Local Cast and Crew

Although Office Space wasn't a mega-hit in theaters, the workplace comedy has become a cult classic. The 1999 movie, shot in Austin and Dallas, has lent such lines to the lexicon as "Looks like someone has the case of the Mondays." Mike Judge's first full-length live-action movie follows the plight of workers at a generic white-collar company called Initech.

Office drone Peter (Ron Livingston) has a job he hates, stuck in a cubicle across from a lady who repetitively answers her phone in a high-pitched tone, overseen by eight bosses -- one of which is Lumbergh (Gary Cole in ginormous specs). Peter's work buddies are Samir (Ajay Naidu) and Michael Bolton (David Herman), both of whom constantly vent frustrations on their wonky fax machine. Bolton is beleagured by folks who ask if he's related to the singer. When asked why he won't go by Mike instead, he responds, "Why should I change, he's the one who sucks."

Peter dreams of dating waitress Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) who serves at Chotchkie's, a TGIFriday's/Applebee's/Bennigans (RIP) mashup. After his (soon-to-be ex) girlfriend takes him to an occupational hypnotherapist (Michael McShane, whose appearance made me reminiscent for the early days of Whose Line Is It Anyway?), Peter undergoes a sort of attitude adjustment; he gets up the nerve to ask Joanna out and stops going to the office.

It was a straight shot down I-10, but ever since, it has been a winding journey for California-born filmmaker Brandon Keropian Olmos.

In 2008, Olmos came to San Antonio to produce an album for the former Sony Latin-signed duo Amor y Pasion. A chance encounter in a parking lot two years later led to a collaboration with Alamo City filmmaker Aaron Lee Lopez.

"I was just about to go back to California when I met Aaron, and I said we should make a bunch of movies together," Olmos said.

Through Lopez's production company, Mutt Productions, Olmos has been the sound mixer, supervising sound editor, composer, director, associate producer, cameraman and editor for a number of Texas-themed documentaries and feature-length films.

"I ended up staying in San Antonio because I fell in love with San Antonio and it was so much fun here," Olmos said.

If you didn't pick this up from my gushing post last year, Christopher Guest's Waiting for Guffman is one of my favorite films. Upon finding out that the comedy is showing at the Paramount this summer (July 10 and 11), my friend April and I decided a visit to Lockhart was in order. We would search out the exteriors used in the 1996 comedy about Blaine, Missouri's sesquicentennial, and eat some delicious barbecue as well!

After some online location hunting, April and I headed out to Lockhart on the morning of Father's Day (my dad condoned this trip as long as we ate at Black's). Our first stop in town, once we drove by Black's and noted that there was absolutely no line, was near the silos used in the early shots of the movie. These are on North Pecos Street, by the railroad tracks.

Filmmaker/actor Alex Karpovsky likes to tinker with reality in ways that make for fascinating movies. The Hole Story is about a filmmaker named Alex who travels to Minnesota to film a natural winter phenomenon that does in fact occur there ... but is Alex's story fact or fiction? In Woodpecker, he interposed fictional characters into a real-life situation: a small town that believed an extinct bird species had been spotted nearby. Part of the movies' charm is determining where the documentary footage ends and where the fictional narrative begins.

In Red Flag, which recently premiered at Los Angeles Film Festival, Karpovsky returns to a character very much like "Alex" in The Hole Story, set during events that actually occurred, but wrapped in a narrative shot with actors and a story that might or might not have its roots in Karpovsky's life. If that sounds confusing ... it might be intentionally so.

The character Alex sets out on a road trip across the South to promote his latest film, Woodpecker. His girlfriend Rachel (Caroline White) had planned to accompany him, but a breakup changes their plans. He unsuccessfully tries to persuade friends to join him, and heads to Atlanta alone. Eventually his loquacious friend Henry (Onur Tukel) decides to tag along. Henry is an illustrator working on his first children's book, the very dark Henry and the Haunted Piano -- his publishers insist that he change the ending, in which the title character dies. The duo are later joined by another unexpected traveler, River (Jennifer Prediger).

