SXSW2005–Animated Shorts/You're Gonna Miss Me/Mutual Attraction/The Ballad Of Jack And Rose/Elvis Costello
“Pump it up!”
ANIMATED SHORT Every year I try to catch the animated shorts program. I’m such a big fan of the form that I don’t care what it is: as long as it’s animated, I’ll watch it. And there’s usually at least a couple that are worth slogging through the crap.
This year was really no different from any other year except that there were a LOT of political statements throughout the entire program. (Go figure, huh?)
The most obnoxious of these was called “The Meatrix.” It was all Flash, but that’s not why it was obnoxious. It had an anti-meat message, but that’s not why it was obnoxious, either. I don’t care if people eat meat or not.
What made it obnoxious was the fact that it wedged the Matrix characters into this anti-meat plot and made us all feel really bad (or tried, anyway) about eating meat. It made it seem like all meat is made from animals kept in these horrible, tiny little cubicles. And I’m not so naive as to think that that kind of thing doesn’t happen. But it certainly doesn’t happen all the time. And they never even give you an option like, “Look for this sticker on packages of meat.” It was just, “Be friends with your meat. Don’t eat it.”
The funniest of the political cartoons was “Learn Self Defense” by Chris Harding. It’s about a young man named George who is constantly beat up and put down. Then he learns some self defense moves including how to preemptively strike at the enemy and how to keep hitting them when they’re already beat. Yeah, it’s cheap and the animation was nothing special (just regular old school animation…very Tex Avery-esque, actually), but it was funny. And it got a lot more laughs than “The Meatrix.” And this was probably a pretty big crowd of vegetarians.
The best of the program was probably “Backseat Bingo” by Liz Blazer. Liz did interviews with some old folks at a retirement home asking them about their sex lives. Then she Nick Park-ized the interviews by animating them. They were funny and sweet and it was over before it wore out its welcome. Again, nothing special about the animation, but that wasn’t the point.
“Opheus & The Underworld” was an interesting little music video by Nathan Jurevicius. When Eurydice is bitten by a snake, hippie musician Orpheus must travel to the Underworld to save her. The animation was pretty trippy and the music was great. If you’re going to look one up on the net, this is the one. (It’s at Winged Sandals, by the way.) It won the Jury Award at the festival, too.
The one that disappointed me the most was actually Don Hertzfeldt’s new one, “The Meaning Of Life.” It was the same stick figures he always uses with a few different animation styles added in for good measure. It looked really good and started off pretty funny. Then it went to another planet (literally) and hung out there for about five minutes while we listened to aliens speak in another language. It got a little boring. I understood where he was going, but I think his ambition didn’t quite reach his goals this time. And that’s sad, because he’s always great.
Not a bad run of shorts this year. And I think the Jury chose the right one for a change.
From one set of cartoons to a man who has become a cartoon character to some.
Roky Erickson was once the leader of a great psych-rock band in the late 60s. The 13th Floor Elevators may have only had one real hit (the title song to this film), but their impact is still felt today. Then, after they broke up, Roky started his solo career. But it wasn’t too long before he ended up in the Texas State Hospital and, even worse, at Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He had pled insanity for a second small drug bust. Love the legal system here in Austin. For that they gave him electroshock therapy.
When Roky got out he was never the same. He was already starting to suffer from schizophrenia and now he had the nightmare of the asylum, too. When he finally descended into madness his mother, Evelyn, took him into custody and took him off of his medication. (She says that he didn’t want to take it anymore. Did he have the mental capacity to decide that?) The rest of the film is about the court battle between her and his brothers (especially his youngest, Sumner) who were trying to save him.
This is a pretty good doc, but it seems to be more about his family than about Roky himself. It got a little slow towards the end when we started spending more and more time in the courtroom and looking at the reasons why his mother shouldn’t have him in her care anymore.
This is another cult rock star that I knew had a lot of problems, but I didn’t know how deep they went. He, like Daniel Johnston, is unable to function on his own. He has to live with someone and be taken care of. He’s getting better, but I don’t think he will ever fully recover.
You’re Gonna Miss Me is definitely worth seeking out if you’re a fan of Roky or the Elevators, but don’t hurt yourself trying to find a release date.
Does anybody remember Whit Stillman? He made a couple of intelligently fun flicks back in the early 90s. Metropolitan and Barcelona were great movies that filled a void at the time.
Then he made The Last Days Of Disco. His moment had obviously passed. It was a bad, bad movie. And just like that, he was gone.
Now Andrew Bujalski seems to be trying to take Whit’s place. In fact, he also seems to be trying to take Woody Allen’s place in the world.
Alan (Justin Rice) is trying to become a successful musician. He just moved to New York City and is crashing on a friend’s couch. Unfortunately, his friend’s girlfriend might be falling for him. The feeling is (ah-HAH!) mutual.
