Wrapping SXSW 09: Visions + Global.

By David Hudson on 03/31/2009

Following yesterday's roundup of coverage of the coverage of the features in competition at SXSW a couple of weeks ago, here's more in the same vein on two more sections.

Emerging Visions

"'Awaydays' [site] - adapted by Kevin Sampson from his 1999 novel - utterly submerges the audience in every cinematically conceivable aspect of the late-70s Brit-youth culture known as the Casuals," writes the Austin Chronicle's Marc Savlov. "Director Pat Holden nails the hyperspecific nexus of street, slang, and action so well that it takes a while to calibrate your inner linguist to parse the characters thick-as-smack Liverpudlian accents."

"I decided today that 'Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo' [site] is the best film I've seen at SXSW," Alicia Van Couvering announced at Filmmaker last week. "Nominally, the film is about the Japanese interest and obsession over insects in nature and beetles as pets. But somehow, just through images and sound and words, it immerses you in another culture so deeply that it becomes about... everything." More from Peter Martin (Cinematical), Michael Tully (Hammer to Nail) and Richard Whitaker (Austin Chronicle).

"Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be the Same": Site; Daily.

"Lena Dunham's SXSW Emerging Visions entry 'Creative Nonfiction' [site] is exactly that - an Emerging Vision," writes Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog. "It's the early and somewhat unformed work of a clearly ambitious artist (22 year-old Dunham wrote, directed and stars in a dual role in the film, which was shot on video and 16mm over the course of several years, beginning when she was a junior at Oberlin College and making extensive use of that school's dorm rooms as sets) who seems to know what she wants to say, which is something of a feat in itself. If she doesn't quite manage to actually say it in this, her first feature, if her enthusiasm for the language and possibilities of cinematic comedy seem to outweigh her grasp of tools and technique, she proves herself as someone to watch, as a conceptual artist and as a comedienne." More from David Lowery (Hammer to Nail) and Leonard Pierce AV Club).

"Crude Independence": Site; Oxford Film Freak interviews director Noah Hutton.

"By certain preconceived notions, 'Died Young, Stayed Pretty' [site], Eileen Yaghoobian's documentary on rock posters, shouldn't work as well as it does," writes Peter Martin at Twitch. At the SpoutBlog, Vadim Rizov, too, finds it "unexpectedly excellent, a bracingly free-form group portrait of people who only recently discovered each other's existence when the founding of GigPosters.com showed isolated artists they weren't just working alone in the dark." More from Mark Fagan (Austin Chronicle) and Leonard Pierce (AV Club).

"To steal a line from a guy who made more money doing this than I ever will, where 'Four Boxes' [site] is good, it is not original (it features shades of 'Saw,' 'Fear.com,' and a handful of other indie horror flicks), and where it is original, it is not good," writes Leonard Pierce at the AV Club.

"A few weeks back, your pals at the Screengrab did a list of Comebacks We'd Like To See, and one of the ladies on my wish list was Natasha Lyonne, who shone as a wised-up, enjoyably weird young character actress in movies like 'Slums of Beverly Hills,' 'American Pie' and, well, 'Freeway 2: Confessions of a Trick Baby' before (alleged) drug problems knocked her life and career off track," begins Andrew Osborne. "So I was happy to see Lyonne in fine form as a market testing guru pushing ominous 'self-warming' cookies (with some pretty unnerving side effects) in David Russo's peculiar conspiracy thriller/monster movie/existential freak-out 'The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle' [site]. Charles Ealy interviews the other star, Marshall Allman,Alicia Van Couvering talks with Russo for Filmmaker and We Are Movie Geeks interviews the cast (a bit of online viewing there). More from SXSW Baby!

"Luckey": Jason Whyte interviews director Laura Longsworth for eFilmCritic.

"Make-Out With Violence": Site; Daily.

Zach Clark's "Modern Love Is Automatic" (site) is an "exceptionally moving comedy," declares Mike Everleth. More from Lena Dunham (Hammer to Nail) and Scott Knopf (Film Threat).

