We’re back and still exhausted. Thanks to The Playlist scribes Astrud Sands and Gabe Toro for holding down the fort and Jonathan and Jared for their awesome soundtrack features and script reviews.
Blame the lack of updates today so far on me. I slept 13-plus hours after not really sleeping the night before.
Our quick SXSW trip was brief, but awesome and we saw about 10 films in about two days. Hopefully the gaggle of Playlist-related lady pals will be sending in some reviews.
Posting conversations on the fly is always weird, but we were clearly wearing a press badge. That said, we won’t throw them in a headline and make too much noise about them because of the potential ethical issues, but it’s not like this is major news.
Danny McBride and ‘Barry Lyndon’ meets ‘Krull’?
– We bumped into Danny McBride after a midnight screening of Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me To Hell” (many of the “Observe & Report” crew were in the house, as well as buddy David Gordon Green). He told us that his medieval comedy, “Your Highness” (directed by Green), has been green-lit by Universal and ready to go. That said, he didn’t give a time-frame when they’d be shooting. He called the film, “‘Barry Lyndon’ meets ‘Krull,’ ” which made us laugh uproariously. Man that should be fun.
– We missed hanging out with the cast of “Women In Trouble,” to go see “Drag Me To Hell.” If you know the cast of beautiful ladies in that one you know we have a lot of film discipline.
– We saw footage of Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Brüno” and it was gloriously hilarious.
– The best film we saw at SXSW bar none was Cary Joji Fukunaga’s “Sin Nombre,” about Central American immigrants travelling through Mexico to get to the United States and the brutal hardships they endure to get there (the NYTimes just did a great article on it). It’s no surprise the film won two key awards at the Sundance film festival this past February, including Best U.S. Director and Best Cinematography (which was incredible). It’s absolutely astonishing to think that ‘Nombre’ is Fukunaga’s debut feature. Most first films are not this fully realized, complex and powerful.
– We also saw Sam Rockwell’s “Moon,” the Joe Swanberg mumblecore film, “Alexander The Last,” Bruce Macdonald’s zombie film, “Pontypool,” Gary Hustwit’s industrial design documentary, “Objectified,” and many, more. Hopefully we’ll have reviews, or brief thoughts soon.
– We mostly hung out with the crew of the excellent short “The Better Half,” and some of the actors from “The Hurt Locker.” A fantastic little crew of people and a pleasure to hang with.
