SXSW09 – For All Mankind (1989)/True Adolescents (2009)/(500) Days Of Summer (2009)/The Overbrook Brothers (2009)/Grace (2009)
“They called me Anal Girl.”
It was the last day of the Festival, and all through the town
All the creatures were stirring, even the freaks with spiky hair
And I’ll stop right there. It was a pretty good year for South By Southwest. Not the best, but pretty good. I will, however, say this: I didn’t like the bumpers at all. Normally there are little SXSW commercials before each movie that were done by local filmmakers or filmmakers in the Festival. This year, though, they looked like they were done by the same ad company that does commercials for Mountain Dew or something. They were super lame. And having to see the same three over and over again (and the least annoying one I saw less than the other two) was pretty torturous. Luckily, they were very short.
But enough about the complaints: let’s get back to the movies.
FOR ALL MANKIND (1989)
Directed by: Al Reinert
Forty years ago, mankind did something amazing. We landed on the Moon. We put tons and tons of explosives under three guys and a bunch of metal and sent it far enough into orbit that we found that giant rock in the sky. And the world rejoiced. In the next few years we sent 24 men to do the same thing…but we haven’t done it in about 35 years. Why is that? Why did we suddenly forget about the Moon?
Twenty years ago, documentarian Al Reinert (who also co-wrote Apollo 13 and…weird…Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) got ahold of the footage that some of those men shot on their long trip to the Moon. It’s amazing footage and makes for an amazing film. Reinert and his editor, Susan Korda, cut footage from all of the flights into one beautiful flight so that they could tell a more coherent story, and it works incredibly well. Set to the voices of the astronauts who went on these trips and the music of Brian and Roger Eno (with some assist from Daniel Lanois), the film is even more beautiful in its new HD transfer.
I don’t know if they are touring this film at all or if this is a one shot deal before the release of the blueray, but if it comes to a theatre near you, go see it on the big screen. It’s a great experience.
Al was in attendence and he brought flight director Gene Kranz on stage with him. (Ed Harris played him in Apollo 13.) Gene had about 25 years of experience with NASA before he retired in the early 90s and he brought all of that experience with him to answer questions. The man is a true American hero and I was very happy to be in his presence for a little while. There was a small line of people waiting for his autograph after the Q&A. It was actually the only time I saw an autograph line outside of the Broken Lizard guys. If there was anyone at the Festival that deserved an autograph line, it was this guy.
Directed by: Craig Johnson
Written by: Craig Johnson
Mark Duplass is known around here in Austin as the darling of the mumblecore movement. Between the Duplass brothers and Joe Swanberg, Austin has become the center of that universe…even though none of them are actually FROM Austin. We just show their movies ad nasuem.
True Adolescents, though, is different. Duplass is being directed by first time feature director Craig Johnson, first of all. Second, this ain’t no mumblecore flick. This is more like an R-rated cross between School Of Rock and Are We There Yet?…but then it turns into something better.
Sam (Duplass) is a loser. His band is maybe on the verge of a recording contract, but most likely not. When his girlfriend kicks him out he ends up staying with his aunt (recent Oscar nominee Melissa Leo) and her son, Oliver (Bret Loehr). When Oliver’s dad reneges on a camping trip, it’s up to Sam to show the kid and his buddy, Jake (Carr Thompson), a good time in the woods.
Enter all of the life lessons that all three boys learn on the road and in the woods. (Ok, that sounded a bit weird. But…um…well, watch the movie.)
Mark is charming in his loserdom and you just know that things are going to work out for him in the end, even if he doesn’t necessarily want them to. And the boys are boys. They’re insecure and funny and rebellious.
It’s not a great movie, but it is a good one and is certainly worth your time if you’re up for a really funny movie about growing up, no matter what age you are.
Directed by: Marc Webb
Written by: Scott Neustadter/Michael H Webber
From the opening crawl, I knew that I would fall in love with this movie. This is the story of the guy before the guy in the romantic comedy.
Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levett) should have been an architect. Instead, he writes greeting cards. Not only that, but he writes some of the best greeting cards around. And that’s because he believes what he’s writing. Love is a wonderful thing and is always right around the corner for Tom, even if he just can’t quite see it.
One day, though, he sees it in the form of Summer (Zooey Deschanel). She’s a beautiful free spirit who starts working in the greeting card office and steals Tom’s heart. Unfortunately, she tells him right off that she’s not into relationships. She just wants to have fun with no labels. She won’t belong to anyone. But, when we zoom ahead to day 500, why does she have a ring on her finger?
Writers Michael H Weber and Scott Neustadter (who also unfortunately wrote The Pink Panther 2) and director Marc Webb (who had only directed music videos before this) decided that this story would be pretty run of the mill is it was told in a normal, linear style. So they made the genius decision to tell it like Tom would actually remember it: in bits and peices, jumping from day 20 to day 429 to day 34 to day 287. This makes all the difference in the world. What would have been a cute story ends up being a very relatable story. We’ve all had Summers in our lives who pick us up, change us a little and then stomp on our hearts. Way fewer of us have had Serendipity happen to us.