On an early summer afternoon, amid the sound of squeaky toys and his neighbor's Boxer barking, Houston-based filmmaker Mike Akel and I discussed his segue from teaching to film, his dramedy, An Ordinary Family (Slackerwood's AFF 2011 interview), and his latest foray into the world of tennis.

The co-writer/director of the 2006 award-winning mockumentary Chalk said he and his writing partner, co-film producer Matt Patterson, began working on An Ordinary Family in February 2010 (read Mike's review). The writing process took about four months to complete. After 18 days of filming on location in Austin and Lago Vista in June 2010 and editing in the fall, the film was accepted by the Los Angeles Film Festival and premiered in June 2011. An Ordinary Family went on to receive the Best Feature award at the New Orleans Film Festival and has been released on DVD, and is for rent or sale online through digital channels. 

An Ordinary Family screened across the state last spring through Texas Independent Film Network (TIFN), the Austin-based statewide coalition of film societies, universities and independent theaters. TIFN screens a different Texas independent film each month on tour. I originally became intrigued by the movie when it was scheduled to screen at my school, Texas State University - San Marcos. The screening was canceled, but I pursued Akel for an interview nonetheless. I am working toward an English secondary teaching certification and Akel's film Chalk may or may not have been the reason why I now hope to pursue a career teaching English as a second language in Spain, not in a U.S. public school. 

Akel, a Missouri State University alumnus, recently completed his third year teaching filmmaking at a private high school in Houston. He mentored Houston filmmakers Andrew Edison and Luke Loftin, and is credited as executive producer on their film Bindlestiffs, which played Slamdance this year. He is currently at work on a tennis-themed comedy, Glossy Pines. 

"Ready, Set, Fund," is a column about crowdfunding and related fundraising endeavors for Austin and Texas independent film projects.

The Austin Film Festival has announced their first round of conference panels for 2012, and the title that came immediately to my attention was the "Crowdfunding Your Indie Film" panel. The panel of to-be-named filmmakers will discuss how to use modern technology to connect and solicit funding from backers for their film projects.

If I had to speculate what local filmmaker I'd most like to see on this AFF panel, it would be Kat Candler, pictured above on left with Carla L. Jackson and Kelvin Z. Phillips of A Swingin' Trio, at AFF 2011. Candler exceeded her fundraising goals on past projects including Hellion as well as for the UT Austin student organization Women In Cinema Summer Production and Operations, for which she is the faculty advisor. Incidentally, over half of the film projects featured in this month's "Ready, Set, Fund" column are helmed by women.

Candler's latest crowdfunding project, which reunites her with Hellion actor Jonny Mars and producer (and former AFF program director) Kelly Williams, is for a new short film, Black Metal. This dark drama exposes the raw emotions evoked within Ian, a thirty-something black-metal singer, when his music is linked to a student murdering a math teacher. Black Metal follows Ian, who is now a husband and father, as he comes to terms with his role in a tragic and senseless murder. The Indiegogo page features a video of Candler getting a "black metal music lesson" from Vesperian Sorrow's lead singer Donn Donni.

I both read the original Billie Letts book and watched the film version of Where The Heart Is very closely together in 2001 -- so closely together I can't recall whether I saw the movie or read the book first. Either way, I remember that I didn't care too much for the movie but I really liked the book. If only I had realized, during this truly homesick year of my life spent in Minnesota, that the 2000 film was shot in Central Texas, I'm certain it would have made more of a sentimental impact on me.

There really are not many locational hints in Where the Heart Is to tell you that the movie was filmed in Texas, unless you recognized the Baylor campus at the end. When I watched it more recently, I spied Sixth Street standing in for Nashville and I spotted a building in Lockhart's town square appearing quickly as a hotel (I only recognized the building because I had been in Lockhart the previous weekend on a Waiting for Guffman quest, but that's another post!). Mainly the Central Texas locations stand in for the fictional town of Sequoia, Oklahoma, as plucky pregnant teen Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) is stranded at the Wal-Mart there by her mulleted douchebag boyfriend (Dylan Bruno).

