Local Indies

Sauce from a Torchy's Tacos Trailer Park taco dripped down Todd Rungy's dark brown beard as he reminisced about the restaurant's 2011 fried avocado eating contest. The Torchy's contest, which Rungy lost amidst a food fight, is one of the many events in the Austin-based competitive food eater's life in 2011 as chronicled in the first season of The Hungry Todd Rungy Show.

The show's pilot premiered at SXSW 2012, where it received a positive response, and the producer is about to shop the whole 12-episode first season to TV networks. In the meantime, you can watch the pilot online for a limited time on YouTube -- it's also embedded at the end of this article.

Rungy said he began "eating for America" as a child. He said he would participate in eating competitions sponsored by his childhood church in Michigan. As an adult, Rungy said he ate a 20-ounce steak at a Michigan restaurant to prove to himself that he could. Besides a free steak and his photo on a wall in the restaurant, he said he gained confidence in himself and continued to enter competitive eating contests.

Joshua Riehl, the creator/director/producer of The Hungry Todd Rungy Show, heard about Rungy from a friend in Michigan. When the Detroit native moved to Austin in 2009 to enroll in the radio-TV-film program at The University of Texas at Austin, he contacted Rungy through Facebook.

Riehl said he initially contacted Rungy with the intention of filming a satire about competitive food eating. However, he changed his mind shortly after filming began.

"The more I filmed the more I realized, 'Yes, competitive food eating is absurd. On the surface it's ridiculous, but this guy really believes in it, he really believes what he doing and he loves it,'" he said. "The story wasn't about the food competition. It was about the person who does food competitions."

Filming began in August 2010 and continued for four months. What was captured during the almost 250 hours of footage surpassed Riehl's and Rungy's expectations.

Many members of the local film community converged during SXSW at the Austin Film Society (AFS) ShortCase screening on Saturday, March 10. Seen above are several of the AFS filmmakers in attendance including (clockwise from lower left): Chithra Jeyaram (Mijo), Nicholas Cormier III (Smile), James and Ryan Barlow (Huntered), Bob Ray (Sacked), Allison R. Smith and Justin Corsbie (Hot Dogs & Hand Grenades), Stephen Gamache (Mustachio), Joshua Flanagan (Mustachio), Will Shipley (Mentiroso), Brady Dial (Apogee of Fear proxy for Richard Garriott de Cayeux).

As one of the curators for the SXSW Community Screenings: AFS ShortCase program I was pleased to hear the audience reactions to all the selections. Afterwards, the filmmakers offered their advice during the Q&A session, ranging from the advantages and disadvantages of filming in a remote location to the challenges of animation.

Check out more photos from this special screening:

Part rowdy road movie and part meditation on death, The Taiwan Oyster is an intriguing, lyrical and visually poetic film that explores the meaning of mortality.

Set in Taiwan in 2000, The Taiwan Oyster follows two American expat kindergarten teachers, Simon (Billy Harvey) and Darin (Jeff Palmiotti), who embark on a Taiwanese road trip to find the perfect burial site for a fellow expat. Although they never met their deceased countryman, Jed (Will Mounger), and knew of him only through mutual friends, Simon and Darin feel obligated to give him a proper burial when they learn no one has claimed his body.

Their mission has an inauspicious start when a morgue clerk demands a bribe to release Jed's body, and Simon and Darin make a clumsy attempt to steal the corpse. They succeed with help from disgruntled morgue employee Nikita (Leonora Lim), who abandons her job and joins them on their trip.

We just received a press release (reprinted below) for this upcoming screening and concert, which we know you won't want to miss.

Tone Poet Productions presents Pinetop Perkins: How Long, a short film documenting the last studio recording made by American blues legend and Antone's fixture Pinetop Perkins. The film will have its world premiere screening on Friday, March 23 at the famous blues stage Antone's, 213 West 5th Street, Austin, TX 78701 at 9 pm. Tickets available at the door for $15, or in advance for $10 through Antone's online. The evening will also feature a host of musicians who will play Pinetop's music as a special anniversary tribute concert in memory of his passing in 2011.

