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REVIEW: The Sitter

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

“Babysitting sucks…adult men don’t babysit things.” The Sitter was hilarious and definitely the kind of comedy for my generation. It’s a little less stoner comedy and a lot more black comedy from the director who brought you Pineapple Express, David Gordon Green. Starring Jonah Hill before he lost weight (so he’s still funny), The Sitter is a ridiculous night out with very random events that never seem to stop. Joined by three kids who steal the show, the movie has nonstop laughs and crazy/weird scenarios.

Jonah Hill is Noah Griffith, a slacker/nerd who only thinks about himself. He’s forced to babysit three kids so his hard-working divorced mom can go on a date and maybe actually have fun for once. The kids are the movie. You have Slater (Max Records) – a highly medicated kid with anxiety issues, Blithe (Landry Bender) – a little princess who watches way too much TV and wants to be a grown up rich girl who’s famous for doing absolutely nothing, and Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez) – an adopted El Salvadorian who likes to cause mischief and blow things up. They. Were. Awesome.

The kids are the movie.

The plot is pretty run of the mill; but, for some reason the sum of all the parts in this one just seem to work. Noah has a “girlfriend” who just uses him to get things for herself. So when Noah is left in charge and gets a call from Marisa (Ari Graynor) to have sex if he can score her some coke, you know the babysitting gig is going on a road trip and antics will ensue. What you don’t know is all of the crazy stuff that will come their way: Bodybuilding drug lair? Random run ins with girls from high school? Best friend drug dealer? Exploding toilets? It’s all pretty over the top but that doesn’t mean it’s not funny…you can’t help but laugh!

"I came for the motherf*cking keys to my motherf*cking minivan!"

This is rated R and the jokes are pretty obscene. They’re executed wonderfully by most members of the cast, especially the kids. Blithe will by far be the audience’s favorite as she sings along and dances to every rap song that’s inappropriate for her. Great casting includes people like Sam Rockwell, J.B. Smoove, Reggie Alvin Green and Method Man which ensure even more laughs from the different tangents that unfold through the night. As expected, Noah turns into a badass, has realizations of his own as well as heart to hearts with the kids adding a bit of closure into this otherwise runaway train/car crash of a movie. If the script wasn’t so genuine and funny, this movie could have been a real mess. There was even a random segue…with a random segway.

Jonah Hill with Max Records, Landry Bender, and Kevin Hernandez

I wasn’t expecting The Sitter to be as good as it was but with the onslaught of laughs, outrageous turns in the story, and adorable kids you can’t help but get attached to…this movie won me over. Also, Kylie Bunbury might be the cutest girl I’ve seen on screen all year. The soundtrack was really impressive with some classic hip hop choices that fit perfectly in the storyline. Again, this is just another crazy night out kind of movie but it’s really really funny and holds nothing back. I honestly want to see a sequel or a weekly sitcom involving the kids…their characters are just too good and work really well together. “Double punch in the nut sac!”

Tags: Ari Graynor, David Gordon Green, J.B. Smoove, Jonah Hill, Kevin Hernandez, Kylie Bunbury, Landry Bender, Max Records, Method Man, Reggie Alvin Green, Sam Rockwell, The Sitter
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REVIEW: Moneyball

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

“How can you not be romantic about baseball?” Unlike Warrior which can turn MMA-haters into fans, Moneyball will not turn you into a baseball fan or have you appreciate the sport. Actually, it may do the exact opposite since it’s based on the book of the same name about the Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane, using analytical sabermetrics to assemble a baseball team. This is a movie about the back room of baseball focusing more on the offices than the dugout. It’s intriguing as a dialogue-heavy biopic but not that entertaining if you’re not interested in statistics or the way the game behind the game is played. Offering three big names as its stars, Moneyball over-dramatized an otherwise mundane subject matter that would be better suited as a 60 minutes segment. Oh wait, it was. ["The Red Sox' Stat Man And The Numbers Game"]

Moneyball follows Brad Pitt as Billy Beane as he changed the way baseball was managed and eventually played. Even though the movie spliced in a mini biography of Beane’s short-lived baseball career, it only did so to illustrate the driving force behind Beane’s decisions about the true star of the movie: sabermetrics. Jonah Hill plays Peter Brand who was the brains of the Athletics organization with an Economics degree from Yale. I felt like the movie was more about him than Billy Beane but they needed a pretty face and someone closer to the actual sport for the movie. This is actually ironic because that’s exactly what Bill James and sabermetrics reversed in baseball – it’s no longer about age, appearance or personality, it’s about getting runs and systematic wins.

Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill in Moneyball

The acting was great from all – Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman and the rest of the cast. It was interesting to see Jonah Hill actually act rather than just be the funny guy to laugh at. He definitely still had the biggest laughs of the movie but that came from the story and script, not him being goofy. Brad Pitt pinned Billy Beane and did a great job impersonating him on the big screen but sadly the character just isn’t that fun to watch – he’s a tobacco chew-spitting All-American jock turned pencil pusher. Same goes for Philip Seymour Hoffman who was Art Howe, the Oakland Athletics’ manager. I enjoyed all their acting but there wasn’t much there to work with. Chris Pratt as Scott Hatteberg and Stephen Bishop as David Justice (players on the A’s) should also be mentioned as they did great in their scenes. The most noteworthy (even though her role was extremely small) is Kerris Dorsey who played Beane’s cute acoustic daughter.

Hopefully theater seats won't be as empty as this stadium

The movie tried to make statistics epic. It might blow the mind of the common denominator (like the woman who sat next to me), but it’s just numbers. It may be heartbreaking to baseball fans as the movie shows how this new way of forming teams removes the heart of the sport and replaces it with a computer. But if you’re a baseball fan, this is nothing new to you. Moneyball used archive footage and commentary to display the mocking attitude and reactions to what Billy Beane was trying to do and almost instant approval once it worked. They had a few montages of Billy teaching players the system and changing the way they thought by playing to win by numbers rather than lose by playing. He hates losing more than he likes winning – and there’s a difference. However, it wasn’t enough to be a powerful underdog story. There’s also a montage of the A’s record-setting 20 game streak which had the most tension in the movie (even when you know the outcome). There’s still a good amount of baseball in there but the scenes are mailny off the field, not on. Moneyball has just enough baseball to be categorized as a sports film and a well written screenplay to pass it off as decent movie. But just like the A’s…it doesn’t finish on top and nobody cares if you don’t win the last game.

Tags: A's, Art Howe, Bill James, Billy Beane, Brad Pitt, Chris Pratt, David Justice, Jonah Hill, Kerris Dorsey, Moneyball, Oakland A's, Oakland Athletics, Peter Brand, Philip Seymour Hoffman, sabermetrics, Scott Hatteberg, Stephen Bishop
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REVIEW: Megamind

Monday, October 25th, 2010

From the animation studio who brought you Shrek, Kung Fu Panda and their most recent work, How to Train Your Dragon comes Megamind. It’s an action comedy about the lifelong rivalry between a super hero and super villain from two distant planets. What’s the difference between a super villain and a regular old villain? Presentation! And this movie is presented in Mega 3D. Great voice actors lend their personas for this movie including Will Ferrell, Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, David Cross, and Brad Pitt. The comedy is witty and the story is very predictable but it still does offer up a good time…for adults. I’m not sure this one will translate with children that much.

In a nutshell, Megamind got the short stick in life. As he laid it out in the opening narration, “even fate picks its favorites.” Metro Man landed in the lap of luxury while Megamind landed in prison. He ended up figuring out that no matter how hard he tried, everyone perceived him as bad. So he decided to be the best bad guy out there…a super villain! He would have epic battles between his arch nemesis Metro Man in a tug-of-war of power until one day something happened and all that changed. It’s a story about good vs evil and why being bad may be good. Or is it that good may be bad? There’s a tongue twister somewhere in there…

.....soooooooooo predictable

This is the kind of comedy you would get if you mixed The Office with Saturday Night Live and every Will Ferrell movie ever made. I heard a lot of the laughter coming from the older members of the audience but the kids would only laugh from the slapstick physical humor. Megamind’s Minion fish will be their favorite character but other than that, I don’t see much kids can root for in this movie. From the ambiguously gay relationship between Megamind and his Minion to the anti-relationships between TV Reporter, Roxanne Ritchi and every other character in the movie, there are a lot of adult themes in Megamind.

