SXSW Film Festival

‘AMERICAN PRINCE”‘S TOMMY PALLOTTA By Scott Macaulay

Even if you consider yourself a literate, well-viewed, cinema completist, you may not remember the name “Steven Prince.” I could jog your memory and tell you that he was influential to the films of Quentin Tarantino, Rick Linklater, and, most directly, Martin Scorsese, and the name still might not ring a bell. If that’s the case, don’t stress — I didn’t recognize the name either, even though I vaguely remembered that there exists a Scorsese film, American Boy, that I’ve never seen, and that Prince’s one scene in Taxi Driver, in which he plays Easy Andy, a fast-talking gun dealer, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2009
“RIP!: A REMIX MANIFESTO’”S BRETT GAYLOR By Alicia Van Couvering

It was a calculated move on Brett Gaylor’s part to not only make a movie about fair use, intellectual property and copyright, but to make a movie that you could dance to. It begins as a case study of the mashup musician Girl Talk, whose music is comprised of thousands of samples from artists as disparate as Madonna, Elton John, Rihanna, the Jackson 5 and Muddy Waters (and doesn’t hesitate to try to make you dance). Then Gaylor jumps off into his Remixer’s Manifesto, the points of which are: 1. Culture Always Builds on the Past. 2. The Past Always […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 14, 2009
ADVICE FROM THE FRONT LINES: AUSTIN SURVIVAL TIPS

Thinking of those of you who are heading to SXSW for the first time, we asked some festival vets about some of the really important stuff — like where to find the best barbecue and where to nab free Wi-Fi. (The Austin Convention Center Wi-Fi gets overloaded and is notoriously slow.) What follows are the answers we received, but if you’d like to add your own comments to the mix, email us at editor.filmmakermagazine AT gmail.com BEST BARBECUE– “There is no simple answer to that question.” – Mike S. Ryan, producer and contributor to Hammertonail.com – You have to leave […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 12, 2009
IN SEARCH OF SLACKER: LINKLATER’S AUSTIN

It doesn’t matter where we’re from, we all remember the way the place used to be. You know, before the local dive bar became a TGIF, the Kroger became the Whole Foods, and back when the scene was truly a scene. But, of course, as powerful as nostalgia can be, it is also self-generating. What’s around us right now will one day be a newcomer’s “way it was.” In terms of a filmmaker’s celebration of his hometown, Rick Linklater’s Slacker has, perhaps, no equal. It not only documented a place, Austin, but it grafted a sensibility onto that place, a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 12, 2009
SXSW SCREENS HOOPER’S “EGGSHELLS”

Celebrating the work of one of Austin’s filmmaking treasures, Toby Hooper, SXSW will be screening his little know first film, Eggshells. In this week’s Austin Chronicle, Louis Black, co-founder/editor of the paper and SXSW, writes about the film, which hasn’t been screened in close to four decades. An excerpt from the story: There were many extraordinary talents that worked on [Texas] Chainsaw [Massacre], including cinematographer Daniel Pearl; Hooper’s co-writer, Kim Henkel; art and production designer Robert Burns; and Wayne Bell doing sound. Even though, in so many ways, it is clearly a director’s movie in that all the elements are […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 12, 2009
ALEXANDER THE LAST’S JOE SWANBERG By Alicia Van Couvering

If there were to be a mumblecore parade, Joe Swanberg would be the man in the shiny red convertible, waving to onlookers and trailing a team of baton twirlers in his wake. His films – LOL, Hannah Takes the Stairs, Nights & Weekends – have helped to define a genre that was never supposed to be a genre at all. Alexander the Last, his latest, was executive produced by Noah Baumbach and stars Jess Weixler (Teeth), Barlow Jacobs (Great World of Sound, Shotgun Stories), Amy Seimetz and Justin Rice (Mutual Appreciation), as well as Jane Adams and Josh Hamilton. It’s […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 12, 2009
“BREAKING UPWARDS’” DARYL WEIN & ZOE LISTER-JONES |
By Alicia Van Couvering

Originally posted in our SXSW 2009 coverage, Breaking Upwards opens in select theaters this Friday. In Breaking Upwards, Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones play a young New York couple named Daryl and Zoe. The film was written by the two of them, plus Peter Duchan, directed by Wein, and produced by all three. Zoe plays an actress, starring in an Off-Broadway play; Julie White plays Daryl’s mother, and was cast after appearing in an Off-Broadway play with Lister-Jones. To say that this film is autobiographical is, to be brief, an understatement. It’s a romantic comedy that borrows its hyper-articulate, hyper-intellectual […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 12, 2009
A CONVERSATION WITH “YOU WONT MISS ME'”S RUSSO-YOUNG & EDMANDS

Ry Russo-Young’s You Won’t Miss Me was one of our favorite films at Sundance this year. It is a free-wheeling, lyrical but sometimes jarring depiction of a few months in the life of young and struggling New York actress navigating both harsh auditions and her own chaotic emotional relationships. The film has a deceptively casual feel as it avoids obvious plot points and melodramatic narrative contrivances. By its conclusion, however, it feels full — an honest portrait of character we haven’t quite seen on screen before at a very specific moment in her life. Following its Sundance premiere, the film […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 12, 2009
Jennifer Venditti, Billy The Kid

BILLY PRICE, THE STAR OF DIRECTOR JENNIFER VENDITTI’S DOCUMENTARY BILLY THE KID.COURTESY ELEPHANT EYE FILMS. You might say that Jennifer Venditti is a people person. After starting out as a fashion stylist, she moved on to casting where she distinguished herself as someone with an eye for the unconventional as well as the beautiful. In 1998, she started JV8inc, a New York-based casting company working in fashion, commercials and film, which has become known for its use of street scouting, finding “real” people for campaigns or movies by going out and pounding the pavements. Since starting JV8, Venditti has worked […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 7, 2007
Frank Cappello, He Was A Quiet Man

CHRISTIAN SLATER IN DIRECTOR FRANK CAPPELLO’S HE WAS A QUIET MAN. COURTESY MITROPOULOS FILMS. Whether he’s writing, directing, creating special effects, playing music, or simply recounting anecdotes, Frank Cappello seems to have a compulsive need to entertain. He honed his storytelling skills as a kid reading out his imagined motocross adventures to classmates, and then spent years writing spec scripts while working in special effects. Though the first script he sold, Suburban Commando (1991), became a derided Hulk Hogan vehicle, it was a launchpad for Cappello to direct two genre pictures. American Yakuza (1993) and No Way Back (1995) both […]
by Nick Dawson on Nov 30, 2007

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