ABOUT THE FILM:

A moment in music history was recorded in Austin, Texas in September 2010 at Yellow Dog Studios: the last recording session of blues singer, piano player and multi-Grammy Award winner Pinetop Perkins. The recording sessions were produced by award-winning guitarist Jake Langley.

It was a project inspired by Langley’s love of the blues genre, and was his attempt to pay homage to one of the genre’s originators and recognize this artist's legacy; a legacy that has been passed on through generations of musicians around the world. These historical sessions brought together some of Austin’s finest and brightest young rising stars to play alongside Mr. Perkins: Emily Gimble, Gary Clarke Jr., Caroline Wonderland, and Cindy Cashdollar.

The full lineup for the Dallas International Film Festival, which runs April 12-22 this year, was announced late last week. The films to be screened in Big D include more than a few movies with local and state connections. Here are the ones we found -- let us know if we're missing anything.

• America's Parking Lot (Don's review)
  Austin actor/filmmaker Jonny Mars shot this documentary about die-hard Dallas Cowboy tailgaters and the impact of the changing economics of pro football games. (Debbie's interview)
• Bindlestiffs
  In this 2012 Slamdance Audience Award winner, three high schoolers decide to head to the inner city to live out the plot of The Catcher in the Rye ... except none of them has read the book. Young director Andrew Edison grew up in Houston and currently hails from Austin.
• Cinema Six
  Filmed last year in Lockhart, this film is a narrative about three friends who work at a small-town movie theater. This film features an Austin-heavy cast and crew. Jenn and Jette visited the set in 2011 when the film was called A Splice of Life.
• Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (Jette's review)
  This look at San Diego Comic-Con was directed by Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me) and screened at Fantastic Fest 2011. The documentary features and was produced by Austin's own Harry Knowles (Mike's interview).
• Gayby
  Jonathan Lisecki's  film is a downright hilarious take on the "let's have a baby" film genre. Straight thirtysomething gal Jenn asks her gay BFF Matt to help her make a baby. When I saw this one at SXSW, I laughed often and loudly. Although the film was shot in Brooklyn, DP Clay Liford is from Austin, as is the artist who created the comic-book art. (Jenn's interview)
• Girl Model (Jenn's review)
  A behind-the-scenes look at the world of modeling scout Ashley and the girl she discovers in Siberia, this documentary was directed by former Texan David Redmon and Ashley Sabin. In Jenn's review, she says, "What's truly disturbing is Ashley seems to be the only one involved on the business side with any recognition of the hypocrisy she's spouting. The only clear thing is that that once the girls sign a contract, they are all but completely powerless." (Jenn's interview)

Move over, Waking Life – Bernie is my new third-favorite Richard Linklater film.

Why isn't Bernie my favorite or runner-up? As good as the film is, Slacker and Dazed and Confused have earned their rightful places at the top of my list of Favorite Linklater Films and probably will stay there forever. Pap Smear Pusher and David Wooderson deserve nothing less.

Bernie, however, is arguably the best Linklater film in a decade, an uproariously funny and engaging movie based on one of those only-in-Texas stories that would be the stuff of great fiction if it weren't astoundingly and painfully true.

Based on a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth, who co-wrote the screenplay with Linklater, Bernie is the story of Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a Carthage, Texas mortician who in 1990 befriended elderly widow Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) after her husband's funeral. Tiede became Nugent's business manager and constant companion, tending to her needs and traveling the world with her for several years. Their relationship became the talk of their small East Texas town, the subject of much speculation and gossip about why the well liked thirtysomething Tiede took such an interest in the crotchety septuagenarian Nugent, who vied for the title of the town's most hated person. The most common theory had to do with Nugent's multimillion-dollar fortune, which she left to Tiede in her will.

I'll never forget my first encounter with local comedian Zach Anner in 2004. He was trying to get the attention of Ron Perlman after the special SXSW screening of Hellboy, and I assisted him through the crowd. Born with cerebral palsy, Anner is wheelchair-bound, which can make it very difficult to navigate film festival crowds. Not only was Anner successful in his celebrity interview, but Perlman stayed until the wee hours of the morning talking with his fans -- what I refer to as "a South By Moment," where personal connections are made to ground oneself during the deafening roar of all things SXSW.