The story is pretty predictable even without watching the latest trailer. But if you’ve seen the latest trailer, you’ve seen the whole movie. Dreamworks did the same thing with the last trailer for How to Train Your Dragon…they end up giving away pivotal scenes that spoil a lot of the turning points in the movie. They expose the entire plot and leave nothing to the imagination. The only scenes left out of the trailer were the dull ones. It would be a shame if this movie actually had some unpredictable events. Luckily enough, the jokes and humor aren’t wasted on a spoiled storyline…there are still a lot of quotable quotes thanks to Will Ferrell and Tina Fey’s delivery.

Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill and their animated alter-egos

You can literally picture Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, and Jonah Hill in Megamind. Some of the scenes and jokes were definitely written for them in mind. Megamind keeps mispronouncing words and Will Ferrell delivers them perfectly in only a way that he can. Tina Fey’s quirkyness comes out in Roxanne Ritchi’s character especially during a moment when Megamind and her are outside Megamind’s old school and she gets “gangsta”. Jonah Hill’s character Hal physically looks like him and you could see him playing the character in a live action version of the movie.

My favorite character may have been Minion's boombox...the music was great!

The music in this film is also a great compliment. The soundtrack contains such rock hits as “Bad to the Bone”, “A Little Less Conversation”, “Crazy Train”, and “Highway to Hell” mixed with some “Lovin’ You.” I was definitely tapping my shoes through a good portion of the movie. The 3D was ok but not as spectacular as How to Train Your Dragon. There were a few gimmicks to keep the kids going “awwww” but other than those, there was no point for the 3D glasses. It didn’t add to the experience at all in my opinion. The visual effects were pretty cool…Dreamworks Animation does a great job on their animation techniques. There is one sequence of scenes where Megamind has a mini laser and fire show which was a feast for the eyes. If you’re a fan of animation and over the age of 10, I’d recommend Megamind for a good laugh, otherwise…go buy How to Train Your Dragon on DVD.

Tags: Brad Pitt, David Cross, DreamWorks, Dreamworks Animation, Jonah Hill, Megamind, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell
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REVIEW: Cyrus

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Cyrus Cyrus is an interesting story from the Duplass brothers about a guy down on his luck who finds the girl of his dreams. One problem, she’s really close to her only son…who’s 21 and still lives at home. Let’s back up a bit. We join John, played by John C. Reilly, as he continues to live his mundane single life after splitting with his ex-wife (Catherine Keener) seven years before. He’s still on good terms and pretty close to his ex-wife but she and her fiancé want him to get on with his own life and find somebody else. They invite him to a party which he reluctantly goes to and eventually makes an ass of himself in the process. But in the same night at the same party, he meets Molly, played by Marissa Tomei, and they hit it off right away…in a quirky way. The dialogue between them and throughout the movie is hilariously awkward. The only thing more awkward is Molly’s son Cyrus, played by Jonah Hill, and the relationship the mother and son have together.

John gets a little weirded out by what he observes in the relationship between Molly and her son so he gets his ex-wife to scope them out for him and give him her honest opinion. She approves Cyrus and Molly and thinks that they’re a great fit for John. Cyrus also approves John for his mother so they try to make it all work. However, all is not what it seems with Cyrus.

Cyrus (Jonah Hill) and his mom (Marisa Tomei) meeting John (John C. Reilly) and his ex-wife (Catherine Keener) in the park

The movie starts off really funny and keeps that upbeat awkward tone for quite a while. But a little after halfway through the film, the whole mood of the movie shifts to be serious…really serious. It almost hits you like a brick wall. You go from joking with the characters to watching their lives from a third party view. The shift was a little too much for me and almost made me feel like I was watching two separate movie. I wanted to go back to the first movie, but it was too late…the Duplass brothers were taking me on another path to try and connect to the characters on a different level.

