Local Indies

'The XXXX Saga' Production Diary: That's a Wrap

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The XXXX Saga, Week Seven

Austin filmmaker James Christopher is directing Twitchy Dolphin Flix's new mockumentary-style features The XXXX Saga: Rise of the Beaver Slayer and The Porn Movie Massacre (no, they're not pornos).

That's a wrap, folks.

It's always bittersweet to say goodbye to a film's cast and crew. For eight months we wrestled with  scripts, dove into preproduction and finalized the movie. With over 160 pages and over 50 speaking roles, it was not just the most ambitious film(s) I've done, it's the most ambitious indie film done as our "level." And I'm proud to say that, as hard as it was at times, we pulled it off.

'The Happy Poet' Returns to Austin at Stateside Independent

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Paul Gordon in The Happy Poet

Stateside Independent will screen The Happy Poet -- which premiered at SXSW 2010 -- Monday, May 6 at 7 pm [ticket info]. Cast members Jonny Mars, Chris Doubek and Liz Fisher, and producer David Hartstein, will be there for a Q&A following the movie.

In The Happy Poet, a comedy filmed in Austin, unemployed writer Bill (writer-director Paul Gordon) dreams of running a cart that sells local/organic vegetarian snacks: eggless egg-salad sandwiches, basil pesto pitas and the like. There's just a slight hitch in his plans: He's practically broke and has to insinuate to the man selling him the food cart that he will be selling hot dogs instead. He makes the snacks at his apartment in the morning (my baker friend would be distressed to see his lack of plastic gloves) and stakes out a spot to sell his wares.

Bill, bespectacled and hesitant, is aided in this venture by friends who help him advertise and come up with a name for his business -- The Happy Poet. Ironic, because Bill seems only slightly satisfied at times. He lacks much of a backbone and has to deal with disappointment. Thankfully, Bill grows through his experience with the food cart and all it entails.

Review: Trash Dance

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Trash Dance

Trash Dance opens Friday for a weeklong run at Violet Crown Cinema.

The adage that one person's trash is another person's treasure is relevant to Trash Dance, but doesn't apply in the strictest sense. In the Austin indie documentary and the dance performance it celebrates, the treasure isn't the trash -- it's the unlikely beauty of trash collection.

Director Andrew Garrison's film is an inspiring look at the Trash Project, Austin choreographer Allison Orr's ambitious dance performance featuring 24 City of Austin Solid Waste Services Department employees and 16 large sanitation vehicles. (That's right -- trash trucks.) The performance and the film find artistry in the mundane world of picking up garbage; more importantly, they show us there is dignity in even the hardest and least desirable jobs.

Creating the dance was a year-long project starting in late 2008. Orr knew that to choreograph such a work, she had to get to know the workers, earn their trust, understand what they do and study their movements. So she spent many days the job with them, and not just as an observer. She emptied garbage cans, picked up litter, collected dead animals (a task she could barely stomach) and learned to appreciate the finer points of picking up trash. Garrison's film crew tagged along, capturing every messy detail and introducing us to some of the people who keep our world clean.

'The XXXX Saga' Production Diary: Week Six

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The XXXX Saga, Week Six

Austin filmmaker James Christopher is directing Twitchy Dolphin Flix's new mockumentary-style features The XXXX Saga: Rise of the Beaver Slayer and The Porn Movie Massacre (no, they're not pornos). Check Slackerwood for his updates as the production continues.

This weekend was, in many ways, what Twitchy Dolphin is about. We shot a lot. And we did a lot of shots! (Not really.)

Twitchy has built a reputation of being a family -- and a team that puts the work first, that is working hard for each other not just for "making it." It's a team that has people traveling from all over to make movies with us. So for our second-to-last weekend, we had Mike Donis (Toronto), Marc Wasserman (LA), Dave Cohen (Florida) and Janet Mayson (Illinois) on set. It's always as much a family reunion as it is work. We've always prided ourselves in making the experience of being on set as much a reward as anything else. I think we did that this weekend.

We started with some XXXX and XXXX2 scenes on Wednesday evening. Andrea Dettling's character Chastity and Mike Donis's Bill England shot their romantic moments. Andrea also did her scenes with Vanessa Perry as Miss Prissy. These scenes dealt with Chastity training Miss Prissy to prepare for life on an adult film set. Yes, a popsicle was involved.