"By illuminating the overwhelming pain and isolation caused by the loss of a loved one, 'Motherland' [site] opens up an honest and intimate dialogue about the complexity of grief," writes Holly Million at SF360. "Through the different voices and experiences of this diverse group of women, we are reminded that there is no instruction manual for dealing with grief, and that there is no 'right way' to grieve." More from Jenn Brown (Slackerwood) and Melanie Haupt (Austin Chronicle).

"Imagine all the worst case scenarios you might associate with the term 'indie film,' and you'll find most of them on display in David Lee Miller's intolerable feature 'My Suicide' [site]," writes Scott Von Doviak at Screengrab. But at Slackerwood, Jenn Brown finds it a "causticly funny dissection of and by the YouTube generation." At Cinematical, Eric D Snider "can see this replacing 'Donnie Darko' as the go-to film for alienated adolescents."

"'Pulling John' [site] is a thrilling film about arm-wrestling," writes Tom Roston at the POV Blog. "It's got a slew of interesting characters, a well-told yarn, a climactic finish, and some of the best animation I've ever, ever seen in a doc. Plus; there's some really good music." Online viewing tip. Alison Willmore meets the director and subject.

"Rats and Cats": Site.

"Sissyboy": Interviews with director Katie Turinski: eFilmCritic and the SpoutBlog.

"Sorry, Thanks": Site; Daily.

"Splinterheads" (site) is "a generally entertaining film about Justin (Thomas Middleditch) a 20-something, directionless guy whose humdrum life of practicing karate moves and mowing lawns with his friend, Wayne Chung (Jason Rogel) is shaken up by the arrival of a traveling carnival and a beautiful con artist named Galaxy (Rachael Taylor)," writes Kim Voynar. "While I can't say the storyline is notably original as indie films about 20-somethings go, I liked this film quite a lot and thought it worked well overall." Also at Movie City News, a bit of online viewing: David Poland talks with Middleditch and Lea Thompson. And Hollywood Bitchslap interviews director Brant Sersen.

"St Nick": Site; Daily.

Nora Ankrum for the Austin Chronicle on "The Time of Their Lives" (site): "There's nothing comfortable about the topic of aging, and on screen, it's generally confined to comedic vehicles of the 'Grumpy Old Men' variety. That's why this lovely film is a rare treat - and a testament to the power of unflinching documentary-making to be both uncomfortable and comforting at the same time."

Alison Willmore on "Trust Us, This Is All Made Up" (site): "Filmed on multiple cameras capturing the goings-on from different angles, it's essentially concert-style footage that suffers from that sense of remove while remaining a lively enough document of what [TJ] Jagodowski and [David] Pasquesi are legendary for - long-form improv, done on a stage bare except for three chairs, all of it, as Jagodowski assures before the pair start, invented on the spot. But it's the context that surrounds the show that makes the film interesting." More from Don R Lewis (Film Threat) and Stephen Saito (IFC).

"Wake Up": Co-director Cloe Crespi writes about the movie's making in Moving Pictures.

SX Global

"Calling E.T.": Site.

The Forgotten Tree": From the synopsis: "A documentary that revisits a famous film location: the slums where 'Los Olvidados' was shot more than fifty years ago."

"Gaza Sderot": Site.

"Journey to the End of Coal": Site.

"Love on Delivery": Site.

"René": Site.

"Alan Kohl's 'Roadsworth: Crossing the Line' [site] is the story of what happens when Peter Gibson, an unassuming waiter-by-day/street-artist-by-night, becomes a political lightning rod for age-old debates over what constitutes art and how 'public' public space really is," writes Nora Ankrum for the Austin Chronicle. More from Scott Von Doviak (Screengrab) and Vadim Rizov (SpoutBlog).

"Snowblind": "The story is compelling, even if the actual production leaves much to be desired," finds the Austinist.

"'Sounds Like Teen Spirit' [site], Jamie Jay Johnson's energetic documentary about the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, is a crowd-pleaser in the best possible way," writes James Ponsoldt for Filmmaker.

"Ticket to Paradise": Site.

[Photos: "Awaydays," Red Union Films, 2009; "Roadsworth," Loaded Pictures and NFB, 2008]

Tags: SXSW 2009