John (John C. Reilly) talking to Cyrus (Jonah Hill)

All of the cast deliver incredible performances which make this movie work. Cyrus not only tricks the characters in the movie but he has to trick the audience too to make us wonder if John is just being paranoid or if Cyrus really does approve of him to be with his mom. Molly isn’t just overprotective of her only son, but Cyrus is overprotective of his only mom too. It’s an interesting chemistry between this weird love triangle (I know it’s wrong to put it that way since two sides of this triangle is mother and son – but it’s as awkward as this movie makes it, trust me). This film fell a little short for me because of the significant switch and ending. The first half was a great experience with these hilarious characters…the second half was too dull and depressing.

This post is part of our SXSW Film Festival coverage
The South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conferences & Festivals offer the unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies. Fostering creative and professional growth alike, SXSW® is the premier destination for discovery. The internationally acclaimed, nine-day Film Festival celebrates raw innovation and emerging talent, with a truly diverse program ranging from provocative documentaries to subversive Hollywood comedies.Visit South by Southwest’s Official Website

Tags: Catherine Keener, Cyrus, John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, South By Southwest, SXSW
Posted in Film Festivals and Conventions, Reviews, South By Southwest 2010 | 1 Comment »

REVIEW: Get Him to the Greek

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Judd Apatow returns with another film with Russel Brand. This is actually the first film I’ve seen with Russel Brand who is a loud mouth A.D.D.-having (Attention Deficit Disorder) do whatever I want whenever I want guy with an accent who gives off the rockstar persona. So what a perfect fit since he’s cast as Aldous Snow, the loud mouth A.D.D.-having do whatever I want whenever I want guy with an accent who is a washed up rockstar. Jonah Hill plays Aaron Green who works for Sean Combs (P. Diddy) pretty much playing himself as a high-up music executive, Sergio Roma. The music company is running low on ideas and their sales have fallen flat. Aaron Green comes up with the idea of doing an anniversary concert for Aldous Snow ten years after his prime. Great idea, only one problem…getting the rockstar to the Greek Theatre.

The film is literally a roller coaster ride ranging from hilarious fall out of your seat scenes to boring and awkward leave your seat and go smoke a cigarette scenes. The best and worst points of this movie are the conversations. The back and forth between Jonah Hill and Sean Combs is great. If the whole movie was dialogue between the record executive and his peon, I would be a happy man. Sean Combs is probably the standout in this movie delivering the best performance he’s ever done in a movie thus far. Russel Brand also had some great lines but he also was the reason for some really awkward portions of the film. His character (both in real life and on the big screen) needs to be taken in doses and sometimes the doses in Get Him to the Greek were a bit too much.

Jonah Hill and Russell Brand in Get Him to the Greek

The journey from London to California is only half of the movie, which is great. You dive into the relationships of both Aldous and Aaron. Throughout the movie, these relationships intertwine and both characters influence each other’s lives. Aldous projects his own problems onto Aaron’s situation and Aaron in return tries to “save” the washed up star from his own downward spiral Rock N Roll lifestyle. In the end, both realize what’s best for them and they could only realize that through each other. (This is where you go awwwwww) There’s definitely an awwwww moment in the film and the whole movie finishes pretty smoothly which I was worried about because it could’ve ended very differently. With the Rock and Roll lifestyle, you know there’s plenty of drugs, sex, and … rock and roll. Get Him to the Greek has some hilarious “high” scenes that will have every stoner and casual druggie cracking up. A lot of movies get these scenes wrong with a bunch of flashing lights and crazy camera angles, but this one does it pretty good justice. With that, all I have to say is: Furry Walls.

Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) and Sergio Roma (Sean P. Diddy Combs) touching a Furry Wall

It’s really entertaining when it wants to be but fairly boring when it tries too hard. A lot of the dialogue goes too deep into back story that really doesn’t matter or add anything to the film. One interesting aspect of this film is that it makes fun of a lot of stereotypes in entertainment while featuring real shows and personas right next to the ones it’s mocking. I thought that was really funny but hypocritical at the same time…which I guess is what the entertainment industry really is. Get Him to the Greek is a satire looking at itself in the mirror.