This week marks my third anniversary of officially writing for Slackerwood, but my first unofficial post was actually five years ago. I contributed a story about my most memorable experience at the original Alamo at 409 Colorado to the Alamo Drafthouse Blog-a-thon. The original Alamo Drafthouse closed on June 27, 2007, and was marked by spectacular signature Drafthouse events including a Big Night feast and bass-generated shaking during Earthquake.

News of the passing of cult movie sensation and Oscar nominee Susan Tyrrell -- seen above with Martin Nicholson and Richard Elfman -- served as a reminder that I also first saw "SuSu" that night. I was a fan of her bizarre performances in the 1982 movie Forbidden Zone and John Water's Cry-Baby, but was totally unprepared for both her portrayal of Aunt Helen in Night Warning and her disjointed Q&A that followed.

Summit Entertainment began the marketing push last night for Austin screenwriter C. Robert Cargill's film Sinister, which will be released this October. Fangoria had the scoop on the trailer, which went live at midnight EST, and is now available at the movie's official site.

Sinister stars Ethan Hawke as a true crime novelist who decides to move to a house with a grisly past as an inspiration to help recapture his writing success. The movie previewed in Austin as a secret screening during SXSW earlier this year.

Along with the release of the trailer, Summit moderated a live Q&A via Twitter, passing on questions from fans to Cargill (@Massawyrm), co-writer and director Scott Derrickson (@scottderrickson), star Ethan Hawke (@EHawkeOfficial), and producer Jason Blum (@blumhouse). You can reread the chat using the #SeeSinister hashtag on Twitter.

Though I recommend going into the movie cold, as I was able to do at SXSW, the trailer (should you want to see it) is embedded after the jump. Prepare yourself for the most disturbing trailer for the scariest movie all year.

Slackerwood's previous coverage of Sinister:

• Beer and Tacos with C. Robert Cargill (Rod Paddock)
• The 'Sinister' Side of C. Robert Cargill (Jordan Gass-Poore')
• SXSW Review: Sinister (J.C. De Leon)
• Photos from the SXSW Secret Screening (Mike Saulters)

By Zach Endres

You often hear that life takes strange turns, and you don't realize how true this is until you think back to a year ago and realize the old you would never see the new you coming. So much can happen in so little time. Your normal commute to work ended up in a wreck, which led to life-altering injuries or a fancy new car purchased self-indulgently for once. You moved to a new city when you were all but set on staying in a rut on familiar turf. You got your dream job. You got a job you didn't even know was your dream job until you got it. You lost your job. You dyed your hair. Someone you know died. You died.

It's often hard to notice these turns when they're isolated incidents, because not all of them are painfully obvious. Sometimes it takes an impromptu post-screening concert outside the Alamo Drafthouse Village for the reality of the statement "Life takes strange turns" to sink in, something small but memorable to prod you to think back and discover how far you've come or how far you've fallen, and to get you thinking about what the next year might hold.

The Austin Film Society's Duplass-a-Thon -- a screening of former-Austinites Mark and Jay Duplass's most recent feature, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, and a couple of their shorts -- provided an unexpected convergence of life and art, as the subject of Jay Duplass's short documentary Kevin played a set of original songs for an intimate crowd in the muggy Austin night. We came for the Duplasses, but we stayed for Kevin Gant. Who would have thought?

Jay's debut documentary covers Gant's career as an Austin musician in the '90s, his subsequent, unexplained disappearance and his re-emergence in 2009 (when Jay discovered him working at UPS). Strange turns, indeed. With the help of Jay's documentary and its festival rounds -- it premiered at SXSW 2011 -- Kevin's muse suddenly reignited. He picked up his guitar once more, and it didn't take long for him to end up in front of the Drafthouse, gaily playing songs for us all.