Local Cast and Crew

Lone Star Cinema: Bottle Rocket

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Bottle Rocket

[Editor's Note: Lone Star Cinema is a new series in which we look at Austin and Texas-shot/set movies that are available on DVD, Blu-ray or online.]

While some filmmakers need a few films to their credit before developing their styles, Wes Anderson's joyously skewed cinematic vision has been evident from the start of his career. Anderson's first feature, Bottle Rocket, has all the hallmarks of his later movies -- quirky characters, the presence of one or more Wilson brothers (in this case, three of them), an unlikely but somehow believable story (at least within Anderson's cinematic world) and a cheerful pop-music soundtrack, to name but a few.

Released in 1996 and based on an earlier short film with the same title, Bottle Rocket is the story of three Texas friends with grandiose plans to go on a crime spree, a goal for which they are wholly and hilariously unqualified. The plot revolves around Anthony Adams (Luke Wilson), who -- upon his release from a mental hospital -- joins his friend Dignan (Owen Wilson, who also co-wrote the script) in a vaguely defined and ill-advised scheme to commit various crimes with Dignan's former boss, Mr. Henry (James Caan).

Joining Anthony and Dignan is their oily, ne'er-do-well neighbor, Bob Mapplethorpe (Robert Musgrave). Knowing nothing about the criminal arts and needing some cash, the three get in a little practice by robbing a bookstore. The heist goes awry, of course, and they go on the lam, ending up at a remote motel.

Lone Star Cinema: Waiting for Guffman

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Waiting for Guffman title card

[Editor's Note: Lone Star Cinema is a new series in which we look at Austin and Texas-shot/set movies that are available on DVD, Blu-ray, or online. Lockhart seemed like a great place to start.]

Christopher Guest has gathered quite a following through his trilogy of mockumentaries, starting with 1996's Waiting for Guffman and following with 2000's Best in Show and 2003's A Mighty Wind. Let's just forget that For Your Consideration ever happened, shall we?) I missed Waiting for Guffman in the theatres; the first time I watched it was with friends in a college dorm room, as we rolled on the floor, laughing.

For the 1996 film, Guest chose to film in Lockhart, Texas because it added a small-town feel.  Waiting for Guffman opens to scenes of Lockhart's courtyard square, but the movie is based in fictional Blaine, Missouri, aka "The Stool Capitol of the World."  Blaine is celebrating its sesquicentennial, and the city council has asked resident auteur Corky St. Clair (Guest) to direct a play to mark the occasion.  He and music director Lloyd Miller (Bob Balaban) hold auditions; Austinite Turk Pipkin shows up in this sequence as a ping-pong juggler.  The folks who make the cut: Eugene Levy's nervous dentist Dr. Allan Pearl, travel agent couple Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard, and Parker Posey's Dairy Queen employee Libby.

Fantastic Fest Final Lineup Includes Jeff Nichols' 'Take Shelter'

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FF09-Fantastic_Debates-dhill-240-_08D9217

It's a pleasure to announce that the final lineup of movies at Fantastic Fest this year will include a feature film from an Austin director. Take Shelter was written and directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories) and the post-production work was completed by local company Stuck On On.

This will be the Texas premiere for Take Shelter, which stars Jessica Chastain, Michael Shannon and Kathy Baker. Victor Diaz at YNN interviewed Nichols at the Stuck On On office before the movie premiered at Sundance in January. Two other Austin-connected films are screening at the fest this year, both shorts.

The Fantastic Fest closing-night film also has Austin ties. Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope is produced by Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles (and Joss Whedon and Stan Lee, among others), and I suspect Knowles is actually in the movie. The documentary about San Diego Comic Con is directed by Morgan Spurlock. The closing-night party will have a superhero/fanboy theme to tie into the doc.

A Look at Texas Film Through the 2011 TFPF Projects

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Yakona

Last week, Austin Film Society announced the 2011 Texas Filmmakers Production Fund recipients, awarded a total of $92,000 in grants, film stock and services ... plus $7K for travel grants and $12K for the Slacker 2011 production, bringing the grand total to $111,000.

I always enjoy reading about the TFPF grants because they provide a sneak peek into upcoming movies from Texas filmmakers. Austin was well represented in this year's list, but exciting productions from around the state are included. Many of these productions held online crowdfunding campaigns; I've linked to the campaign web pages and recommend taking a look, because some of the teaser videos for these films are excellent.