Keep a look out for all the great cameos in this movie including: Aziz Ansari, Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lars Ulrich, Nick Kroll Billy Bush, Kurt Loder, and Pharrell Williams.

Two of my favorite comedians right now, Nick Kroll and Aziz Ansari make cameos in Get Him to the Greek

Tags: Get Him to the Greek, Jonah Hill, Judd Apatow, Rose Byrne, Russell Brand, Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs
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REVIEW: How to Train Your Dragon

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Let me start by saying: Wow. Every aspect of this movie was great – the story, the visuals, the music, the characters, the whole package. This is DreamWorks Animation’s best work yet. The title of this movie, How To Train Your Dragon, does not do it justice as there is so much more to the movie. You go in to the movie not knowing what to expect, which may be a good thing, because by the end, you’re blown away. It’s a story about a young Viking unlike all the rest of the Viking town since he’s not blood hungry for dragon slaying. Where he’s from, hunting and killing dragons is the way of life and everybody expects each other to do the same. To make things worse, his dad is the head honcho in town who is a bit embarrassed that his son hasn’t turned out like himself: all muscles with guts and glory on the side. Instead, Hiccup (yes, his name is Hiccup) is a small toothpick with a brain on his shoulders. He likes to tinker and make things; he’s an engineer at heart. He doesn’t fit in with everybody else but that’s all he wants – to be like everybody else, or at least that’s what he thinks.

As a group of Vikings set off in their boats to rid the world of these vicious dragons, Hiccup is left with a small group of newbies to learn the ways of their people in dragon training. The class in training adds a lot of fun and comedy to the movie. There’s a too cool for school character called Snotlout (who I thought was voiced by Jack Black, but it’s actually Jonah Hill) who tries to impress everyone by overcompensating. There’s Fishlegs, a chubby blabbering kid who can’t keep his mouth shut but knows all the numbers and strategies of the dragons. Rough and Tough are twin brother and sister who constantly try to outdo one another which usually ends up with them getting in each other’s way. And then there’s Astrid who is the embodiment of Girl Power. She is what every Viking hopes to be and wants to be top dog in everything she does. Together they make a motley crew which doesn’t take kindly to Hiccup at first since he’s pretty much the joke of the town and not cut out for killing dragons.

The 3D in this movie is amazing and really adds to the experience. There are scenes where you follow the dragons in the air and you really feel like you’re flying with them. There were a lot of jumps and gasps from the audience in my screening, everybody really loved it. As you whirl through obstacles of rocks, land, and water, you can feel yourself swaying left to right trying to avoid them with the characters on the big screen. When you’re caught in front of a dragon right before he blasts his fire, you want to turn away so you don’t get hit! The music is incredible and accompanies each scene really well. You experience the feelings that the characters are going through with them.

The subplots of the film are very strong as well. It’s a great film for kids and educational at the same time (without them even knowing). It touches on some serious issues like the single father/son relationship, treating animals and pets right, and that being different is ok – sometimes even paramount. There are some scenes that may be a bit strong for the younger kids and some might be afraid of the dragons at times (there were some crying babies in my screening) but all together it’s definitely safe for the younger viewers and parents don’t have to worry about that or that they’ll be bored during the movie. It’ll entertain young and old alike. So, take the kids or if you want a quiet theater, you may want to wait for the 2nd or 3rd weekend (or go during the week) but you should definitely check out this movie and see it in theaters for the full 3D experience. It pulls off some effects that no other movie has done yet.

Tags: America Ferrera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Craig Ferguson, DreamWorks, Gerard Butler, How to Train Your Dragon, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, T.J. Miller
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South By Southwest: Halfway Through!

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

I apologize for not updating more but the South By Southwest Conference and Film Festival is hectic! There’s so much to do, I don’t know how anybody can get it all done. I flew in Friday night and today is Wednesday, I’ve seen over a dozen films in the past 4 days and almost all of them have been great. Here’s a quick recap of what I’ve been up to. I’ll be writing more in depth reviews when the festival is over.