Joseph is as good as always, although this movie isn’t as much of a stretch for him as a lot of the films he’s been doing lately. Zooey is almost the real standout here. Her chemistry with Joseph is great and, in a lesser actress’s hands, this character could have been easily hateable. Instead, she ends up being charming, cute, beautiful, free, sexy…all the things that we know and love Zooey for being. But, as a friend of mine said after the movie was over, if you weren’t in love with her before, you definitely are by the end of the movie. There’s a scene where Tom is talking about how he loves her eyes, her knees, the way she laughs, etc, and Webb shoots her like a 1960s French film. It’s absolutely beautiful.
The film also had one of the best soundtracks of the Festival. I’ll be looking for it as soon as I hear that it’s been released.
I loved this movie. It was one of my favorites of the Festival. It’s charming as hell and pretty brilliantly written. Even though it’s sort of an anti-romance, it still manages to be pretty romantic. It doesn’t hurt that it’s incredibly clever. I can’t wait until it comes out in July so I can force a bunch of my friends to go see it.
Directed by: John E Bryant
Written by: John E Bryant/Jason Foxworth
Speaking of mumblecore, director John E Bryant has been hanging out with all of those guys. This is his first feature, but he worked on The Puffy Chair and Baghead with the Duplasses and Goliath with the Zellners here in Austin. (Too bad about that, but there ya go. These guys travel in packs.)
The Overbrook Brothers, though, isn’t really a mumblecore movie. It seems that all of these guys are sort of branching out a bit. (Joe Swanberg is probably doing a musical next…all ad libbed by non-singers, of course.) It’s actually more of a gross-out, uncomfortable comedy.
Jason (Nathan Harlan) and Todd (Mark Reeb) are brothers, but they really can’t stand each other. They go home for Christmas, each taking their girlfriends. Jason, the good one, tells his girlfriend that his brother WILL hit on her. Todd, the bad one (you can tell because of the goatee), hits on her.
When the boys accidentally find out that they were both adopted, they decide to hit the road for Austin to find their birth parents. Of course, this decision isn’t made together since Jason can’t stand the sight of Todd and his girlfriend hates Todd even more. But Jason and Todd end up on the road together, no matter how they feel.
The movie is pretty funny (and incredibly disturbing in places), but it was a little bit hard to get past the fact that these guys (especially Todd) are amazingly unlikeable. Todd does everything he can to ruin his brother’s life. And Jason just kind of takes it, sometimes taking the bait to be just as obnoxious as Todd.
I’m not going to say that I hated the movie, because I didn’t. As I said, it’s pretty damn funny in parts. But I also find it really hard to recommend it very highly.
By the way, parts of it were indeed filmed in Austin. But you would be hard-pressed to tell from any of the locations. Besides the shots of the boys driving into town, there are hardly any establishing shots showing anything recognizable at all. I guess I can’t really complain since there are PLENTY of movies shot in Austin that take FULL advantage of the town.
It would have been nice if they hadn’t shown them driving from Bee Caves and getting onto southbound I-35 since Bee Caves is in the southwest part of town, and not the northeast. But that’s nitpicking.
Directed by: Paul Solet
Written by: Paul Solet
A woman’s greatest fear is losing a child. To lose that child before you even get to know it is an absolute nightmare. I can’t even imagine the feelings of that loss.
Madeline (Jordan Ladd from Hostel Part II and Cabin Fever) has basically gone through that loss three times. She and her husband lost one baby already. Then, in the middle of the second pregnancy, she had a big scare. Then, on the way home from that scare, she and her husband have a horrible car accident, killing him and the baby inside of her.
She decides, though, to carry the baby to term. When she delivers the baby, it comes back to life. But it is now a baby with a difference. It wants blood. And, strangely, keeps singing, “Feed me, Seymour!”
Ok, I was kidding about the song, but it is a little demon baby. This is a pretty ridiculous movie that, really, only a mother could love. I really thought that I knew where it was going at one point and I think it would have been better had it gone that way. Instead, it went the horror route and became a bit sillier than writer/director Paul Solet probably wanted.
This isn’t to say that it’s a terrible film. It had a few pretty shocking moments. But I’m not so sure that it deserves the “People fainted at Sundance!” hype that it’s been getting. It’s just not THAT good. Worth checking out, though, if you’re in the mood for demon babies.
That’s it for the Festival! It’s all over. I saw quite a few really good films and a few dogs, but that’s about par for the course. Unfortunately, I think the only ones that really blew me away were the studio movies, the ones that already have distribution. All of the smaller films that are still looking for an audience were just pretty good to pretty awful. Remember when it used to be the other way around?
Oh, and I have one more note of a non-movie nature: if you’re waiting for a stall to open up in a restroom, DON’T FUCKING STAND AT THE DOOR STARING AT IT!! A douchebag at the Alamo scared the bejesus out of me because I opened the door and there’s this dude standing there staring at me as I open the door. FUCK!! I know he probably thought I was a freak because I was visibly shaken, but he’s the asshole here. Stand at the head of the line, dorkface! Don’t stand there like a fuckin’ serial killer!
Ok, I’m done. I’ll be at the movies.
