South, by, & Southwest
Plus: my week at Austin's most cliched event.
For nine days every March, I submit to the holy whirlwind that is South by Southwest. While it’s got music and tech and more, the film festival is my main focus. It’s the cinematic equivalent of drinking from a firehouse. Over the week plus, I attended 21 screenings: 17 films, 3 sets of shorts, and 1 television series. (I also watched 2 normal movies in the theatre. What?!?!) Oh, and a couple of panels and some hip hop. You know how we do. Here are some highlights.
Previews
I conducted a couple of interviews for the Austin Chronicle in the lead-up to this year’s SXSW. Both were really interesting.
James Adomian as Slavoj Žižek
This was a fun one. James Adomian is hilarious, and garrulous. I was able to use just his answer to my first question as the entire piece.
Austin Chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph
His food is amazing, but Tavel (pronounced tah-VEL, not TAH-vul, I learned) has some great things to say about the changing nature of Austin from his perch in the restaurant scene. Definitely worth a read.
Panels
Patton Oswalt & James Ward Byrkit
These nerds talked about Byrkit’s classic Coherence as well as his new series Shatter Belt. Can’t wait to watch that one.
Indigo Girls
I’ll have more on this in a special edition later this week, but suffice it to say, both the panel about their activism and the new documentary about their lives turned out to be two of the most impactful moments of my week.
Director Julia Ducournau
This is one I wrote up for the Chronicle. The Prada-laden Julia Ducournau isn’t only tall and gorgeous, but supremely talented. Both Raw and Titane are extreme films that challenge and delight, in odd, often off-putting ways.
Films
The Wrath of Becky
This is not my normal fare, but it needed to be reviewed, so I jumped in. Yes, horror can be fun and even funny, image of a blood-soaked teen protagonist aside. Maybe the biggest surprise was seeing a maturing Seann William Scott flex his smarm onscreen once again.
Parachute
This is my normal fare, so I was excited for this one. I wrote more at Cinapse in the piece “SXSW 2023 and the Story of Self.”
As this year’s South by Southwest Film & TV Festival went along, a theme emerged among the narrative features, especially those in the competition category. Several filmmakers took their own stories and crafted amazing films from them. Sometimes it was a mental or physical health issue. Others had life experiences that threw them for a loop. The end result was a set of movies that both moved and entertained audiences.
Miscellaneous
Got to see my favorite rapper Talib Kweli for the second time, both at SXSW. I was up way too late, but it was worth it.
Ate at a place that should be the subject of my first ever restaurant review. More to come…
Met one of my favorite local actors, Lee Eddy. We chatted about Austin in the 90’s. Good times. Check her out in The Pizzagate Massacre on Prime Video where she plays an Alex Jones-type demagogue. (I’d say check out Mustang Island with Eddy and her husband Macon Blair, but sadly it’s not streaming since Netflix took it down.)
Stood within six feet of Yvonne Strahovski who was here with Scrambled. She seemed much nicer than her character in The Handmaid’s Tale. I didn’t see her oppress a single person.
Watched the new Scream and Shazam movies in between festival screenings. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
What’s Next
I’m definitely going to write a separate piece about the Indigo Girls and their new documentary.
Next time, I’ll get back to all the normal crap, including what I’ve been doing in the area of lifting heavy objects for fun, but no profit.
I’m so proud to say I knew you when…..
You are the best!