Here are the Austin projects that received grants, with whatever info I could find about the filmmakers and their productions:

  • $7,500 to Computer Chess -- Andrew Bujalski
    Bujalski moved to Austin a few years ago and shot his feature Beeswax here. Now he's working on Computer Chess, a feature about what happens when chess nerds meet computer programmers in 1979. The movie is currently in production in Austin -- they've been looking for extras -- and had a successful crowdfunding campaign.
  • $7,000 plus $1,000 in Alpha Cine services to Yakona -- Paul Collins, Dean Brennan and Anlo Sepulveda
    Sepulveda directed the lovely Austin-shot Otis Under Sky, which played SXSW this year, for which Collins provided the sound design. Brennan is a San Marcos filmmaker. Yakona (pictured at top) is an experimental feature-length documentary about the San Marcos River and Spring Lake ... from the point of view of the river itself.

Casting Call: Do You Look Like a Chess Nerd?

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Computer Chess clippingMore to the point, do you look like a late-Seventies chess nerd? Or a computer nerd? You know who you are, and now the Computer Chess filmmakers want to know who you are, too.

You might recall we mentioned Andrew Bujalski's feature Computer Chess recently because it successfully ran a crowdsourced funding campaign, raising more than $50,000 for production costs. The movie is about computer chess programmers and takes place at a tournament in 1979.

Now production is underway here in Austin. Bujalski and producer Houston King have put out a call for extras, starting with scenes being shot this weekend, through September. Extras will be paid in "snacks, meals and good times" and of course you get to be in a locally shot movie, which is cool right there.

If you think you can pass for someone from 1979 who hangs out at chess tournaments (as in the photo on the right), drop a line to computerchessmovie [at] gmail [dot] com and enclose your contact info and a photo of yourself. Best of luck!

[Photo courtesy of Houston King]

DVD Review: True Grit

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True GritI didn't review True Grit when it opened in theaters late last year because I did something film critics should never, ever do: I watched the movie and then I read the book before writing my review. Details from the book jumbled with the movie and I couldn't always remember which was which. Fortunately, Mike was happy to write a review for Slackerwood instead.

So I'm pleased to have the chance to see True Grit again, now on DVD and Blu-ray, and start over with a clean slate. Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have brought us an excellent movie that plays very well on home video, although the visuals aren't quite as breathtaking as they might be on a theater screen. It's a movie I not only like but could watch with a mature adolescent or with my parents, and how often can you say that?

I enjoyed the Charles Portis novel more than the film adaptation (the narrator is a hoot), but this doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie, primarily due to the admirable performances. Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is able to hold her own as Mattie Ross up against Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn and Matt Damon's Redford-esque turn as LeBoeuf. The Coens focus their movie of True Grit on Steinfeld's character (despite what the DVD cover implies), as in the novel and as opposed to the 1969 movie, which was more of a vehicle for John Wayne.

For those of you who don't know the story from the novel or the earlier movie, Mattie Ross is a headstrong teenage girl who wants to hire a U.S. marshal to help her track down Tom Chaney, to bring him to trial for killing her father. She sets her sights on Cogburn, a hard-drinking U.S. Marshal with a determination she finds appropriate for the job. However, Texas Ranger LeBoeuf also wants to track down Chaney and bring him to Texas for a significant reward. The men might be amenable to working together but neither wants a 14-year-old girl on his hands. They find out quickly that Mattie Ross is one of the stubbornest characters ever to grace the page or screen, and she insists on having things her way.

Beer and Tacos with Critic-Turned-Screenwriter C. Robert Cargill

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Fantastic Fest 2007: Awards ceremony

2011 has been a banner year for local film writer C. Robert Cargill. Cargill, known to Ain't It Cool News readers as Massawyrm and to Spill.com readers as Carlyle, recently celebrated his 10-year anniversary at AICN. In even better news, the movie critic just signed a deal for the production of a screenplay he wrote.

A couple of weeks ago, we sat down for beer and tacos at Austin's famous Torchy's Tacos.

Slackerwood: How did you start writing?

Cargill: I wrote my first story when I was five. It was a Scooby Doo episode where I drew all of the pictures and wrote the story.

