News from Slackerwood: waiting for Rita
Filed under: Toronto, Family Films, Newsstand
Here in Austin, we're all waiting to see how serious the storms will get as a result of Hurricane Rita. The city is overflowing with Houston evacuees as well as visitors for the Austin City Limits music festival. Hopefully some of us can distract ourselves with film-related news and the fine selection of movies available around town this week. (And what does Harrison Ford have to do with any of this, other than that I will use the slightest excuse to post his photo? Find out after the jump.)
This week's Austin Chronicle includes a third column about the movie The Cassidy Kids, which completed shooting in Austin last month. The series of three columns by Spencer Parsons provides an interesting look at local filmmaking, particularly the collaboration between Burnt Orange Productions and the University of Texas Film Institute. I've been reading about the production at Bryan Poyser's blog, Back to Me, which contains some good insights about low-budget filmmaking. Poyser produced and co-wrote The Cassidy Kids and also wrote and directed Dear Pillow, a bare-bones-budget local movie that I enjoyed very much.
Also from Burnt Orange Productions, the Austin-shot movie The Quiet premiered at Toronto International Film Festival to favorable buzz. Variety describes it as "a Lifetime movie on crack" while Ain't It Cool News praises its look as "neo-expressionist, all cool desolate blues and streetlight creeping in like smoke through half-drawn venetian blinds." Intrigued yet? The Quiet stars Elisha Cuthbert and Edie Falco and is directed by Jamie Babbit, perhaps best known for But I'm a Cheerleader. [via Austin360]
Local film events:
- Alamo's Rolling Roadshow will show three outdoor movies in Republic Square Park in the next few weeks to provide free entertainment for hurricane evacuees as well as raise donations for hurricane relief. The fun begins on Tuesday 9/27 with The Goonies. However, I am looking forward to the 10/4 movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is a fantastic movie to watch outside with a big crowd. No word yet on the 10/11 movie. The movies begin at dusk. Bring blankets or lawn chairs because the ground gets damp.
- Rolling Roadshow is also co-hosting (along with Ain't It Cool News) a sneak preview of the most sneak-previewed movie ever, Serenity, on Wed. 9/28 with cast members Summer Glau and Jewel Staite in attendance. Visit the Roadshow site for more information on getting tickets: it's probably too late to get the free tickets you could earn from writing a love poem to the cast members, but there are other, less painful ways to get into the event.
- Austin Film Society kicks off its 20th anniversary screenings next week on Wed. 9/28 with Au Hazard Balthasar, the 1966 French film directed by Robert Bresson. Admission is free for AFS members but you must reserve tickets in advance here.
- Austin isn't the only Central Texas town with a film festival this month. The Seguin Film and Arts Festival will take place 9/30 - 10/ 2 and is a short drive from Austin. The schedule consists mainly of short films. However, the festival begins with The Great Waldo Pepper and includes a screening of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) with proceeds used to create a future award named after horror-film art director and Seguinite Robert A. Burns.
- Finally, I must make a confession about one of the movies I am embarassed to say I watched repeatedly during the formative childhood years: The Incredible Mr. Limpet. We had the movie on videotape, and it was one of the rare movies my parents found suitable for all of us ... excuses, excuses. Should I try to see it again to discover if I can stand it at all? Because I have the opportunity: Alamo Downtown is showing this 1964 semi-animated Don Knotts vehicle on Saturday 9/24 at noon, with free admission. I think I should sleep in, myself, or watch Finding Nemo again on DVD instead.
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