A 2007 New York Times article by Dennis Lim defined Mumblecore thusly: “Specimens of the genre share a low-key naturalism, low-fi production values and a stream of low-volume chatter often perceived as ineloquence.” All of the above qualifications could be applied to Aaron Katz’s new film, Cold Weather, but it isn’t your average twentysomethings-talking-about-stuff movie. It is a whodunnit thriller whose brilliance lies in its ability to keep you guessing what “kind” of a film you are watching.

Doug is a half-bearded college graduate bumming it on his sister Gail’s couch in Portland, working at an ice factory while he decides what to do with his degree in forensic science. When his ex-girlfriend Rachel comes to town for a visit, things start to get complicated. His coworker, Carlos, is absolutely smitten Rachel, which brings on a wonderfully set up love triangle. Just as you think the two friends might come to blows over the lovely lady in their lives, Rachel goes missing which forces Doug to use the skills he learned at school (and by reading Sherlock Holmes all day). That’s the short of it. Read on…

As Hollywood enjoys this latest wave of 3D filmmaking, I have long hoped that their innovations would eventually trickle down to benefit the independent filmmaking community. Noël Paul’s short film, Annie Goes Boating, which just had its world première here at SXSW, may be the film that proves indie directors are dying to get their hands on the technology. Gone are the flaming projectiles and the prickly protrusions that are commonly found in big budget 3D films. Instead, Noël gives us a gorgeous look at a day in the park.

I sat down with Noël to discuss how he was able to make this film on an indie budget. Once he realized he had access to two Red Digital Cinema cameras, the filmmaker went to work with his creative team to try to hack together a workable 3D rig. However, it wasn’t until he got in contact with Lightspeed Design, whose DepthQ technology is used in a number of 3D applications, that the pieces really began to come together. The result is a 10 minute short that is absolutely gorgeous.

 
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Annie Goes Boating feels like a painting, one you could get up and walk around in. The plot is simple by design: some friends go boating and play badminton; a love triangle appears and then it ends. The photography, by Michael Ragen, is reminiscent of impressionist painting. Your eye is free to wander around the woods throughout the film. The depth is astounding. Some shots of ducks on a pond make you feel almost as if you could touch the water, as if the ducks might fall off the screen. Perhaps I’m romanticizing it, but if you see the film in 3D you will understand my reaction.

It is great to listen to Noël talk about 3D technology and how he likes to use it. I can’t think of another independent filmmaker who has tried a hand at 3D, but I truly hope that it sticks. Noël doesn’t care to guess whether or not 3D will catch on, but he says that he has every intention of making more 3D films if he is able to get them off the ground. With this one under his belt, I don’t see how that could be a problem.

I have hardly scratched the surface here. Listen in to my conversation with Noël Paul, where he gets into some of the nitty gritty of 3D production as well as speaks on his artistic influences behind this film. It’s one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had on the subject. Enjoy.

Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture just had its world première here at SXSW yesterday. It is an extremely funny and revealing film from this New York-based director. This is only her second feature, though she views it as her first since her last film, Creative Nonfiction, which premiered at SXSW 2009, was about an hour long. Taking full advantage of the Austin vibe, Dunham made some friends here a year ago, gathered a crack team in New York City, and spent the last year making this new film.

Her hard work paid of well. Tiny Furniture is ferociously funny and with a heart to boot. It is easy to apply the label of “coming of age tale” to the film, but that really undersells it. This is not the kind of movie that involves staring into puddles, mirrors or other reflective surfaces that twenty-somethings on film seem to be attracted to. Instead, we find Aura, played by Ms. Dunham, returning home to the big apple after college, thrust into a world with no structure, few consequences and little prospects. Between her genius younger sister soaking up the limelight and her preoccupied artist mother, Aura must blaze her own path in the naked city.

I sat down with Lena to discuss her process and her film. Listen in for some really interesting details about the making of this film, which was shot entirely on the Canon 7D, a digital still camera that also shoots video. And there’s more! But you have to click play or download.

You can learn more about Tiny Furniture at the film’s Official Website. The film will be screening once more at SXSW on Saturday, March 20, 4:15pm at the Alamo Ritz.

 
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Justin Molotnikov’s Crying With Laughter was the first screener I watched in advance of SXSW this year. Though it is described as a thriller, that is a particularly unfair label to put on it. When I sat down with Justin, who is here in Austin for the North American première of his film, I learned that he couldn’t agree more, and in the best of senses.

The film follows down-on-his-luck comedian Joey Frisk, whose visceral brand of jokes can be tough to laugh at. Very quickly the film changes its tone from the mundane to the mysterious. Then  again to the adventurous, and eventually to the melancholy. The brevity with which it moves from emotion to emotion, or from genre to genre, is astounding. Crying With Laughter will surprise you around every turn.

Justin and the film’s producer, Claire Mundell, took some time out of their schedule to sit with me and discuss their film and some other tid-bits. Perhaps the most interesting thing Justin and Claire mention is that the script grew out of a lot of workshopping and improv. In fact, they say, it was easier to get the film funded without a script than it would have had they had a finished one from the outset. Sound backwards? Listen in as they explain their process in making this first feature.

