Local Cast and Crew

As a member of Austin Cinemaker Co-op -- a Super 8 filmmaking collective that is sadly no more -- one of the most popular events was our annual Make a Film in a (M.A.F.I.A.) weekend event. Filmmakers had 48 hours to film a short in camera with no editing, incorporating a prop that was provided at the beginning of the event. Nowadays local nonprofit Austin School of Film hosts a Youth M.A.F.I.A. Day Film Festival for SXSW every year. Students have only 24 hours to conceive, shoot, and edit their films.

One of the largest 48-hour filmmaking events, The 48 Hour Film Project, will include an Austin event this year. The project is spread across over 50 cities across the United States and another 34 international cities. Reel Women founder Sherry Mills is organizing the Austin event, which takes place June 25-27. 48 Hour Film Project began in 2001, and Austin filmmakers have participated since 2005. On Friday night, teams receive a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all which must be included in their movie. They will then spend a wild and sleepless weekend writing, shooting, editing and scoring it -- in just 48 hours. The winning film will go up against films from around the world.

Want to participate but don't have a team? No problem -- just stop by one of the upcoming Reel Women events including the First Monday Mix at the Stompin' Grounds from 6-8 pm on June 7, or at the monthly meeting at 7 pm on Wednesday, June 16. First-timers can ask questions as former team leaders, cast and crew take part in a Q&A session. If you can't make the events, no worries. To help teams come together, 48 Hour Film Project hosts a networking service that you can join here.

This week has been a nostalgic one for me. Two days after I moved to Austin in 1993, I saw Bob Schneider as the hair-slinging, shorts-dragging frontman of Joe Rockhead at a Fourth of July outdoor concert at Zilker Park. I became better acquainted with Schneider that same year as a regular at the Steamboat 1874 and the Black Cat, two historic Sixth Street music venues that are long gone (although there's a huge Steamboat reunion at Threadgill's on May 16). After Joe Rockhead left the scene, Schneider fronted Ugly Americans and then The Scabs before striking out on what's proven to be quite a successful solo career.

Schneider has always been good about releasing live recordings of many of his performances, but until now the Austin musician has not really explored much on the video side of his music. That's changed recently with the help of one of Austin's busiest and most well-known filmmakers, Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez took a weekend off from post-production on Predators and Machete to direct a music video for Bob Schneider's song "40 Dogs (Like Romeo and Juliet)," from the album Lovely Creatures. The video stars Schneider and actress Kat Denning, and, Rodriguez's youngest son Rogue Joaquin also appears. The video is embedded below -- see if you can identify the Austin locations, which I'll reveal after the jump.

What are you doing in early May? Join a bunch of other Austin film lovers (including me) and head over to West Texas for the Marfa Film Festival, which takes place from May 5-9 this year.

For years -- well, as many years as MFF has been happening, which is two -- occasional Slackerwood contributor Chris Holland has been bugging me to go to Marfa, because he thinks I need to get out of Central Texas for my film festivals. (He also bugged me to go to CineVegas, but by the time I agreed, the fest went on hiatus. This better not happen with Marfa.) But Chris is absolutely right. So I am going to MFF ... and of course he backs out, the noodle. It appears, however, that a ton of Austin people make the drive or take the Marfa Bullet to the film festival, so I know I'll see a few familiar faces.

Why Marfa? Well, why not. I thought I would enjoy a film festival that is a little smaller, and that isn't showing movies I might have already seen at other festivals or would get to see in Austin anytime soon. So far I've only noticed one film on the Marfa Film Festival lineup that I've seen, the excellent short film Quadrangle from Austin filmmaker Amy Grappell, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year.

The movie that won Jeff Bridges a Best Actor Oscar, Crazy Heart, is now available on DVD and on Blu-ray. I saw the movie for the first time rather late in its theatrical run, discouraged by lukewarm reviews, and was very happily surprised. While the story may be very familiar, the characters and the very Texas music give it an extra kick. I wish the discs offered more special features, but the best "extra" of this film is probably the soundtrack, which you'll just have to buy separately.

Bridges's character, Bad Blake, could have stepped right out of Austin, although he lives in Houston and much of the movie is set in New Mexico (oh, those incentives ...). The aging singer-songwriter is endlessly touring to scrape together a living, and the alcohol he needs to get through the sleazy tours is taking his toll. While in New Mexico, he meets a lovely young journalist, Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and like practically every other female journalist in film, she has no qualms about becoming personally involved with her interview subject. (Do you see Slackerwood reporters leaping into bed with Austin filmmakers? I think not. End of rant.) Jean has a little boy and a history of getting involved with exactly the wrong guy, but Bad Blake's buttermilk biscuits are irresistable. Well, we've all been there.

At the same time, Bad Blake is nursing a love-hate professional relationship with young musician Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), who sees the older musician as a mentor and inspiration, covers his songs, and even asks him to open for him on tour. But the movie takes pains not to make Tommy Sweet the bad guy of the movie, instead opting for something more complicated, realistic and interesting.

Imagine waking up one day and realizing you were the child star of the worst movie ever made.  That realization inspired the making of the documentary appropriately titled Best Worst Movie. 

In 1990, an exceptionally bad sequel was made in Utah, and it was terrible on every possible level, a perfect storm of ineptness. Eighteen years later, Troll 2 had become a cult classic. Little did Michael Stephenson realize that he starred in one of the most absurdly beloved films of the twentieth century that epitomizes the cult classic phenomenon.  