Day 2: Saturday, March 13th.
After picking up my badge and finding my way around a bit, I sat down for my first movie, a movie I wasn’t even planning to see: Marwencol. It was a great and tragic story about a man who was almost beaten to death regaining his life through an alter life in the form of action figures and dolls. I tried to get in to a film called Mars at the Ritz but I have still yet to be able to make it into a screening at this theater…it has been packed! Instead, I got some food and then headed over to the Paramount where most of the big premieres were taking place and saw the French film Micmacs and then Cyrus starring John C. Reily and Jonah Hill…they were in attendance for a Q&A afterwards.

Day 3: Sunday, March 14th.
I tried to get a few interactive events in today so I didn’t start watching movies till later. I was back at the Paramount for Mr. Nice and Elektra Luxx. Mr. Nice was the true story of Howard Marks, a British drug smuggler. Elektra Luxx is the sequel to Sebastian Gutierrez’s Women in Trouble starring Carla Gugino, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Malin Akerman, Adrianne Palicki, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and many more…most of them were in attendance which kind of saved the night because the projector stopped working before the end of the film.

Day 4: Monday, March 15th.
To make up for the day before, I watched 6 movies today, yes 6. I started off with a film I really wanted to see, Pelada…and it was amazing! 2 Americans travel the world playing pick up soccer games. I sat next to the 2 player-travellers in the film. It’s my favorite film of the festival so far. I tried to get into Tiny Furniture at the Ritz, but again it was full, so I saw Beijing Taxi followed by American: The Bill Hicks Story. Beijing Taxi was a stale documentary about a couple taxi drivers in Beijing before and during the Winter Olympics. American: The Bill Hicks Story is the story of comedian Bill Hicks who became more of an activist as his career progressed. I went to a smaller venue, The Hideout, to watch a Finnish film called Living Room of the Nation which put cameras in a few Finnish homes to see how stories unravelled through everyday life. Then I went back to the Paramount for the world premiere of MacGruber, the SNL skit starring Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Ryan Phillippe, and Val Kilmer. It was actually hilarious, I’ll write a full review soon. Elektra Luxx was played again tonight since it broke down the night before, so I caught the ending of that.

Day 5: Tuesday, March 16th.
This was the ending of the interactive and film conference so I watched some internet related films. I started off the morning with Erasing David, a British filmmaker sets off to disappear for a month and hires 2 private investigators to try and find him using only publicly available data. It’s about the state of our privacy in society today. Then I set up shop at the Paramount again and watched 3 films back to back. I couldn’t handle the last one (Skateland) and will have to catch it later. I heard good things about it so I’m sure it’ll get picked up. I started off with Hood to Coast, a film documenting a few teams during this epic marathon from Mt. Hood to the coast of Oregon. Followed by The People vs. George Lucas, another documentary about the angry fans of Star Wars. And finished the night with Harry Brown, a great in your face thriller starring Michael Caine.

So that was 14 films and 1 twice. There’s hardly any time in between to eat! I still have 4 more days but I’m probably going to see less and less movies. I took most of today off to try and get some work done in the middle of the week and I’m planning on catching the other side of the South By Southwest festival, the music. Tonight, I plan on seeing Get Low, Cargo, and maybe another film. For the next couple days I will try and see The Runaways, Monsters, Higanjima, World’s Largest, The Red Chapel, and maybe Canal Street Madam, The Parking Lot Movie, and Mars.

Are you guys interested in any of the movies I’ve seen, am trying to see, or other films of the South By Southwest festival? Let us know!

Tags: Adrianne Palicki, American: The Bill Hicks Story, Beijing Taxi, Canal Street Madam, Cargo, Carla Gugino, Cyrus, Elektra Luxx, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Erasing David, Get Low, Harry Brown, Higanjima, Hood to Coast, John C. Reily, Jonah Hill, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kristen Wiig, Living Room of the Nation, MacGruber, Malin Akerman, Mars, Marwencol, Maya Rudolph, Michael Caine, Micmacs, Monsters, Mr. Nice, Pelada, Ryan Phillippe, Sebastian Gutierrez, Skateland, South By Southwest, The Parking Lot movie, The People vs. George Lucas, The Red Chapel, The Runaways, Tiny Furniture, Val Kilmer, Will Forte, Women in Trouble, World's Largest
Posted in Film Festivals and Conventions, South By Southwest 2010 | 2 Comments »

