 6 for me was for rest and recuperation from an impromptu after-after party.  

Didn't make it to Cold Weather, but it's playing again on Thursday. [Jette interrupts: I saw it and liked it, go see it.] I did make it to Between Floors, a non-SXSW screening for a local production that didn't make it into the festival, but should have. Jen White (pictured above) filmed in Austin and San Marcos elevators, with five separate narratives. Often funny and sometimes poignant, the tales include a lone business man, a man with a video camera, a family on their way to a party, a bloodied man and someone in a bad gorilla-in-drag suit ... and one over-capacity elevator. It's a great "watch with a crowd" film, so check it out again on Monday when it plays a special engagement at the Alamo Ritz.

I finally watched Simon Rumley's Red White & Blue. I picked the night to watch it, too, apparently, complete with an outburst from an audience member that resulted in the usually laid-back Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League shutting her down with a heated expletive. 

We're more than halfway through the 2010 SXSW Film Festival, and some of us are starting to experience that slightly panicky feeling that we haven't seen as many films as we wanted and are going to miss a few we were dying to see. Normally I'd advise some deep breathing, a yoga pose and the understanding that this happens every year and it's just the way the universe works. However, Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz has decided to give Austinites just one more chance to see some of the films the Alamo staff especially enjoyed at SXSW this year: Rejoice and Shout, Monsters, Outcast and Red White & Blue.*

The best part is that the "Taste of SXSW" screenings are open to the general public. These are equal-opportunity screenings where anyone can buy a ticket from the Alamo website. You don't have to wait in a long line in the rain only to find out that the badgeholders got all the seats this time.  They're spaced throughout the week so you don't have to see three movies in a day if you're starting to feel a little burned out by that schedule.

The screening times and descriptions from the Alamo website are listed after the jump.

Filmmaker and actress Katie Aselton (The Puffy Chair) had a little fun on the red carpet for the SXSW premiere of her husband Mark Duplass's warm-hearted comedy Cyrus, in which she had a small role. Katie also directed and starred with Dax Shepard in the romantic drama The Freebie, which played SXSW Film this year. More photos from the Cyrus red carpet feature Jay and Mark hamming it up for the camera, and can be seen on the Slackerwood Flickr page.

If you want to find out more about Aselton, read Steph Beasley's interview with her at Austinist, where they discuss moviemaking and marriage and exchange mutual compliments.

[Photo credit: "Katie Aselton Credentialed", by Debbie Cerda for Slackerwood on Flickr]

You can read more of contributor Laurie Coker's SXSW reviews and features at True View Reviews.

One of the things that never fails to surprise me for good or bad, when I attend SXSW or any other film festival, is the fact that some extremely crappy films, like say last year's Observe and Report, can get funding and distribution from the likes of Warner Brothers and other far better films have to seek private promoters or never get released at all. Barry Munday, a movie from filmmaker Chris D'Arienzo, making his delightful directorial debut, still waits to be picked up by a major studio. It is a remarkably simple and entertaining film about a man who, after waking up to find his testicles gone, discovers what it really mean to be a man. It is a coming of age for a thirtysomething-year-old and it is good.

Patrick Wilson (Watchmen, Hard Candy), whom I had the pleasure to interview at SXSW, plays the titular character, a fellow who envisions himself as a real ladies man and who appears to be perpetually stuck in the 90s. Wilson himself refers to Barry as "definitely douchey, but not a bad guy." And he's right.

Paul Gordon's The Happy Poet had its world premiere this week at SXSW to an over-capacity and appreciative crowd at Alamo Ritz.

Bill (Paul Gordon) has a dream to open a healthy and organic food cart. This simple dream seems impossible due to poor credit and no experience (he's a poet), and no one believing in him, but he's determined to make it work, despite the pressure to open a hot-dog stand instead. With the unlikely allies of unemployed friend Donnie (Jonny Mars), a slacker-philosopher who haggles for the first sandwich (Chris Doubek), and Agnes (Liz Fisher), who quickly becomes a regular, it looks like his dream will take off. But can the Happy Poet food stand make a stand for healthy food, or will Bill be forced to sell out and sell hot dogs?

The SXSW Film Festival announced its award winners last night at the Closing Awards Ceremony, hosted by comedian Eugene Mirman. The full list is available after the jump.

Austin filmmaker Amy Grappell received the Short Film Jury Award for the Documentary Short category for Quadrangle, an unconventional documentary about two "conventional" couples that swapped partners and lived in a group marriage in the early 70s. She also took home the SXSW Wholphin Award. Quadrangle previously received an honorable mention award after its premiere at Sundance this year, and has screened at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

Grappell has been active in the Austin film community over the last decade as a director, writer, producer, actress and casting director. She serves on the Austin Film Society's "Docs in Progress" committee and received an AFS Texas Filmmakers' Production Fund grant in 2009 for Quadrangle. I met Amy in 2005 at SXSW where she premiered a documentary she had written and directed, Light From the East. Amy also produced and starred in the narrative feature Shady Grove (1996) that made its debut at an earlier  SXSW.

Other notable Austin connections:

• Tiny Furniture, the Feature Film Jury Award winner for Narrative Feature category, includes local filmmaker/actor Alex Karpovsky
• Locally made documentary Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission won the Audience Award winner for Excellence in Poster Design. 
• Petting Sharks, the Texas Shorts winner, was written and directed by University of Texas RTF grad Craig Elrod. His credits include Cleverboy's Playhouse (Cinematexas 2004), The Trouble With Jumpsuits (SXSW 2007), Clothes Horse (SXSW 2008), Polar Ops (Salvage Vanguard Micro Cinema 2009), and A Gentleman's Touch (AFF 2009). His feature script Floyd was a finalist for the 2007 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.

So far, SXSW Film has been a whirlwind of panels, red-carpet premieres, films, interviews and celebrity sightings, with barely enough time to breathe and eat before the next "can't miss" event on my schedule. What's been most amazing is how comfortable and relaxed major stars and filmmakers have been at SXSW premieres, including Jean Pierre-Jeunet (Micmacs à tire-larigot) and Jay and Mark Duplass (Cyrus) hamming it up for the cameras. The biggest highlight by far has been Edward Norton, who I've seen several times over the weekend. He and Tim Blake Nelson were busy with the premiere of their film Leaves of Grass on Friday night at the Alamo South Lamar -- you can see him below on the red carpet for that film.

At our interview on Saturday afternoon Edward stated that he was looking forward to catching a movie while at the festival. Therefore, it was not a surprise to see him make a quiet and subdued entrance into the premiere of Cyrus on Saturday evening (pictured above).

Contributor Rod Paddock returns to Slackerwood, this time with a review.

Every once in a while at film festivals, you come across a film with a strange title, some spare time and if you are lucky a seat in the theatre. A lot of times these movies turn out to be lumps of coal, but sometimes, these movies prove to be a gem in the rough. Well, I had some time on my hands this week during SXSW and found a 100 percent hidden gem: The Parking Lot Movie.

Seeing The Parking Lot Movie reminded me a lot of viewing Kevin Smith's debut Clerks at the Seattle International Film Festival in 1996. This movie treats the viewer with 90 minutes of witty banter and exposition from people who work or worked in a parking lot over a period of many years. There is one major difference: These people didn't have a talented scribe like Kevin Smith writing their dialogue, they lived it.