Alan runs around NYC and has many adventures with many different people. All of these adventures involve talking. Some involve near-sexual encounters. But, mostly, they involve talking. And it’s very nervous talking. There are a lot of pauses, shaking and light gesturing. It’s almost charming at first and just kind of loses its charm towards the middle of the overly long two hour run-time.
There’s so much stuff going on in this film that it’s almost hard to say what it’s really about. The attraction of the title literally gets about 10 minutes at the very end of the movie. By then we’ve all kind of lost interest in any of these characters.
This isn’t to say that there are no good parts. There were a few funny parts that were nearly funny enough to make me stay interested in what was going on, but not enough to keep me from occasionally drifting off into dreamland. And the black and white photography was actually really good. It’s no Manhattan, but there were still a lot of beautiful shots of NYC.
Too bad about those annoying characters, though. I think this movie was a lot more fun for the actors and crew to make than it was for the audience to watch.
And speaking of overly long:
Jack (Daniel Day-Lewis) is trying to raise his 14-year-old daughter in the mid-80s. But he’s stuck in the 60s. In fact, they still live on the commune that he and his wife built with their friends. Things fell apart with that, but he stayed with little Rose (Camilla Belle, who is on her way to being Jennifer Connelly beautiful—) and has managed to instill his values into her. So much so, in fact, that when he learns that he’s dying of cancer she doesn’t want anyone else coming to their island to take care of him. They only need each other. And when he dies, she’s going to kill herself so that they can always be together.
Who sees a creepy incest scene coming?
The movie isn’t as creepy as it sounds, but Rose is a pretty creepy character. Jack eventually brings Kathleen (Catherine Keener) and her sons (Paul Dano and Ryan McDonald) into the fold. Rose, of course, is opposed to this and tries to kill Kathleen a couple of times. But not in a horror type of way. Just in a, “I’m crazy girl! Bet you can’t guess what I’m gonna do next!” way.
Yeah. Rose is way fucked up.
The acting was, of course, great. Daniel Day-Lewis is incapable of putting in a bad performance and the rest of the cast rides his coat tails greatness. Camilla did well with the crazy role she was given and Catherine was better than she usually is. Ryan McDonald was very funny as the older brother who is probably gay and Paul Dano pulled of the creepy metal kid who just wants to have sex all the time pretty well.
There’s a great soundtrack (although one Dylan song came out AFTER the movie takes place, thank you very much!) and director/writer Rebecca Miller (wife of Daniel, daughter of Arthur) kept the pace moving through most of the film. It did drag a bit in the middle and MAN did Rose need some work to not make her so damn creepy. It was very hard to identify with her or feel any kind of sympathy for her at all.
Oh, and Jason Lee is in it. But only for about 2 minutes. He’s completely wasted in what is basically a cameo appearance. No smart-ass comments. Just a tiny little role as a flower delivery guy who Rose comes on to.
See? Creepy.
Elvis Costello is pretty much the king of eclecticism in rock music. By now he’s tried just about every single genre (from hard rock to classical to crooning jazz to country) and he puts out about 50 albums a year by himself or with collaborators. It’s no wonder that, during his two hour show, there were about 10 songs that I actually knew.
The set was scorching, but he played a LOT of his new stuff from The Delivery Man. It was all great, I just didn’t know it at all. I can’t even tell you what he opened with because it was one of the new ones. Or it could have been an old one that I didn’t know.
Let me tell you how much of a Costello loser I am. I love the guy. His music is awesome. Even his weak stuff is pretty interesting to me. I own quite a few of his albums. But here’s the problem: I only listen to his first one (My Aim Is True) religiously. I know it backwards and forwards. I may understand the importance and urgency of Next Year’s Model, but it’s My Aim Is True that is my Holy Grail. I also listen to Spike quite a bit and I know a few songs from When I Was Cruel. (Especially the title track, which he performed.) Other than that I know his hits, a lot of which he blew through like he was hanging out with old friends. “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding,” “Pump It Up!,” “Radio, Radio.” The only one that I noticed him NOT doing was “Allison,” one of my favorites. Too bad, huh?
Anyway, the show was awesome and Elvis played some pretty smokin’ guitar solos. The Impostors (which are The Attractions minus Bruce Thomas plus Davey Faragher) are a kick ass backing band. Steve Nieve even plays a tiny Theramin! That’s pretty awesome!
Even with the absence of “Allison” and all of the new songs (which were still really cool, mind you), this was a great concert. Elvis has a great stage presence and he’s still got the punk attitude that made him so famous. He runs from one song to another with so little space between that you don’t even have time to catch your breath. His cover of “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” in the middle of “Deep, Dark Truthful Mirror” was inspired. (I had never thought of that song as a Smokey impression until now.) This show made me glad that I missed him at the Austin City Limits Festival last year. I had heard that the sound was horrible. Well, I got to see him play for two hours (instead of the rinky-dink one hour that ACL allows) with great sound at La Zona Rosa. He rocked all our asses.