SXSW Film Festival: 3 days, 9 reviews

Nina and I bought SXSW film wristbands because we're too old and uncool to put up with loud music from people 10 years younger, cooler, and more angsty than we are. I'm not trying to be the old man that says, "Music stopped being good when I stopped caring." No. I'm sure the good music will find its way to me through a speaker whose volume I control.

So here you are. We saw 9 movies so far. We did no research. We just waited in line for whatever sounded interesting or whatever was convenient.

1. RAT FILM - this was the first movie we saw and its synopsis sounded like some documentary that would be bought and distributed through PBS. It was not that movie. It was a surreal, almost psychedelic documentary on rats in Baltimore but it was actually a documentary on human beings, civilization, cruelty, etc. I talked to someone in line later and they said, "I thought it was going to be a documentary on how rats are useful and how we shouldn't kill them." It is very much so not a movie like that at all. It does some trippy things with a "computer game" and it's narrated by what sounds like a robot. There are some great interviews. Definitely not the movie I was expecting but it was, at that point, the best movie I'd seen all SXSW.

2. US & THEM - Us & Them is what you'd get if you made Funny Games and Snatch fuck each other to the sound of Bernie Sanders making a speech. It's a well-made movie but it goes too far. There is one scene in particular that is so melodramatic it's almost laughable. It fits nowhere into the movie except to add a degree of humanity to the main character but it falls pretty flat. If I was being generous, I'd say the movie tried to say that the plight of the poor is ignored by "fat cats" and even when the poor gets a leg up on them, the rich just have to wait it out and watch the poor turn on each other. It's a pretty cynical film and it has moments that are really funny. The music is great. I just think it could have benefited from the cutting room floor and if it was a little less self-aware as a social commentary piece. Make a good movie. The message will come through if there is one.

3. TRANSFIGURATION - some twenty-something know it alls were in front of me in the line for this movie. I overheard them say, "Transfiguration is like Moonlight but with vampires." That couldn't be further from the truth. It's a quiet horror movie and it focuses very intently on the main character's obsession with vampires, his sociopathy, and his isolation and disconnection from people. Overall, I liked the movie but the main conflict in the movie seemed two dimensional. There are gangsters in the movie. They are the bad guys. Their motivations are never explored other than to move along a plot. It was pretty good aside from that. Great acting. Beautifully shot. All that kind of shit.

4. WIN IT ALL - This was a well-written, well-acted comedy about some fucking dope who just wants to be a parking attendant his whole life but he also has a gambling problem. He meets a lady and wants to clean up his life. His old life comes back to haunt him. Very funny.

5. ASSHOLES - Oh, man. This is the movie I couldn't wait to shit on. But I know what it's like to spend a lot of time making something only for some asshole to shit on it. I've got a book coming out. This is the movie that let me know I wasn't simply enjoying movies because I was at a festival. I did not like this movie. Let's just say I felt like I was watching some bonerkind art school hotshot's first student film. This boner's going places but this movie is quite awful. He does some good visual stuff early on. Do not order queso fries at the Alamo Drafthouse while watching this. I like a good dirty joke. I like when dirty jokes are funny and don't force me to listen to the inane ramblings of a college student who just drank his first glass of kombucha. I also like eating queso fries. This is not the movie to eat queso fries to.

6. KODOKU: MEATBALL MACHINE - Japanese people have a very different way of telling a story. It's pretty easy to follow. They get it, man. There's conflict: sad, old man is getting old and sucks at his job. He will probably get fired. There's love: some young lady works at a bookstore and is always very sweet to him. There's an alien invasion: sad, old man's brain gets taken over by a bad claymation parasite in a ten minute long, bloody, gorefest of a prison scene. There's more conflict: Many people are taken over by this parasite and they fight to the death, wreaking havoc on this city. There's more love: Even though his brain is all full of fuck, this old man wants to make sure his love interest is okay. There's more conflict: Everybody wants to kill him. There's blood: There's something like 4000 gallons of fake blood used in this movie. There's a weird subplot that involves boobs as a symbol for liberation. See? The Japanese just get storytelling. A+. This is the Power Ranger movie we need.

7. MUPPET GUYS TALKING - This was a joyous celebration of collaboration and creativity. The originators of some muppets got together to shoot the shit. It was a panel, basically, but it was a joy to watch and listen to. Loved it and I'm not really a muppet kind of person.