When I was 15, there was a girl that was kidnapped in San Antonio and this captivated the town for some time. At some point they found a suspect, a guy that had helped with the search. They raided his house, after which his name and picture were all over the news. Everyone was talking about him. They were talking about him as though he was guilty. It was a huge media circus. I all of 15 years old, asked myself how could they treat him like that. This really pissed me off. I wrote an editorial and sent it to both local newspapers. The following week, both newspapers printed it. That editorial was the first time my parents realized that I was serious about it [being a writer] and I got the first taste of being published. So I wrote a couple more letters to the editor, kept writing, went to college, studied philosophy and film and was always working on stuff.

Interview: Brandon Freeman, 'Skateland'

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Brandon Freeman on the set of 'Skateland'

One of the independent films I enjoyed at SXSW 2010 was Skateland, set in small-town Texas during the 1980s. Starring Shiloh Fernandez (Deadgirl, Red Riding Hood) and Ashley Greene (The Twilight Saga, Radio Free Albemuth), Skateland was produced by Freeman Films, an Austin-based movie production company founded by Skateland writer/executive producer Brandon Freeman. As a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, Freeman enjoyed working within the local film community to bring his first feature film to the screen. Skateland opens in Austin this Friday -- check out my SXSW review and Don's review.

I spoke with Brandon Freeman by phone last week as he prepared for the L.A. premiere of Skateland. Find out what he had to say about working with Ashley Greene before her Twilight stardom, the portrayal of the feminist movement of the 80s in his movie and the impact of MTV on small-town Texas after the jump.

'St. Nick' Returns to Austin

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One of my favorite movies from 2009 was St. Nick, a film from Dallas filmmaker David Lowery that I saw at SXSW that year. It is lovely and slow and rewarding and has very little dialogue, a description that I realize will cause some people to run away, but may intrigue others. A brother and sister run away from home and find a new place to live in an abandoned house -- and that's about it for story. The characters and their setting are the focus of the film.

St. Nick has had made a long and successful film-fest tour, but has not played in Austin since its festival screenings more than two years ago. Now, however, the Texas Independent Film Network is taking Lowery's feature on tour around the state. You can see it here in Austin on Saturday night, May 21, at 7:30 pm in the Austin Film Society screening room. (Lowery tells me that the first screening of St. Nick, in a rough cut, was at the AFS screening room, so this is quite fitting.) Tickets are available online through AFS.

A Tour of Austin Filmmaking Via 'Slacker 2011'

Slacker 2011Of all the movies undergoing remakes, sequels, "reboots" and so forth, the last one I ever expected to get such treatment was the 1991 Richard Linklater film Slacker. But here we are, two decades after the movie premiered in Austin, and Austin Film Society and Alamo Drafthouse have teamed up to organize a remake ... sort of. Surprisingly, I'm not making the usual squinchy face of distaste that I do when I hear about remakes, which may have to do with the talent involved.

Slacker 2011 is not just a potential film, it's a project to raise money for the Texas Filmmakers' Production Fund (TFPF). Nearly two dozen local (or formerly local) filmmakers have signed up to re-create scenes from Slacker -- perhaps showing us how much Austin has changed in the last 20 years. Each filmmaker will re-shoot a scene in its original location, and the scenes will be edited together for Slacker 2011. The film will premiere on August 31 ... obviously not at the same theater where Slacker premiered, though (the now-defunct Dobie).

How does fundraising tie into this? You can donate money to the Texas Filmmakers' Production Fund and different levels give you different premiums, like the fundraising campaigns for indie films through Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. $50 gets you a ticket to the Slacker 2011 premiere and a thank-you on the AFS website; other levels offer autographed DVDs of both films, the chance to be an extra or have a speaking role in one of the Slacker 2011 scenes, and for $25K, Executive Producer credit.

The list of filmmakers is impressive if you know something about the Austin film community. However, I think it's unfair to make that assumption, or to leave you with nothing but a handful of IMDb links. Therefore, the bulleted list below provides a little more info about who these filmmaker are, what they've worked on, and if they themselves have benefitted from the TFPF program. It's a nice little tour of local filmmaking with some fascinating interconnections. I know more about some filmmakers than others, so if I've missed something notable, let me know in the comments.

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