SXSW
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GRAB A HEALTHY BITE AT SXSW
One of the joys of going to SXSW every year is indulging in the eats around Austin. But often that leads to chowing down on stuff that’s certain to expand the waistline. But there’s hope. Over at the Eat Well Guide, you’ll find a rundown of some of the top local eateries in Austin that won’t put you in a food coma.
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“GIRL WALKS INTO A BAR” DIRECTOR SEBASTIAN GUTIERREZ
Over the years film lovers have accused everything from sound to television of destroying the cinematic altar at which they worship. But rather than wallow in nostalgia for a time before this newfangled digital world, director Sebastian Gutierrez decided to take this streaming media thing out for a whirl to see what she could do. He developed his latest feature, Girl Walks Into a Bar, exclusively for web distribution. Sponsored by Lexus, it will be available in the YouTube Screening Room on the same day as its SXSW premiere. The best part of the whole free-on-the-internet thing? Well for Gutierrez, it’s that […]
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SXFANTASTIC’S TIM LEAGUE ON 2011’S MIDNIGHT EDITION
Despite their protestations to the contrary, festival programmers are often a competitive bunch, jostling for not only premieres but status. That’s why SXFantastic, now in its third year, is such a welcome event. A collaboration between SXSW and Fantastic Fest, which unspools its own main event in September, SXFantastic brings Fantastic’s genre smarts and midnight-movie acumen to the South By sprawl. The result is a focused section that has been producing its own fan favorites, critical hits and even industry acquisitions. Last year’s successes included Gareth Edwards’ Monsters and the unlikely pick-up A Serbian Film (which just landed the SITGES […]
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Janet Pierson on the Films — and Crowds — of SXSW
Six weeks before the festival, every hotel room in downtown Austin was booked solid. Badges were already selling out a month prior, and, in the last few weeks, LAX-AUS flights have become almost impossible to come by. Last year the festival was, by all accounts, over-crowded — press and industry felt needlessly constrained by the impossibility of special access to screenings, and complaints of line cutting were all over Twitter. Pierson and her staff took all of these criticisms hard. In the wake of the grumblings, there are new and bigger theatres (the renovated State Theatre, next to the Paramount; […]
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AARON KATZ’S “COLD WEATHER”|
By Scott Macaulay
The group of filmmakers dubbed “mumblecore” is known for many things, but visual resplendency is not one of them. In fact, some of the movement’s biggest names proudly announce their disinterest in design, careful framing, and the dramatic effects of controlled lighting. From the outset, however, Aaron Katz has been an exception. Even when operating on the tiniest of budgets — as he did when shooting Quiet City for $2,000 — he has paid careful attention to the expressive potential of his characters’ surroundings. The nighttime industrial Brooklyn streets of Quiet City are not the harsh jungle of much urban […]
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SXSW IS ALL SMILES
Hangin’ at the Austin Chronicle party at Lazona Rosa last night, everyone was in fine spirits: …tall person Zachery Levy, a panelist this year whose Strongman played the festival last year, towering over short person Ben Kasulke, DP of Humpday, The Freebie, Nights and Weekends and more… … A New York minute: Greencard Pictures’ Nick Kadner, here supporting IFC TV’S Food Party, Olivia Thirlby of Juno fame, David Call of Tiny Furniture, and Catfish director Henry Joost… …Gabriele Caroti of Bam Cinematek, who is approaching his deadline to lock the program for BAM Cinemafest, enjoying the rainy evening with Jim […]
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CAMERON YATES’ “THE CANAL STREET MADAM”|
By Alicia Van Couvering
What’s it like to get out of jail and try to rebuild your life when that life was running a hugely successful brothel in the middle of New Orleans and the Lifetime movie of your experience is about to air? Cameron Yates’ new documentary, The Canal Street Madam, asks that question of Jeanette Maier and generates even more questions than answers. Was Maier a dangerous criminal, transporting women across state lines for the purposes of her own profit and their vicitimization as sex workers, or was she herself the victim of a hypocritical system that convicted and exposed her but […]
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GEOFF MARSLETT’S “MARS”|
By Alicia Van Couvering
Geoff Marslett’s Mars is a whimsical rotoscoped space exploration romance starring Mark Duplass, the kind of film whose possible existence may never have occurred to you, but one that you are very glad to have discovered. Marslett, an Austin native and much-lauded teacher of animation at UT Austin, studied mathematics, philosophy, art, science and languages before arriving in Texas to get his degree in narrative filmmaking. Gradually, he began to get interested in animation, taught himself the process and started inventing new techniques for his short films, now numbering over a dozen. Monkey vs. Robot, for instance, has screened at […]
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Matt McCormick’s Some Days Are Better Than Others
Matt McCormick may be premiering his first feature here in Austin this week, but he has long been a major figure within the Pacific Northwest’s independent film scene. For over 15 years he has made work that is both experimental and humorous, formally challenging and beguilingly poetic. His 2002 film, The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal, is something of a short-film masterpiece, a wildly clever riff on art criticism that is also an ode to changing face of the modern city. In addition to his film work, which he presents in film venues but also bars and rock clubs, McCormick […]
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FILMMAKERS SQUARED
Love was in the air at the Filmmaker Brunch on Friday afternoon, where the top shelf tequila ran rampant. Against the backdrop of the soon-to-be-retired Troublemaker Studios green screen — where almost every Robert Rodriguez film has ever been shot — filmmaker pairs mixed and mingled. They were implored to hold this moment dear, because “this is the moment,” in an actually very moving speech by Up In The Air director Jason Reitman, who got into his car the day after the Oscars and drove straight to Texas. Jody Lee Lipes, co-director of NY Export: Opus Jazz and DP of […]
