Even with director/actress Jodie Foster and rising star Anton Yelchin in attendance for the much-anticipated SXSW premiere of The Beaver, the packed house's buzzing was focused on one hot topic: Mel Gibson.
"We need to keep it gangsta and take our sh*t to the next level," pleads Die Antwoord rapper Yo-Landi to Ninja, her partner in crime in the Harmony Korine-directed short Umshini Wam. And just how do the South African zef hip-hoppers do just that? By pimping out their wheelchair rides, shooting guns in empty suburban parking lots, smoking comically large joints, and dreaming of life as "Gang$ta number one." Watch the entirety of Umshini Wam (translation: 'Bring me my machine gun') after the jump.
First time director Cindy Meehl brought the capacity audience at Austin's Paramount Theater to its feet with her crowd-pleasing documentary Buck, about Buck Brannaman, the gentleman cowboy-horse whose life and work partially inspired Robert Redford's The Horse Whisperer. After the film, Brannaman and the filmmakers walked onstage to a rousing standing ovation for a Q&A filled with horsemanship advice, behind-the-scenes details, and a shout out to the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan.
As a bunch of brassy strippers once taught us, you've gotta have a gimmick if you want to get ahead. The same goes for dancers as it does for indie films, three of which demonstrated that time-tested lesson Monday night at SXSW. Which brings us to our Movieline Pro Tips of the Day: Bringing fun/hands-on props to delight the crowd after your movie screens can help the goodwill linger. Loudly heckling your own movie for kicks while a dozen or so journalist types sit near you, aghast and annoyed? Not so much.
Brian Taylor took a break from Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance duties to trek down to SXSW in support of SXFantastic entry The FP -- a film he describes as "a Jerry Bruckheimer action movie from the '80s" where said action is Dance Dance Revolution. His ties to the indie action-comedy trace back to his close circle of filmmaking friends: Director Brandon Trost is a frequent DP and collaborator to Taylor and partner Mark Neveldine, while actors from Neveldine + Taylor's Crank films also show up in The FP. Taylor rung up Movieline to share his love for The FP gang via phone along with details on Ghost Rider 2's new origin story, Crank 3, and how one might go about filming a 3D movie... on the iPhone.
SXSW is a fest that caters to alterna-sensibilities, so it's no surprise genre fare has done well thus far. Insidious scored high marks with the horror crowd, but The Kill List notched all-out raves from even mainstream press -- though the Conan O'Brien documentary Conan O'Brien Can't Stop contains enough rage and demon-exorcising to give both a run for their money. Meanwhile, Bellflower -- a Sundance entry in the Emerging Visions sidebar -- screens on Monday night, as does the Dance Dance Revolution thriller The FP. Yes, you read that right: a gang warfare film about Dance Dance Revolution. Don't you wish you were in Austin?
SNL superstar Kristen Wiig breezed into Austin midnight Sunday for what director Paul Feig accurately termed "Kristen Wiig Appreciation Night" -- a double header of this Friday's Paul followed by a special work in progress screening of this summer's Bridesmaids. The May 13 comedy marks Wiig's first honest-to-goodness starring vehicle, an event in itself, but here's even better news: Bridesmaids isn't just the smart and grounded antidote to the shrill chick flicks we all hate; it's the most raunchy, sweet and wonderfully vulgar R-rated comedy in recent memory. Bring it, Hangover 2.
The hits just keep on coming at the Tribeca Film Festival. Just one week after announcing the competition slate for the April fest, organizers unveiled the 33 films selected as Spotlight presentations, and the list looks pretty cool. God Bless Ozzy Osbourne will have its world premiere at Tribeca, as too will A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (starring Jason Sudeikis) and Carol Channing: Larger Than Life. Tribeca will also show Vera Farmiga's directorial debut Higher Ground and the latest from Michael Winterbottom. Click ahead for the full list of films.
Universal's geek bonding road trip flick Paul screens shortly tonight at SXSW, but another sci-fi alien pic with ties to the Nick Frost-Edgar Wright-Simon Pegg universe may have already stolen its thunder: Attack the Block, director Joe Cornish's horror comedy about inner-city London kids who channel their delinquent ways into survival skills when vicious space invaders descend.
In conversation with Movieline's Elvis Mitchell Friday at SXSW, director Todd Phillips talked all things Todd Phillips: His fascination with awkward male relationships, the status of The Hangover 2, how heartbroken he was when his HBO documentary Frat House was shelved by a lawsuit, and wise words he once received from James Cameron. And somewhere between sharing revelations from Due Date (a test of how forgiving an audience could be of Robert Downey Jr.) and expressing love for both Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen (they're both "my boys"), Phillips accused Warner Bros. of violating DGA rules in the name of milking the home-video market.
SXSW Film attendees sat star-struck in the aisles, angling to get a look at Jake Gyllenhaal in the flesh -- and that was before his latest vehicle, Source Code, premiered as the opening night headliner. As in the film, which focuses on Gyllenhaal in various states of confusion as an war veteran recruited to re-live the same eight minutes in time in hopes of averting a terrorist attack, Thursday night's screening was all about Jake -- and that could very bode well for Summit as they look to open strong next month.
Want to know what it's really like covering the film industry from a journalist's standpoint? Movieline will join representatives from MSN, the LA Times, and UGO this Sunday in Austin for a wide-reaching SXSW panel discussion on the realities of writing about film in the internet age. (Spoiler alert: It's complicated.) Mark your calendars and get ready to peel back the layers as we go inside the sausage factory!
Austin is a place that likes to think of itself as strange -- as in the city's motto, "Keep Austin Weird." But it really seems more nerdy than weird when the massive film-music-tech bonanza that is South by Southwest kicks off every year, drawing thousands of geeks of all stripes to congregate. And for the next week or so, Movieline will be among the crowds of geek illuminati reporting on film goings-on from the ground. Join us, with the magic of technology!
The great thing about the massive program at the SXSW Film Festival, which starts this week, is that it runs so deep and it takes so many chances, whether on up-and-coming directors, megastars in need of PR miracles (looking at you, Mel), or random collaborations between artists so awesome, the mere idea of them working together blows your mind (four words: Die Antwoord + Harmony Korine). But many of these folks have a lot riding on their SXSW debuts. Movieline names 10 films and filmmakers with something big prove this week in Austin.
Anyone who's been tracking the controversial 2010 horror pic A Serbian Film along the film festival circuit knows to expect something either artfully transgressive, dreadfully offensive, or something in between; even critics who liked it seem to agree that life would be better without having seen the acts depicted onscreen. But does anything in A Serbian Film warrant the child pornography charges reportedly lobbied at the Sitges Film Festival for merely screening the film?
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