Thursday, we got Billy Kring threatening to use his Smith and Wesson to violate a guy and I took another turn as Mike Antonio, a rather prudish cop. The night was a lot of fun, playing on the police procedural tropes. Billy, one of the nicest guys I've ever known, just killed us as he went on his "I'm tired of defending your crap to the commissioner" rant.

Friday followed, a highly anticipated day. Hard Rocket landed. And Marc Wasserman, in the role, did not disappoint. He's been prepping for months, shredding his body to the point that he refused to take his shirt off at times. Dave Cohen stepped in, making his Twitchy debut as an unfortunate father of two porn star sisters. Not to be outdone, Clif Haley, Sarah England and Ben Tubbs rolled in to shoot their scenes as the writers for XXXX Films. The scene was live, ripe with improv ("Whora the Explorer?") and carrying on. Epic.

Friday followed with a couple of the bigger ensemble scenes, including the Quad X wedding scene. We then decided to have the wrap party. I know, I know. We still have three days left, but with so much of the cast here from out of town for the shoot, we figured what the heck.

And it was epic. We had new shots (Hard Rockets) and Aaron Gaudin's new microbrew imprint Montage Brew made a special brew for the occasion (Vagin-ale). Marc took his shirt off. Over and over again. Beer pong was played, behind-the-scenes pictures shared and we took a moment to thank everyone for all the work on the film so far. We're a family and that's what it felt like. And Marc Wasserman eventually did put a shirt on.

Lone Star Cinema: Hands on a Hardbody

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Hands on a Hardbody

It's a human drama thing. It's more than just a contest and it's more than just winning the truck. -- Benny Perkins, Hands on a Hardbody

If you're unfamiliar with Hands on a Hardbody, the essential thing to know about this compelling documentary is that that it's not about trucks. It focuses on a contest to win a truck, but the tricked-out 1995 Nissan Hardbody pickup is merely a prop at the center of a fascinating collection of character studies and a great commentary on human nature. The movie has finally been released on DVD and will have a special screening in Austin on Friday.

In S.R. Bindler's cult-classic 1997 film, a Longview, Texas car dealership sponsors a contest in which two dozen contestants compete to win a new pickup. The event is a grueling test of endurance: The lucky (and exhausted) winner is whoever remains standing the longest with at least one hand on the truck. The rules are rather draconian -- contestants are allowed only a five-minute break every hour and a 15-minute break every six hours. They must remain standing the entire time; no leaning, squatting or kneeling is allowed. A contestant who removes both hands from the truck for even one second is out of the contest.

'The XXXX Saga' Production Diary: Week Five

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The XXXX Saga, Week Five

Austin filmmaker James Christopher is directing Twitchy Dolphin Flix's new mockumentary-style features The XXXX Saga: Rise of the Beaver Slayer and The Porn Movie Massacre (no, they're not pornos). Check Slackerwood for his updates as the production continues.

Being an indie filmmaker can -- to put it nicely -- test you. It can throw wrenches into your plans, disrupt your routine. As they say, "Adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it."

The crew behind the Quad X Saga has weathered their share of issues: lost locations, productions issues, revolving cast members. When I had to step in as a police detective due to a casting issue, the rest of the cast and crew rallied like a team and so far it's gone off without a hitch.

On this weekend, we rolled into three long days. I mean long. A parade of actors flew in from out of town to get some screen time.  Mike Donis arrived from Toronto to play Detective Bill England, and we saw the return of Daniel Cano from Houston as documentary filmmaker Christopher Shearer. My old Army buddy Eric Adair rolled in from Maryland to play maniacal porn director Marcus and brought along Rebecca Meyer to join in the fun.

Dallas IFF 2013: Sex Meets Humor with 'S/ash' and 'The Bounceback'

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2013 - Day 3 - Red Carpet, April 6

Programming a short film before a feature can be a hit or miss at times, and I enjoy selections that complement one another. A solid well-crafted short can warm up an audience and set the tone for the feature presentation ... as demonstrated at the Dallas International Film Festival this week with a pair of Austin films.

The short film S/ash by Austin filmmaker Clay Liford -- pictured above with executive producer Farah White and Ashland Viscosi -- is the best foreplay that I could imagine to experience before The Bounceback, the latest movie from writer/director Bryan Poyser and co-writers Steven Walters and David DeGrow Shotwell. Neither film is for the prudish, but if you enjoy titillating humor and some impropriety then you're in for a special treat.

