Local Indies

Another Austin film, another distribution deal. You may have heard that Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission was picked up by First Run Features and will open in Austin in mid-January. And the Twittersphere positively exploded with the news that Emily Hagins' My Sucky Teen Romance was picked up by Dark Sky Films a few weeks ago. The latest news: Austin goes global with Sushi: The Global Catch, from Austin filmmaker Mark Hall.

Sushi: The Global Catch just played the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival ("IDFA") in Amsterdam last week, and has been picked up by Kino Lorber for North American theatrical release in early 2012. The documentary won a Special Jury Award Seattle International Film Festival in June.

"Ready, Set, Fund," is a column about crowdfunding and related fundraising endeavors for Austin and Texas independent film projects. Contact us if you've got a film fundraising project going on you'd like us to know about.

If you weren't in Austin in the late 80s or missed the Live Your Cinema! Austin Media Arts documentary that screened during the 2010 Austin Film Festival, then you may not know about the significance of Austin Media Arts. This cramped space above Quackenbush's Coffee Shop on the Drag was the first venue that Austin Film Society (AFS) actually owned and operated. Formerly a psychedelic ice cream parlor, Austin Media Arts was the screening room of AFS founder Richard Linklater and Lee Daniels as they projected eclectic and diverse films by Ingmar Bergman, Michael Snow, Stan Brakhage, Michelangelo Antonioni and Jean-Luc Godard for eager film fans.

Austin Media Arts is long gone, but its spirit and intent has carried on in younger generations of film enthusiasts who drew inspiration from repertory programs including the defunct CinemaTexas. The most well known is Austin Cinematheque, the only free, 35mm retrospective film series in town, founded in 2005 by three University of Texas Radio-Television-Film students. Since their first self-funded screening of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows in the Texas Union Theatre, they have screened over 75 films from sixteen different countries spanning nine  decades.

Unfortunately, due to the upcoming remodeling scheduled at the Union Theatre, Austin Cinematheque will be temporarily homeless while working toward expanding their free repertory film series. Find out how you can help them and other film-related projects after the jump.

While Natural Selection may have taken home many awards at SXSW this year, the Austin movie at the fest that Slackerwood contributor Don Clinchy raved about, both in his review and in person, was Five Time Champion. I mean, the review begins with "Oh, if only all movies were such a pleasure to review; the greatest challenge in reviewing Five Time Champion ... may be finding enough superlatives to describe its many charms without being repetitive." And you know Don is not inherently kind to all movies, especially if you read his review of Jack and Jill last weekend.

Fittingly, Don will be moderating the Q&A with filmmaker Berndt Mader tomorrow night, when Five Time Champion returns to Austin. Austin Film Society is screening the film as part of its Best of the Fests series, Wednesday, 11/16 at 7 pm at Alamo Drafthouse Village. Tickets are still available online. The film is about a teenage boy dealing with school decisions, love interests, and family problems. The cast includes Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Jon Gries and Betty Buckley. Nicholson's in the above photo with Mader and other cast and crew -- the photo was taken at the 2011 Dallas International Film Festival, where Five Time Champion won the Texas Filmmaker Award.

Over on Flickr, Russ Photography has a huge set of photos from the Five Time Champion production; they're not only good photos but give you a fascinating look at a typical day on a movie set. And below, I'm using this excuse to share my favorite photo I've taken of Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, from the Extract premiere in Austin in 2009. She almost made it into the theater unseen; no one recognized her at first with the different hair color.

Society has long had a love-hate relationship with pornography. We often condemn it for reasons both moral and aesthetic -- but the porn industry has been thriving for decades, so somebody (not us or anyone we know, of course) must be buying all those dirty magazines and movies.

This often hypocritical relationship is the subject of Dear Pillow, one of my favorite Austin-made films of the last decade. Writer and director Bryan Poyser's engaging story about a friendship between an awkward teenager and a middle-aged writer of erotica is a frank, unflinching look at how adult entertainment reflects human sexuality.

Released in 2004, Dear Pillow is the story of pudgy, mop-haired teen Wes (Rusty Kelley), whose love life (okay, his sex life) isn't exactly on fire. He's your basic flop with chicks; the closest he gets to any real action is eavesdropping on the wireless conversations of a woman selling phone sex somewhere in his apartment complex. Wes's home life isn't much better; he shares a tiny apartment with his divorced father (billed only as Dad and wonderfully played by Cory Criswell), a loving but boozy and mostly inept parent whose idea of a suitable birthday present for his son is an evening at a local strip joint.

Local production company Rocket Crab Films (director Chris Todd pictured above) are throwing a special benefit screening of classic Austin movie Dazed and Confused on Wednesday, November 9 at 10 pm at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. Rocket Crab is raising funds to shoot a short film that they hope will ultimately lead to a full-length feature based on the short.

