I bid adieu to SXSW 2010 with three—count ‘em!—reviews of films with live performances of originals scores, but not before I take a look at the latest from Aaron Katz, Cold Weather:
→Tags: SXSW, Aaron Katz, Detective, Silent Films, Live Score, The House Next Door
EssayThe less-than-stellar Elektra Luxx fails to eliminate the bad taste left from the Election Day documentary 11/4/08:
→The director of 11/4/08 states that he enlisted the help of friends around the world to film their experiences on Election Day in order to “see what history looks like,” but you know how the saying goes: History is written by the winners.
Tags: SXSW, Documentary, Comedy, Political, The House Next Door
EssayAlong with a review of the surprisingly good indie frat thriller Brotherhood, I take a closer look at the documentary Marwencol:
→I’m a bit wary of a documentary that feels the need to split itself up into chapters. To me, it’s typically a sign of a director that doesn’t quite know how to unify his material—one of the basic challenges of this genre.
Tags: SXSW, Documentary, WWII, Thriller, The House Next Door
EssayIn my first report from this year’s SXSW, I look at Michel Gondry’s family documentary The Thorn in the Heart, Ivan Reitman’s early and terrible Cannibal Girls, and Crying with Laughter:
→Joey Frisk (a very capable Stephen McCole) is a fireball on the verge of flaming out.
Tags: SXSW, Comedy, Camp, Documentary, Michel Gondry, Ivan Reitman, The House Next Door
EssayThings are going to be a little different this time around.
Last year I wrote down a goal (though where I wrote it is anyone’s guess): next time I attend SXSW, I’d attend with press credentials. Well, let’s hear it for the power of the subconscious, because come this weekend, I’ll be down in Austin with a Press Badge on behalf of The Official Blog of Slant Magazine:
→Tags: SXSW, Amer, The House Next Door
EssayThe film cut to black and the audience hesitated. Would the film really just end this way, we asked ourselves, so oddly, so out of place, with such a tonal shift? The credits flashed on the screen at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, confirming our suspicions while signaling the obligatory applause.
→Tags: SXSW, Q&A, Criticism, Sorry, Thanks
Essay→How’s this for an ambitious film class project: videotaping your own suicide. Sure, it presents some logistical snafus, but how can you beat that ending? Or so thinks the “hero” of David Lee Miller’s My Suicide, Archie—a high school video editing and effects geek/virtuoso who has a small studio in his bedroom.
Tags: SXSW, My Suicide, Forces of Geek
Essay→Once you saw it on the schedule, you circled it; to miss this one would be sinful. Set to screen in the middle of the week, only the real cinephiles remained. Reserved tickets: all spoken for. The line out front literally began hours before showtime.
Tags: SXSW, Metropolis, Forces of Geek
Essay→A glove fits tightly onto a hand. Buttons securely hold the vest together. A cloak is draped over broad shoulders, hanging all the way down to a pair of boots. A sword is tucked safely into a belt. A wide shot reveals not a superhero, not a ranger, but a middle-aged overweight man named Scott, standing in a hotel room.
Tags: SXSW, The Dungeon Masters, Documentary, Forces of Geek
ReviewIf you’ve ever been to the Seattle Experience Music Project, you may have seen this impressive display: a 60-foot-tall tornado of electric guitars, which all just happen to be playing themselves. The mastermind behind the ambitious project goes by his last name only, Trimpin. The German native is a…well, it’s hard to decide how to classify the artist. Is he a composer?
→Tags: SXSW, Trimpin, Documentary, Art, Edward Copeland on Film
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