8. MR. ROOSEVELT - So far, the funniest movie we've seen. It was shot in Austin. It was well-written and acted. It had an authenticity to it that a lot of movies cannot capture. I really, really, really liked it. The premiere was marred by technical difficulties. It was shot on 35mm and the projector's bulbs went out a few times. It made for a one of a kind experience to hear the writer/director/star make jokes about it as it was happening. I don't know, folks. I'm not a reviewer. I like what I like.

9. PORTO - The only reason we saw this was because it took place in Portugal. The guy next to us in line kept asking me if I had seen any more of whoever-directed-its movies. No. We were first in line so we looked like diehards but, au contraire my friends, we are tryhards. I brought a book to read in line and that's really the best conversation killer. People see you on a phone, they don't care. They'll ask a thousand questions. You bring out a real physical book and all of the sudden, they're looking at their phones. It's great. The movie was beautifully shot, well-written, all that kind of stuff... the acting was great but it was lacking in something that I just can't put my finger on. It suffered a major flaw in that the film was broken up into three parts. The first part followed the male character, the second part followed the female character, and the third part followed them both. The second part was much shorter and it introduced her mom out of nowhere? She was speaking a foreign language, there were no subtitles, and almost nothing of substance was gleaned about the character. I'm not sure if subtitles are coming or if this was just a standard, art-film move. I don't need subtitles, I just don't know why that scene with her mom was in there. I'm sure there's an audience for this movie. It felt like the Richard Linklater movies with Ethan Hawke except this director isn't afraid of sex.

We're taking a little break from the film fest to work. I'm hoping to see more.

SXSW Day ? The Bleeding Eyes edition

I'm no longer keeping track of days. SXSW is either helping me lose ten pounds or helping me gain them. I've probably walked a hundred miles day in and day out rushing from work to theater to theater to try and catch everything I've marked out for myself.

I can't make an SXSW post without mentioning the tragedy caused by reckless stupidity last night. My heart and my thoughts are with all the victims of the allegedly drunk driver. Two people were killed and many more were injured. My grandfather was killed by a drunk driver in 1998 while he was riding his bike in Long Beach so drunk driving accidents always hit me right in the gut. I hope that those who were injured are recovering peacefully and I hope that the families who have lost family members can find the peace they need. Be careful out there. People are unpredictable, drunk, and stupid and when you put those all in the same equation, you never get the same result.

Onward.

On Monday we saw the 40 year anniversary of Texas Chainsaw Massacre was just as frigging great as I imagined it to be. This was my first time ever seeing it on the big screen and Nina's first time ever seeing it. It was a damn treat for the both of us. Tobe Hooper was there and he said something like, "I'm just glad people got the jokes. For 8 years after that movie came out, no one ever laughed." For as funny as that movie is, I don't see how nobody laughed. But Hooper was a visionary. He created an entire genre out of thin air and today nobody can quite touch it. The soundtrack was loud and amazing and really immersed you into the insanity of everything. No horror movie touches Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's exactly my brand of horror and I'm glad I got to hear Tobe Hooper himself speak about it. He was kind of a grumbly fellow though.

On Tuesday we took a break. We had to do laundry lest we smell like Austin hippies and we had planned to go out and try to see Godzilla but I sat down to take a nap at around 7:30 pm and found myself waking up at 7 am. Oh, well. I was getting delirious, my eyes were shot; we needed the night off.

On Wednesday we saw the animated shorts feature which had some strong sketches but overall I felt too many went for the artsy-fartsy high falutin nonsense. There was one good short that even spoke to that fact with a line that went something like: "She thinks she's making art but really it's just stupid." That's how I felt about 1/4 of the shorts. The weakest short was the one put out by Cartoon Network which just continues to illustrate the point that indies still make the best shit.

Then we hoofed it across town to try and catch Open Windows but for the second time this festival it was completely full so we turned around and hoofed it right back to the same theater we saw the animated shorts in to see Spacestation 76. The movie wins the award for best title but won't win any other awards. The characters were cardboard cutouts of people, the story went nowhere. The only reason I stayed until the end was because I wanted to see if my twist ending theory would prove true. I thought Liv Tyler's acting was so bad that the twist would be she was some kind of robot. They did have little clues to support my theory. The biggest clue was that Liv Tyler's acting was robotic. The second biggest clue was that a robot (not kidding here) stuck a metal cylinder into her nether regions and said "They are some irregularities with your uterus." Liv Tyler cut the robot off with, "I am aware of the irregularities." Was it a hint? Was it a hint?! Liv Tyler also delivered the most stilted line in the history of stilted lines: "Would you like to go to the arboretum like you like to do so much?" Oh, god. She's gotta be a robot, right? Nope. No twist. She's just a bad actor. Lot's of folks were buzzing about this movie. I don't see why.