Stephenson, who was only 12 when he starred in Troll 2, quickly learned that it's not so much his story as that of the rest of the cast and the fans. Focusing on George Hardy, an Alabama dentist who auditioned on a lark and is absolutely thrilled with being in the worst movie ever made, Best Worst Movie introduces the audience to the film and the often outlandish cast of characters involved in the making of the film. Hardy is certainly a character in real life, but he's just one of many. The rest of the cast of characters is almost as strange as their characters in the movie, as Stephenson discovers during reunion interviews. 

The 2010 Austin Film Race is only a few weeks away -- are you ready?

For the last three years, film racing has been an annual event in Austin, with local filmmakers competing with each other to make an original short in 24 hours.  Films are limited to four minutes in length and must adhere to the year's theme as well as incorporate a surprise element, either a prop or an action. All of the films will screen at the Dobie after the competition ends on April 29 at 7:00 p.m, and a selection of the best films will continue to the national competition.

Adam Donaghey, who produced Lovers of Hate, Earthling and Audrey the Trainwreck this year alone is also producing the local event. That made me think, if Chris Doubek was the SXSW 2010 Most Frequent Actor, does that make Donaghey the Most Frequent Producer?

Anyway, a whole variety of prizes are being given out for several categories. Last year's top local winning film, "Breathe" by the Fiction Factory team, is only 2:49 minutes in length, and took home the bulk of the awards. The theme was hunger, with the surprise element an action -- waving. Check it out after the jump (and you can see more on the official website).

I've missed John Pierson's master class at The University of Texas this year. I've enrolled in the master class several times, and have always enjoyed the guests from the film industry that Pierson interviews each week. He's brought a variety of speakers to Austin, from film-festival programmers to local film critics to actors such as Steve Buscemi to well-known filmmakers such as Kevin Smith and Ross McElwee. The "celebrity" speakers are always fun, but I naturally have a soft spot for the local guests ... one of my favorites was a very candid evening with Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League a few years ago.

Last week's class was one I was especially sorry to miss: author Alison Macor, whose book Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids was recently published, discussed Austin film history with local filmmaker Richard Linklater. I hope this is one of the sessions that KUT recorded and will air this summer, as they've done with other sessions from Pierson's classes.

I have to disclose a personal bias with filmmakers Jay and Mark Duplass. They grew up in a nearby neighborhood to ours in Metairie (a suburb of New Orleans), and went to the same high school as my brothers (Jesuit High School, New Orleans). They remember one of my brothers' cross-country feats fondly. Our mommas sometimes run into one another over at the Economical (or maybe the Rouse's). It was surreal to find out that "those Duplass boys" had moved to Austin too, and made a movie that was playing SXSW the first year I went to the festival, 2005.

Five years later, Jay and Mark Duplass brought their Fox Searchlight-produced film Cyrus to Sundance and then here to Austin for SXSW, where the movie screened on a Saturday night at the Paramount to a full house. I met up with them at the Four Seasons downtown the next day for a brief interview. Things have definitely changed since 2005 -- and not just that they no longer live in Austin. Cyrus will be released this summer and stars John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill. Read my review for more details.

I know I'm not the only one who felt a little nostalgic during the SXSW screening of Cyrus, the latest film from the filmmaking brothers Jay and Mark Duplass. The former Austinites debuted The Puffy Chair in 2005, at the first SXSW I attended, in a weeknight screening at Alamo on South Lamar. Five years later, they've made a film with Fox Searchlight that stars John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill, which premiered at Sundance in January. The question is -- is it any good? Did the studio experience "spoil" the filmmakers' style?

I think Cyrus is the best feature film the brothers have made so far -- and one that will appeal to a wider audience than, say, Baghead, which was funny if you go to a lot of film festivals but didn't quite catch on outside of that circle. However, the brothers are still able to retain their skewed sense of humor and their intimate way of shooting a scene.

Reilly plays John, a middle-age schlub whose ex-wife Jamie (Catherine Keener) is trying to encourage him to date. The scene in which Jamie strides into John's house uninvited and finds him engaged in a rather private activity speaks worlds about both characters. And then there's the party where Jamie and her fiance push John into trying to introduce himself to various women. That party may seem awfully familiar to some of us. Fortunately, John meets Molly (Marisa Tomei), in what may be is a modern-day twist on the Meet Cute scenarios of old-fashioned romantic comedies, and they hit it off fairly quickly.

Set in the 80s, Skateland is a coming-of-age drama in a small East Texas town. The lead characters deal in different ways with pivotal moments and decisions in their lives. Writer/director Anthony Burns and co-writers Brandon and Heath Freeman deliver a solid production through cinematography and editing that allows the ensemble cast to really shine in this film, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

The central story revolves around charismatic Ritchie Wheeler (Shiloh Fernandez), who is needing to deal with life after high school but he doesn't have a plan -- he's content working as a manager at the local skating rink, Skateland, but it's closing its doors soon. Ritchie's childhood buddy Brent Burkham (Heath Freeman) moves back home after he's dropped from the motorcross racing circuit and begins working on an oil drilling site with his dad. Ritchie also spends a lot of time hanging out with Brent's sister Michelle (Ashley Greene), who is eager to take the next step in both life and their relationship. Ritchie doesn't seem to concerned about moving on with his life, which is frustrating to his younger sister Mary (Haley Ramm), who is eager to see her older brother make something of himself.