greetings loyal blog community! (mother, cricket lee) well you, the people, have asked me to blog... and so blog i shall!
here are some choice snaps from my week in Austin where i attended the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival. also some information and links to the movies i saw and liked. enjoy!
bob hope airport, thursday morning.
tipper and i were on the same plane to Austin. tipper is really fun to travel with. she's so hilarious. she would go through the skymall catalogue and point to people and make noises to go along with their expressions. like, if it was a dopey looking guy, smiling and holding an electric tie rack, she''d say, "heyyyYY!" , anyway, you get the idea.
buffalo billiards, thursday night
shawn shows off her engagement ring.
free eats!
hanging out at the condo.
Flip Happy Crepes, friday morning
the weeping general chows down.
we tried to see HUMBOLDT COUNTY, but it was sold out! DON'T THEY KNOW WHO I AM?!?! ha ha, just kidding. anyway, then we split up. the weeping general and berger went to see
GOLIATH, and gareth and i went to see
SUPER HIGH ME. (we'd already seen Goliath at Sundance) (it was awesome) anyway, this movie was really good. doug benson is hilarious. (stoned or sober) and there's lots of other funny comedians sprinkled throughout. (Patton Oswaldt, Zach Galifanakis, Dana Gould, Jeffrey Ross and more!) and it's directed by
Michael Bieiden who wrote
MELVIN GOES TO DINNER. anyway, you can read a good review of it
here.
after that we went to see SECOND SKIN which was a doc about
MMORPG's. there were definitely some interesting characters, and interesting parts like the stuff about
gold farming, but i don't know, it didn't blow my socks off.
Austin Convention Center, friday night
charlie introduces SECOND SKIN
after SECOND SKIN, we headed over to the alamo ritz to catch the midnight shorts. joe, kevin and i had a short in the program called SWEDISH BLUEBALLS and the crowd seemed to like it. all the shorts were great. my favorites were
THE RAMBLER, FISH OUT OF WATER, LOVEolution, and FROG JESUS. but there was one that clearly blew everything out of the water,
nash edgerton's SPIDER.
it got such a reaction from the crowd. brilliant programming by charlie. you can watch SPIDER
herewait, so i just now realized (as i'm writing this) that i've actually met nash edgerton! holy shit! that's crazy! his short, DEADLINE screened in front of DROPPING OUT at sundance in 2000. wow, what a small world. makes sense because that was really good too.
6th street, friday night
dan, and shawn.
and featuring kris as THE MOST ADORABLE THING EVER!
buffalo billiards, friday night
hey look! it's the ladies from
Photolini!
saturday morning we saw a movie i didn't like, so let's not talk about it.
saturday afternoon, spout party
ashley and greta stare at each other so hard, they conjure up a miniature
adam roffmanhey speaking of greta, she was on the cover of the Austin Chronicle!
it was surreal to see her face everywhere. when i was in whole foods, i almost pointed and said, "i played trumpet with her naked!" anyway, you can read her interview
here it's excellent.
later, i saw a great doc called
BULLETPROOF SALESMAN about this german businessman who sells armored vehicles in Iraq, at first, no one wants to buy them, because they're not expecting any violence. so everyone is driving around in "soft skin" vehicles, but then journalists and UN workers, and diplomats start getting blown up and killed and suddenly everyone wants 100. the guy's a great salesmen. he's all about safety and security and german engineering (during the introduction, the director said it's kind of like a Volkswagon ad gone wrong) . anyway, it was really good.
a doc called BI THE WAY had a premiere party at this outdoor, woodsy, burning man jr. type thing. there was some good live music and some interactive art installations, and there were merchants selling their wares, (fuzzy hats and stuff) the party itself was inside this circular, roofless red tent and it was pretty fun and crowded, but they had this weird password system for the booze, which didn't bother me, i figured i'd just pay for booze, but they wouldn't even sell it to anyone, you had to know the stupid password. so i had to drink weak beer all night. anyway, poor me, right? (sigh) here's lynn shelton in front of a some sort of penguin village.
saturday night, some sort of enchanted forest.
on sunday afternoon i participated in an acting rehearsal workshop panel...thing.
Jeffrey Tambor directed greta and myself in a scene from John Patrick Shanley's THE DREAMER EXAMINES HIS PILLOW. now i know what you're thinking mother, er..i mean, loyal blog reader, you're thinking, "i never heard about this!" well yes, that's because i was dreading it. i didn't want to do this at all, in fact i don't really remember ever saying yes to it, but two weeks ago charlie called and was like, "so Jeffrey wants you to prepare a scene and be off book and.blah, blah, blah.." and i was like, "hey, wait. what? huh? what are we talking about here?" apparently i agreed to it a while ago and i was high or something. anyway, it started off terrible. i was so nervous, my voice was squeaking, i got about two lines in and he stopped me and asked if i was nervous, and i said, "yeah" and he nodded and said, "nervous about forgetting a line?" and i said, "yes" and he said "mm-hmm" and then he grabbed my script and tossed it away and everyone in the audience laughed and i thought, "well, ok, it's now officially a nightmare." but after that it was all great. he started with greta and worked on her a lot and all i can say is THANK FROG JESUS for that because greta was awesome. AND she knew all her lines so she was bailing me out left and right. when he was done with her, he had me jump up and down and run around like a monkey and do the lines "embarrassingly bad" and it was all great direction because i totally got better. Jeffrey Tambor is awesome!
after that i saw
PAPER COVERS ROCK written and directed by Joe Maggio. (who made one of my favorite movies of all time,
VIRGIL BLISS) man, it was awesome. great performances. especially the lead and the woman who plays her sister. (i could go on and on, but this blog is getting pretty long and i have a full time job, so i gotta start burning through some of these) anyway, see it!
cast and crew of BAGHEAD.
Baghead is awesome. see it in theaters!
joe and greta introducing
NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS. see it in theaters!
this movie is a beautiful masterpiece. you can watch the trailer
here.
frank ross's new movie
PRESENT COMPANY is awesome. the performances are amazing, i was blown away in particular by tamara fana. you can see a trailer AND read a hilarious interview with frank ross
herewe had to miss the Q and A for PRESENT COMPANY and race over to the ritz to see YEAST. we barely got in.
i really liked
YEAST. it's about three friends in their mid 20's who hate themselves and each other and pretty much spend the entire movie acting like spoiled siblings in the back of a car on a long-ass road trip. it was hilarious and sad. mary, amy and greta were awesome.
do you think this building looks like an owl?
you heard it here first, folks. lynn shelton's still got it!
MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE is the best movie about a platonic breakup i have ever seen. click
here to watch a trailer and find out which two movies lynn would chose to watch on death row.
FULL BATTLE RATTLE is an AMAZING doc about an army training facility in the Mojave desert that simulates an Iraqi village. it's fascinating. click
here to read an interview with the filmmakers.
here are some random snaps!
i''m really glad i saw alex karpovsky's
WOODPECKER last because it definitely ended the festival on a high note. i could watch this movie again right now. it was awesome. see it if you get the chance.
after the screening, everyone stood outside the theater and talked about the movie.
the energy outside the theater felt really good. i've been going to SXSW since 1999 and it's always fun, but this year definitely felt special. (although i missed 2005) anyhooooots.
thanks SXSW Film Festival! here's a slideshow for your troubles!