I made it my mission to do everything for free yesterday. But first, the screenings.
Penny Dreadful was simply all right. Nothing special but a lot of times, TV shows need a few episodes to get going. It was billed as sophisticated horror but it was more action oriented than cerebral. Josh Hartnett is the gun slinging star of the show so take from that what you will. The show remixes classic horror characters into one narrative but the problem is it feels like a super hero show rather than real horror. Again, it was only the first episode so it has time to prove itself.
Supermensch is Mike Myers's documentary on the man behind the curtain of so many rock stars and celebrity chefs, Shep Gordon. It was hilarious and supremely edited. It meditated on loneliness and legacy as the backdrop was painted with the colors of Shep's hard partying, well loved nature. It was a great achievement by Mike Myers. I honestly had no clue who Shep Gordon was and the flick still held my interest. For the record, Alice Cooper looks scarier in golf gear than he does in goth gear.
Then we hoofed it to Nina's car and drove to see No No, a documentary on Dock Ellis. Ellis is the infamous Pirates' pitcher who pitched a no hitter while tripping balls on acid. That's not all there is to him though. After a violent (very violent) confrontation with his second wife, Dock decided to go clean and help other drug addicts recover. It was a pitch perfect documentary, perfect for any baseball fan. It could have been 15 minutes shorter but that could be my exhaustion speaking. During the movie I could feel every fabric from my shirt on my body and it was irritating as hell. I was probably going nuts.
The gods shined some light on us with the HBOGo crash so we actually managed to get a little more sleep than planned. Everyone who's seen True Detective, please shut up around me.
As for the free shit, the most exciting was the free pizza from 7-11. It tasted like microwave roasted cardboard with dyed orange Elmer's glue and ketchup. It was free because I threw away all my dignity and tweeted at 7-11 to deliver one to me. Nothing tastes better than free but hopefully 7-11 will cover my plumbing bill after last night, too.
I sscored about 5 t-shirts that I'll never wear, a vape cigarette that I'll never use and a free beer that I'll never forget. God bless SXSW.
P.s. I found out that the hot new buzzword for marketing and advertising is storytelling. If that doesn't make you angry, you have no soul. I kept getting fliers that said "meet storytellers" or "storytellers lounge" and I thought, "whoa, writers are finally getting their due." Nope, we're still not as cool as marketers.
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