Now it's Anner's turn on the big screen at SXSW -- he gained local notoriety by winning his own show through a competition created by Oprah Winfrey, and has been busy directing and starring in his own films. You can see his work in foolproof, a short film he co-created with Marshall Rimmer, which is screening as part of the Texas Shorts program. Anner portrays a freeloading roommate who lives with a responsible businessman (Rimmer) in this funny and ironic short. Anner finds humor in the most obvious places that are overlooked, and turns it into a raucous mirth for audiences. His explanation as to why he turned down a job -- "they only wanted to pay me every two weeks, I need money NOW" -- had me and the rest of the audience in stitches.

One of the most rewarding experiences I've had during my tenure at the Austin Film Society is getting to serve as a projectionist for various filmmakers screening their work in our onsite screening room. Getting to see the products of Austin's film community in various stages, from very rough first edits to versions that are locked in as a final cut, is entertaining, educational and a sobering reminder that once you've actually shot everything, the real hard work begins.

I first screened a cut of Andrew Garrison's documentary Trash Dance in early 2011. The film, which had its gala premiere on Saturday afternoon at the Paramount Theatre, focuses on the work of Allison Orr, a dance choreographer who embarks on an unusual project: organizing a dance performance with City of Austin sanitation workers. In the interest of full disclosure, my first reaction upon hearing this premise was very similar to that of most of the sanitation workers when they are first informed of Allison's offbeat idea: doubt and a lot of eye rolling. How very wrong I turned out to be.

While the movie ultimately leads up to the performance at the end (which was shot on a rainy night at the Austin Studios lot in August 2010), it doesn't allow itself to fall in to the cliches one might expect from a film like this. The brilliance of the documentary is how much it focuses on the lives of the various sanitation workers. These are some of the more overlooked and under appreciated people in our world, as they themselves often point out. But they do this without bitterness or cynicism; at no point do any of them seem ashamed of their position in life. When Allison rides along with them on their routes during the first act of the film, she very quickly learns how demanding the work is. Outside of the long hours and physically demanding labor, nearly all of the workers the film focuses on hold other jobs; a reminder of our current economic climate. And as one man points out, he has another full time job: raising his kindergarten aged daughter as a single father.

Saturday was a big day for Austin film, not just because of the SXSW super-secret screening of local C. Robert Cargill's horror debut Sinister (J.C.'s review), but also because it saw the world premiere of Austin-shot (and choreographed, scored, acted, and directed) Trash Dance, for an afternoon screening at the Paramount Theatre. Trash Dance was shot by Austinite Andrew Garrison as he followed choreographer Allison Orr creating the largest project of her life.

Orr spent a year working with employees of the Austin Department of Solid Waste Services: working their routes, learning their jobs, studying their movements and most importantly, gaining their trust as she designed and worked with them during their spare time to craft a performance including 24 workers with 16 of their work vehicles. While just ordinary people, they all demonstrate unique and wonderful talents, playing harmonica, breakdancing, or barbecuing. The level of time commitment was even more extraordinary given most of these people worked second and even third jobs to help make ends meet.

The ironically titled film Somebody Up There Likes Me is more like Somebody Up There Is Messing With Me, for all the characters' suffering. But their losses are our gain.

Bob Byington's latest feature is everything we've come to expect from the Austin filmmaker, a charmingly off-kilter examination of human relationships torn asunder.  It's a thoroughly eccentric film, a movie so hilarious and engaging that I can forgive its slightly nonsensical premise.

At the center of Somebody Up There Likes Me is the bumbling, befuddled Max (Keith Poulson), a hapless everyman who can't seem to hang onto the breaks life gives him. When his ex-wife -- a nameless woman billed only as Ex-Wife (Kate Lyn Sheil) -- rejects his attempts to reconcile, Max plunges into the dating game with coaching from snide and sarcastic co-worker Sal (a show-stealing Nick Offerman). Max wastes little time in wooing and marrying Lyla (Jess Weixler), a breadstick-addicted waitress at the upscale steakhouse where Max and Sal work.