My South By Southwest Film Plan

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Right now I’m on my flight from San Francisco to Austin, TX. It was delayed an hour which gave me even more time to finally read through the films that will be screened at South By Southwest and try to plot a plan of which films I’ll be watching. I love film festivals, you can jump from film to film and see a month’s worth of movies in a week (sometimes even 2 months!). I love figuring out the logistics of which movies are must see, which ones are only being shown once or twice, and which films I should skip to catch up with old friends or catch some of the music shows at this festival. Needless to say, it’ll be intense!

Day 1
Totally missed. I flew into Austin on the first day of the festival so I’ll be missing the opening film which was my most anticipated film…Kick-Ass. I’ll just have to catch it with everyone else or hopefully catch an advance screening in San Francisco (wink wink Lionsgate Films).

Day 2
If I wake up early enough, I’ll try and catch The Freebie, a film about a young couple who gives each other a free night with someone else.

Mars – an animated romantic comedy about astronauts and robots travelling towards the red planet. I want to know if the astronauts and robots fall in love with each other or stick to their own.

Cyrus The Duplass brothers comedy starring John C. Reily, Marisa Tomei, and Jonah Hill. John C. Reily’s character hooks up with the ridiculously hot Molly (Marisa Tomei) who has an adult son (Johnah Hill). Kind of sounds like a sequel to Stepbrothers..we’ll see.

There’s also a Super Secret screening…we’ll see if it’s worth going to.

Day 3
I think I’ll take the beginning of the day to attend panels and hang out with my interactive festival friends (I am a developer at heart). Also, Facebook is having a developer’s garage so I’ll attend that and hopefully code some great stuff for the facebook users of advancescreenings.com.

The movies of the day will either be Mr. Nice, a true story about Britain’s most wanted man, or Pelada, the other side of soccer and either Futurestates, which seems to be a collection of short stories about different economic scenarios, or The Parking Lot Movie – the title is exactly what it sounds like. So many options!

Day 4
If I didn’t get to catch Pelada (the soccer movie) I could catch it this morning. Followed by Tiny Furniture and Canal Street Madam or American: Bill Hicks. Tiny Furniture is a tragicomedy about a 22-year-old who comes home from college just as she went in – with no skills, no love life, and a lot of free time. Canal Street Madam is about Jeanette Maier trying to re-invent herself after her infamous family-run brothel is raided by the FBI. American: Bill Hicks is an animated film about the true life story of the outlaw comic who tried to save the world. The highlight of this night is MacGruber, yes a full length movie of the SNL sketch staring Will Forte.

Day 5
One of the movies that I missed on the first day is showing again today. It’s called Erasing David and sounds very interesting and very fitting for this interactive/film festival. Filmmaker David Bond disappears for a month and hires two of the world’s top private investigators to track him down using only publicly available data. Sad to say, it conflicts with a film called Like a Pascha about the largest brothel in Europe…Canal Street Madam is playing again and then the highlight is Harry Brown starring Michael Caine.

Day 6
I’ll start off this film with another one I missed on the first day, World’s Largest. It’s about all those weird roadside attractions you see in tiny towns while driving cross country. If I can squeeze it in, I’ll see Cherry, a film about a virgin who drops out of college and encounters an older woman and her underage daughter, before the film of the night, Get Low starring Robert Duvall and Bill Murray.

Day 7
To be honest, I’m excited to check out Austin Carniville which is March 18, 19, and 20 (Day 7, 8, and 9). Luckily, the films during the day don’t intrigue me too much. The movie of the night is The Runaways starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, I’ll either catch that or Mars and Like a Pascha.

Day 8
I can catch a bunch of films today in case I missed them earlier in the week including Canal Street Madam, The Parking Lot Movie, Pelada, and Mars…or go to the Carniville again .

Day 9
THE FINAL DAY!, World’s Largest plays again as well as Hood to Coast, Tiny Furniture, and American Bill Hicks.

That’s the plan…let’s see what actually happens!