Crying with Laughter has two more screenings at SXSW: Tuesday March 16^th, 1:30am at the Alamo Ritz and Wednesday, March 17^th, 4:30pm at the Alamo Lamar. It is also available on Amazon Video On Demand and will soon be available on demand through your cable provider in the U.S. You can find out more information at the film’s Official Website.

 
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I’ve only snaped a few pics so far. Too busy sitting in the dark watching films. I’ll bring you more as I take them. Enjoy these.

Marquee of the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz

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This was taken just before I the Predators First Look, which I wasn’t able to get into.

See Marwencol. That’s it. I can try to explain it to you, I can try to let you know how I feel about it, but you and can’t really talk about Marwencol until you see Marwencol.

Okay, I’ll tell you a few things about it since you asked so nicely. The film follows Mark Hogancamp, a man who starts his life over after being beaten half to death. Once he can walk and talk and read again, he begins to learn a few things about his former life, of which he remembers nothing. He was a drunk; a drunk who kept detailed and often horrific journals of his darkest moments. As he slowly tries to put his life together, the pain of dealing with his attack and coming to terms with his former self, he begins practicing his own kind of unconventional therapy. Read on…

Kick-Ass fits perfectly into the SXSW landscape as it is what we in the business call a “crowd-pleaser”. The trick here is that Matthew Vaughn’s film pleases a very specific crowd, and Austin seems to be the capital not just of Texas, but of the cynical fanboy (fangirl, fanperson). Based on the comic book series by Mark Millar, Kick-Ass tells the tale of a mild-mannered high school geek who gives into his fantasies of becoming a super hero. The story is tight enough, the visuals pop, and the gore is outrageous. Still this film is missing something pretty big: an audience outside of Austin.

Let me tell you what we have before I go into my opinion. In a cartoonish New York City, one ruled by organized (and not so-organized) crime, Dave Lizewski is a loser at the bottom of every food chain. He gets picked on at school, mugged in the streets and nothing but bored at home. On the brink of growing up, he decides to try his hand at being a super hero. After ordering a wet-suit online, he goes out to fight some crime and eventually becomes an internet sensation. Of course, there has to be some darkness to any super tale. Kick-Ass, as Dave has named himself, quickly discovers that there are villains more evil than he can handle, and heroes more well-equipped than he could imagine. Accidentally, he has thrust himself into a war for the ages: good versus evil.

The film balances two very different but overlapping genres with great finesse. It is a comic book adaptation and a parody of comic book cinema. As a comic book film, it ticks off marks on the list of required content. Bright colors and inspired production design, provided by cinematographer Ben Davis and production designer Russell De Rozario, make almost every frame feel like it lives on a page. Overlaid text boxes fill out the effect to the delight of hardcore comic kids. As a parody, it plays brilliantly. Its main cinematic inspiration is Sam Raimi’s Spiderman, which stands out as the biggest catalyst to our current heroically saturated film market. Pulling scenes, musical themes, narration and set designs from Mr. Raimi’s take on the hero, Mr. Vaughn is able to dance the line of homage and theft while building his own original language for this film. Read on…

Wow, South by Southwest (SXSW) is one helluva whirlwind event. Luckily, between screenings my schedule allowed for a quick chat with David Bond, whose film Erasing David had its U.S. Première here last night. The documentary, which the director concedes is something of a sensationalist thriller, deals with the issue of modern privacy in a world where we are obsessed with sharing so much of our personal information.

In the film, David opts to “drop off the map” as it were. Two of the best private investigators in the U.K. are given his picture and his name, but nothing else. While the film crew follows them around, they must find David who is doing everything in his power not to get caught. Within hours of them beginning their assignment, they gather more information than he originally thought was possible. They even started a fake Facebook account for David, spoofing his friends into giving them leads to move forward on.

Lucky for us (or for me, really), the U.S. ranks much higher in terms of privacy awareness than the U.K. Surprisingly, the U.K. is the third worst country in terms of availability of private data in the world. Their competition? China and Russia. This may seem startling, but the U.K. does have CCTV cameras all over the country recording almost every public area. With facial recognition technology slowly being integrated with the system, David purports, it is only a matter of time before our social networks become meshed with state infrastructure.

The fact that this film is receiving such a warm reception at a conference such as SXSW says a lot about how much of a paranoid Luddite the director isn’t. After all, the Interactive wing of SXSW is where Twitter and Foursquare, a geo-location social network, were launched. All day long people are sharing their location, their thoughts, and perhaps even more sensitive data than they realize on their mobile phones as they wander about the Austin Convention Center. But as I said, Mr. Bond is no Luddite. He is simply more aware of these issues after his experience of making the film. It is his hope that the film’s audience will be more aware as well.

Erasing David will be screening again on Tuesday, March 16^th at 11am in the G-Tech theater. The film is also available VOD through Amazon during the festival. For more information on both the film and issues of privacy and information, you can check out the film’s Official Website.

 
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Photo Credit: Amanda Lockhart