SXSW

SxSW pick Crawford, about the "one-stoplight" Texas town where George W. Bush made his home shortly before his election to the highest office in the land (and what happened after), will screen at the Crawford football stadium Sunday night. It's the first time the film will be seen in the town where it was shot, though likely not the last. Befitting a hometown premiere, the film will be projected under the open Texas sky on the Alamo Drafthouse's 50-foot Rolling Roadshow screen.

Director David Modigliani rightly focuses more on the people of the town and their personal struggles than on Bush's troubled presidency, though of course the one affects the other in unpredictable and fascinating ways. Even if you'd rather forget the political events of the last eight years, however, the chance to see a film like Crawford unspooling for the first time in front of its subjects is an event few film buffs will want to pass up. Crawford is about 100 miles away, and even with gas prices being what they are I think it's worth the trip.

Crawford screens Sunday, June 8th at 8:30 p.m. in Crawford, TX.

To learn more about Crawford (the town and the movie), see the videos after the jump. In addition to SxSW 2008, the film has played the Independent Film Festival of Boston, Marfa Film Fest, AFI Dallas, and most recently the Brooklyn Film Festival.

indieWIRE reports this morning:

Janet Pierson has been named the new producer of the SXSW Film Festival and Conference, the organization has just announced. Matt Dentler, who has served as producer of the fest since 2004, has accepted a position in New York City to head the marketing and programming operations of Cinetic Media's new digital rights management unit, the festival said in an announcement.

Read the full indieWIRE report here.

Shameless self-promotion, you gotta love it. But if you want to get a better impression of SXSW than what you're reading here ... okay, it's still shameless self-promotion. Here's a list of the movie reviews and other features I wrote for Cinematical during SXSW this year:

That's right, it may be April but Slackerwood isn't done with SXSW yet. Who knows, maybe we'll still be posting photos in August. To keep that from happening, I'm posting photos without cropping them nicely or sprucing them up in Photoshop, so my apologies for the red-eye and other flaws.

On the last night of SXSW, one of the films I caught at the Paramount was Goliath, which was shot in Austin. I'd been looking forward to seeing this film, to the point where it took a schedule rework in order to catch it (note to self: next year, get to Alamo Ritz films supersupremely early to avoid sellouts). On the other hand, this meant I was able to see it at the Paramount, which is a better venue for local filmmakers because they're always so happy that their film is actually showing at this iconic Austin theater.

Mike Hedge is a photographer and friend to Susan Buice and Arin Crumley, they who made Four-Eyed Monsters. Mike put together this incredible music video of every shot he took between leaving for SxSW and driving home. Obviously there was a bit of forethought that went into this because as the pictures whiz by for only three frames each, there are a few mini-movie sequences that play out.

SXSW 2008 from mikehedge on Vimeo.

You can also see Mike's set of SxSW pix on Flickr.

Thanks to Chris Hyams of B-Side Entertainment (my employer, and where much of the office bits of the video were shot) for passing this along.

I know, AFI Dallas has already started, but I'm running behind right now -- hell, we still have SXSW stuff yet to post on Slackerwood. That post-SXSW bug really slowed us down. I went to AFI Dallas last year, the film fest's first year, but it was impossible for me to get to Dallas this time, and I'm definitely feeling sorry I'm not there.

Anyway, in case you're up there now or about to go, here are some of the films shot in Austin, or made by Austin filmmakers, playing AFI Dallas:

Six Man, Texas -- Some friends of mine were involved in editing this movie and creating the website, so I'm naturally biased. I saw this film in a rough cut and at the Austin cast/crew screening a couple of months ago, and I'd recommend it. I don't normally like watching football, but this documentary about six-man high-school football teams in Texas focuses more on the change and decline of small Texas towns.

Baghead -- I saw this at SXSW and it's pretty funny. Read my email interview with the Duplass brothers for more background on this movie.

Crawford -- I reviewed this movie for Cinematical during SXSW. Check it out if you can -- I heard the first AFI Dallas screening sold out before the fest even began. You also can read my email interview with director David Modigliani.

Billy Bob Thornton, photo by Kris Krug

As "curated" by the Flickr community. See the whole slideshow.

As predicted, the house ads for SXSW this year were in fact a return to the Burger Hut salad days of 2002. I loved the shorts even when I saw them on the last day of the festival. If you weren't there, you missed out ... or did you?

I kept hearing that the shorts had been posted on Facebook but I was too busy to check and anyway, Facebook isn't public so that didn't seem worth writing about. But Cinematical contributor Scott Weinberg has more energy than I do -- he found all five of the SXSW bumper ads on YouTube and embedded them into a single news story.

I'm not sure which of the shorts was my favorite -- "Dumblecore" had the best punch line, but I saw the "Glengarry Glen Ross" spoof the most and by the end, could happily recite the lines along with the cast. In fact, at the Young @ Heart screening on Saturday night, a bunch of us in the back started doing just that, until we were shushed by, of all people, Scott Weinberg. Being shushed by Weinberg, who is not exactly a shrinking violet, was so very startling that we all did in fact stop reciting (and considering that the audience for that particular film was probably not full of SXSW fest regulars, that was very considerate).

I've embedded the "Glengarry Glen Ross" short below in case you want to be able to recite along with it, too. This YouTube link takes you not only to all the SXSW 2007 ads, but also to the classic Burger Hut ads from 2002.

I'm jotting down a few observations from this year's SXSW Film Festival. I'll use some of these when I revise the film venue guide next year, and some are just, you know, little bits and pieces of miscellany.

• Both Alamo Ritz theaters are filling up fast, at any time of day, for just about any movie. I've only been to one movie at Ritz where the theater wasn't filled to capacity. I think some out-of-towners just plain like the Ritz and will watch anything there. If you're going to see a movie at Alamo Ritz, no matter how obscure it sounds, get there early. At least Sixth Street is a colorful and interesting place to stand in line.
• I found out Alamo Ritz doesn't have public wireless access. A server told me to try the Iron Cactus wireless access next door, but warned that Alamo's walls are very thick (soundproofing, which you absolutely need on Sixth Street) so it might be difficult. I couldn't connect. So use your Alamo Ritz time to order a nice meal, not check your email.
• In my venue guide, I noted that I often park at St. David's Episcopal -- it's halfway between Alamo Ritz and Paramount. I paid $7 to park there on Monday, which is higher than the $5 it was last year, but that's fine. On Wednesday, the parking fee there was $15. That's ridiculous and obnoxious. I think it might be best to stay with the Convention Center garage parking, which is $7 all through the fest, and just get used to the walk. (That's not at all convenient if you're going only to Paramount, though.)

Film critic/film producer Elvis Mitchell (The Black List), screenwriter Josh Olson (A History of Violence), and author Harlan Ellison after the SXSW panel "A Conversation with Harlan Ellison" on Sunday. Ellison was signing a copy of his anthology Dreams with Sharp Teeth for Mitchell.

A documentary about Ellison, also called Dreams with Sharp Teeth, is screening at SXSW this week (and is very good if you're a fan of the author). I also enjoyed seeing The Black List, which Mitchell produced, in which he interviews a number of well-known African-American politicians, artists, and other leaders.

I plan to write more about the panel with Ellison later; it was certainly memorable.