Today we saw Open Windows. It was a good enough flick starring Elijah Wood and Sasha Grey. You know how when movies convey hackers and hacking, the interfaces are so laughable that it strains credulity? This movie does that. I had a lot of fun recognizing locations but when BookPeople was coming into frame, the camera cut and went to a totally different part of town. It's not going to win any awards but the suspense was there and near the end it fell down a rabbit hole of Mission: Impossible like absurdity (face masks, etc) that I'm not sure wasn't on purpose. It was a fun movie and I'm looking forward to what's next from the director. The movie was far from perfect and I think a little more consistency of tone would have been great. Hometown hero, Owen Egerton, steals the show with his acting chops in the beginning. I had no idea he was classically trained and did such great impressions of world leaders.

That's it for now, folks.

Speaking of Owen Egerton, here's my review of his latest book at BookPeople. Click that whole damn sentence or click this whole damn sentence to go there. 

The Miraculous Life of Kim Jong-il According to a Texas Cowboy who Just Shot the Last American Polar Bear in San Antonio

I'm nearing the end of my pile of chapbooks.

In celebration of such a miraculous event, please enjoy a story from within its pages, The Miraculous Life of Kim Jong-il.

Buy the chapbook! Love it! Share it! Give as a gift! Send to a friend! Help me eat!

Toilet Stories From Outer Space

7 Stories

by Andrew Hilbert

$7, shipping included

SXSW films day three: free shit Sunday

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. 

Mike 

Meyers, Shep Gordon, and Tom Arnold

SXSW films

This is the second year in a row that I've been able to get a film wristband and I'm glad I did. Austin is the live music capitol of the world but with my creaky knees, I much prefer Austin's vibrant film culture these days. Plus, living in Austin provides for seeing great music all the damn time. The film fest is where it's at.

The Internet's Own Boy was the first movie I saw this year. It was a  documentary on the genius who ended his own life due to an overreaching and predatory government  prosecution against him. I know that the world is a complex place and our laws aren't keeping up with the evolution of our society but the biggest and best thing that I came away with from that movie was the triumph of the human spirit and the beauty of creation in the face of forces determined to take you down. As a documentary, the movie felt a bit too much like a dry made for TV production but the subject of the film, Aaron Swartz, was such a captivating figure that the shortfalls of the production were easily forgotten. The most illuminating quote came from Swartz himself. The internet is not only a great tool for creation and human connectedness, it is equally a tool for oppression and it will always possess that dual nature. The fight is never over.

Next on the list was the premiere of Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Paramount theater. It will be on Fox tonight but the only reason I was willing to wait in line for it was to see the man himself in person. He was drinking a Lone Star, not some fancy pants beer I'm sure he could afford. The man has taste. Watch the show tonight, it's great and quirky and will probably end up being a great cultural moment.

Yesterday Nina and I saw three flicks, two of which were good. The premiere of Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn was phenomenal. Judging from the first episode, the series is going to deliver Rodriguez style humor and violence, chock full of strained metaphors and brilliant gabbing between spaghetti western kills. I'm not sure it'll be the next Breaking Bad or anything like that but it's damn fine TV and does enough to wash away the bad memories of the sequel to the original film.

Break Point felt like an imitation of Judd Apatow's brosweet style of comedy but never quite got the tone right. There were some bright spots during the flick but I couldn't ever get into it.

So far, Oculus by Mike Flanagan stole the show. It's always the horror movies that I come home raving about. My style of horror is more schlocky, slasher, and humorous. Oculus was none of these things but holy cow, man, it was the scariest movie I've ever seen. I'm an adult and right when I got home I had to turn on all the lights in my apartment and shield my eyes from any mirror. The movie never let up on you and the feeling of dread was manipulated masterfully. If there's any movie you have to see in theaters, it's this one. It is a masterpiece of horror cinema that will scare the living shit out of you.