Here's a synopsis of the short film Three Day Journey, a Western, from writer Patrick Palmer:

"Judah is dying. Stricken with tuberculosis, he has little time left on this earth. Judah has tasked Luther, his only real friend, with ending his life early sparing him the pain of his debilitating illness.

If you're looking to combine movies and a road trip this weekend, you couldn't do better than head to Fort Worth for the fifth annual Lone Star International Film Festival. The fest kicks off Wednesday night with The Descendants, Alexander Payne's latest movie starring George Clooney (and Austin actor Nick Krause), which recently played Austin Film Festival. The festival runs through Sunday night, November 13.

Austin film-fest regulars might recognize a fair number of titles in the LSIFF lineup. In fact, this is a great way to catch up on selections you missed at AFF and SXSW this year. In addition, the lineup includes a few features that have yet to play Austin, like Rampart, Collaborator, and the Jet Li film Ocean Heaven. One of LSIFF's programmers for 2011 is Austin producer Kelly Williams, who also programmed the excellent Texas Independents category at AFF last month.

Here's a list of movies with Austin or Texas ties that will screen at LSIFF next weekend. I admit when I started this article I expected to list a half-dozen films; to end up with so many is pretty amazing. And I'm not even counting non-Texas films that played local fests, such as The Innkeepers, Butter, The Artist and Shame.

Jake Silverstein, Texas Monthly editor-in-chief, introduced the "Where I'm From" Texas shorts program at Austin Film Festival by explaining how it came to be. This is the first year of the magazine's collaboration with AFF -- in previous years, the shorts contest has been online only. Out of more than 100 reader submissions (Silverstein was unclear on the exact number), there were 18 semifinalists. These were narrowed down to the 11 finalist films which screened at the festival. A panel of judges then picked the three winners, which were announced at the Saturday screening.

First on the program was Will O'Loughlin's film 254 about his travels all over the Lone Star State. While still photographs appear onscreen, O'Loughlin's (somewhat monotone) narration explains how over a span of 15 years, he has driven through every county in Texas, all 254 of them. H-Town Up & Down was the only dramatization in the bunch. A 20-something go-getter's car breaks down in the outskirts of Houston and he has to figure out a way to get to his interview with a firm downtown. Drew Lewis' short has a few funny moments, but the acting leans towards the style of "Hey kids, let's put on a show."

Sometimes it can be a gift and a curse being a movie geek living in this great town of Austin, Texas. We do things our own way, we're weird, and we embrace that fact with open arms while the red counties look in cautiously at our liberal nature. We make films here. Sometimes they're awesome and sometimes they're not. Usually though, they fall in between. Austin High is one of those in-between films, and it's the type of movie most people in Austin will love, but others who don't "get it" won't really grasp and will therefore shun the film.

Austin High is a film that could be great. It's got funny moments, a good story, effortlessly good performances ... but as a film overall, it might be a little too Austin.

Samuel Wilson (Michael S. Wilson) is the principal of the high school he attended while growing up in here in Austin, Lady Bird High. Although he's grown up to become an adult who helps mold the minds of the future's youths, he still likes to get high with his buddies. Yeah, they're the same buddies he got high with in high school and they still meet up in the same spot to toke up in the morning.

What's the bigger nightmare: Extreme violence, or an ambiguous but growing sense of threat to all your hold dear? Austin's Jeff Nichols proves it's the latter in Take Shelter, as a family man becomes increasingly obsessed with visions of storms, putting all he holds dear at risk as he tries to keep them safe.

Curtis (Michael Shannon) is an upstanding guy with a devoted wife Samantha, an adorable daughter Hannah, a responsible job and a comfortable home. Life isn't perfect, but they all happily weather the storms of life until Curtis's nightmares start interfering with waking life. The more Curtis tries to protect his family and regain a sense of security, the faster it erodes. 

There is nothing to substantiate Curtis' fears, which is both the foundation and the power of Nichols's script. Nichols (Shotgun Stories) deliberately doesn't distinguish reality and nightmare; there is no discernible change in film stock and nothing to indicate which is which. As the film progresses, it's harder for the audience to distinguish between the two, increasing the tension despite the movie's slow and steady pace. But instead of being distracting, it makes it easier for the audience to relate to Curtis' plight. Even the CGI is minimal, and only enough to enhance the story. The overall effect is nearly exhausting as the audience gets caught up in Curtis' plight.

A husband slaving over the stove for dinner. A Valentine's dinner set for three. This is not the usual setup for a romantic drama, but it is for the promising debut A Swingin' Trio.

Kelvin Phillips and Carla Jackson's first feature is a tense tale of secrets, lies and revelations interspersed with the cool jazz stylings of the Jeff Lofton Trio. Homer (Johnny Walter) is a writer married to successful producer Trude (Timeca Seretti). He has all the time in the world while collecting rejection letters on his literary masterpiece. Meanwhile, Trude can't seem to detach herself from her phone and her business deals, breezing through the house as if it's a hotel. Homer has something special planned for Valentine's Day dinner, but it's not just his signature seafood gumbo.