Review: Somebody Up There Likes Me

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Somebody Up There Likes Me original posterI've seen Somebody Up There Likes Me twice now -- once at SXSW 2012 with a lively local-heavy audience, once via screener with no one else but the cat -- and found the movie terribly funny both times. In fact, after I watched it the second time, I restarted the film so I could to see how the beginning tied into the end (it does, so pay attention) ... then had to stop myself from watching it a third time. The movie opens Friday at Violet Crown Cinema and I'm sorely tempted to go.

I liked it a lot, obviously. But I don't know whether you'd like it. Local filmmaker Bob Byington's universe is not for everyone.

Somebody Up There Likes Me is a comedy, but not in a broad sense -- its humor is very specific. I don't mean that it's full of obscure pop-culture references, either, because the movie could be set in any time or place. (You'd have to know Austin fairly well to recognize it was shot here.) The movie is off-center and your brain has to squint and tilt sideways and around the corner a little to appreciate it. Once you're in the universe of the film, however, it's wonderfully fulfilling.

At the heart of this movie is the relationship between Max (Keith Poulson) and Sal (Nick Offerman), although the focus is ostensibly on Max. Max and Sal work together in a fancy restaurant, along with Lyla (Jess Weixler), who catches Max's eye. Eventually Lyla and Max marry, and ...

You know, recounting this story does no good. It's not important what the characters are doing as much as how they're changing, or not changing, through the years. Because Somebody Up There Likes Me spans decades, although some characters never seem to look any older. Is this a reflection on how much they've matured inside? Possibly. The characters do a number of things externally that might be symbolic of their inner lives.

For example, during Max and Lyla's first date, their conversation is full of misses -- someone mishears, someone misspeaks. It's funny, it's a little awkward, and it's an apt representation of how relationships work (or don't). Lyla loves breadsticks ... and how does her enjoyment of them factor into the film? Lyla's father (Marshall Bell) appears to be an almost tangential character, but what is the extent of his influence on the events in the movie? Kevin Corrigan appears in a single scene, but his advice to Max might be critical. On my second viewing, I wondered fleetingly if Sal and Max were actually different aspects of a single character. And I haven't even mentioned the suitcase.

Interview: PJ Raval and the Men of 'Before You Know It'

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A title card at the beginning of Austin-based filmmaker PJ Raval's documentary Before You Know It (Don's review) states that an estimated 2.4 million self-identified gay, lesbian and transgendered senior citizens live in the U.S. Throughout the course of the movie, Ty Martin, Robert "One of the Ugliest Girls in the South" Mainer and Dennis Creamer transcend this statistic as we follow them from Rainbow Vistas in Gresham, Oregon, across to Harlem and south to Galveston. Raval's years-long research for the film brought him face-to-face with his own immortality and the discovery that LGBT seniors are half as likely to have health insurance and five times less likely to access social services than their heterosexual counterparts.

But Raval's subjects are more than just a number: They seek to educate audiences on a personal level and connect with them through their life stories. Like Creamer, a widower who didn't identify as gay until his 70s. Before You Know It follows him on dates with people he met on the Internet as he explores his "new" female identity under the name Dee. Or, Martin, who is an LGBT activist who lives in Harlem with his longtime partner Stanton. And Mainer, who struggles to retain his gay-friendly bar, Robert's Lafitte in Galveston, when confronted with legal troubles and his failing health.

I spoke with Raval, Before You Know It director/co-producer, and the documentary's cast an hour before its world premiere at this year's SXSW Film Festival. The film can next be seen at the 11th Annual Independent Film Festival Boston, which takes place April 24-30.

Dallas IFF 2013: Austin and Texas Films

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The Bounceback

This year's Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF) kicks off tomorrow night and runs through April 14. Many familiar faces and movies have made their way there from Sundance and SXSW, not to mention Austin Film Festival. In addition, the film festival will debut movies with local and state connections, some as part of the Texas Competition, a juried competition of films either shot in or relating to the Lone Star State.

Austinite Jeff Nichols' movie Mud screens on Friday, April 5, as part of the Premiere Series at DIFF -- read my review from Sundance. This engaging and mystical tale features Austin native Matthew McConaughey and Tye Sheridan from Eckhart, Texas, with music by local composer David Wingo and sound by Austin's Stuck On On.

Here are all the other films we found with Austin and Texas connections -- let us know if we're missing anything.

  • The Bounceback (Don's review) (screening times)
    Austin filmmaker and two-time Independent Spirit award nominee Bryan Poyser's latest feature shows us that breaking up can be even more difficult if your ex hasn't given up and is willing to travel many miles in the hopes of making up. It's even harder when your friends who are breaking up try to keep you apart as well. (Elizabeth's interview)
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