SxSW Film: What I Saw That You Should Too

SxSW Film Festival is over. Unlike the Music portion, you can go see exactly what I saw.

Going in with the intention to see as many docs as possible, I was lured by several features. Now, those features all have music, so I guess I am OK. But I did still see a lot of docs and few that were very music related. For instance, I was kicking it at The Paramount with my bros in Spandau Ballet.

Here come some brief reviews of things you need to see and some related photos from the film side of the conference.

Features:
Space Station 76 – Take the Big Chill, put it in space and make it funnier, much funnier. You have the standard plotlines of unhappy marriage, cheating yet jealous spouse, kid in the crossfires, closeted characters with a whole lot of smoking. Why smoking? Because this is a Sci-Fi Dramady as it would have been made in the 70’s, but not made in the 70’s. The effects are more reminiscent of the Last Starfighter than a present day space flick for nostalgia’s sake and the soundtrack is heavily loaded with Rundgren rock anthems. I feel the film may need a final revision to tighten things up a bit, but you might lose some of the written-by-improv charm Jack Plotnick and friends have achieved.

What We Do In The Shadows – As soon as you can see this masterpiece of mockumentary, do it. There have been hundreds of Vampire movies trying to be funny, but until you see two “flatmates” hissing at each other in the kitchen while flying up against the ceiling because of a fight over cleaning bloody dishes… There are so many hard laughs in this movie, but also an underlying sweetness and enemies become friends, friends become enemies. Peter, The Nosferatu type, steals scenes. Jemaine Clement subtly owns it all, acting and directing.

The Raid 2 – Berandal – Just go see it. Rumor has it, the editor had to remove 30 individual frames to make an R rating. Don’t know where or how. I mean, holy shit. After an aborted first attempt due to projection issues, I saw it at 1am (Wes Anderson wouldn’t shut up in his Q&A making us late). I was wide awake. Got home at 3:45am and wanted to start a fight. Masterpiece.

Documentaries:
Soul Boys of Western World – The New Romantic era in Brit Pop capsulized by a documentary, Spandau Ballet has hits and you love them. The movie has three acts, the focus being the first; how the band came to be, how they found that sound. Much like Martin L. Gore and Depeche Mode, Gary Kemp dominates songwriting credits, which after the inevitable Act II of excess and change and lawsuits, allowed for the Act III, the triumphant reunion. The band assisted the film makers in collecting footage from on the road, in the studio and back stage, but the real gem with footage of the band’s actual first gig playing to friends from The Blitz was provided by fans. Go back and listen to “To Cut a Long Story Short” and “The Freeze”. It will make you forgive the intentional run at making hits.

The Immortalists – We have skewed notions of great minds. We want to believe in an ideal image of hyper-intelligence somehow making someone “evolved”. In this doc about scientists trying to cure aging, we learn a little science, here two methods debated over how to get there and see two bery different approaches to getting things done. Along the way, we see these two minds get drunk, depressed, break and rebound all while the effects of aging takes hold and irony isn’t all that ironic.

Doc Shorts –

You have seen Unlocking the Truth on their website or as a preview to FFF.

An Economy of Grace – The longest running short was about New York artist Kehinde Wiley as he recreates the portrait classics that hang on the walls of the Louvre. Focusing on found “models”, his work has focused on men that catch his eye on the streets of New York, Israel and Brazil. This go round, he is selected women from the streets of Brooklyn and working designer Givenchy for gowns. Where things get interested is when you see how these $250k works are finished as a team effort in China and the models’ realization that they will be “immortal” in works they could never afford.

12 Years of DFA – Too old to be new, too new to be classic, the twelfth birthday of DFA is commemorated with a look back at the history of the guys behind that signature sound we all like to party to. You shimmy as your favorite jams get blasted in the background and stories of parties and inevitable transitions to label and artist management. James was aloof, and charming, chiming in from the deck of cruise boat in Jamaica while his partner at the office holds down the fort, sad that the cube next to him isn’t populated by Mr. LCD. And I learned something, the analog drums that sound the same no matter the artist is due to a tiny tight space that is recorded shallow and fast.

Best Sound – Beers, chugging, chatting, vomiting and cleaning all used to make a song, it is funny. Makes you happy that people still make silly movies for the sake of making.

Honorable Mentions: Break Point was a friendly little movie that has been done before in varying settings, this one around tennis. Brothers, cute kid, comebacks – A nice couple hours that pleasantly filled an hour and a half during the rainiest day. That Guy Dick Miller is about character actor Dick Miller, and you will say “oh, that guy” when you watch anything about this doc. The Great Invisible is a Margaret Brown doc that makes you shake your head in shame about the BP Gulf disaster. …and if you aren’t watching Cosmos, defriend me, unfollow, etc. It was cool on the big screen. #NdGT