Yes, yes, I'm still in Austin. I'm like that annoying loser who refuses to leave the party even though your girlfriend is clearly vacuuming and it's slowly getting sunny outside. (I actually stayed a few days longer so I could visit with some good friends, if you must know!) Anyway, it just dawned on me that even though we've brought you tons of SXSW coverage, you're still missing out on one very important component: The intro shorts! Every festival has 'em. They're brief mini-flicks that introduce the festival, credit the sponsors, and basically set the tone for the screening. (Sometimes.)

SXSW has always had some good "intro shorts" (my favorite is an old, strange one with Jeff Goldblum), but this year they were particularly amusing. They were put together by Mike Mitchell, Kent Osborne, Dan Brown, and Charlie Sotelo (among others) -- and through the magical power of "embedding," you can enjoy them without visiting some grungy other website. We'll start with my favorite:


Obviously this is a spoof of good ol' Glengarry Glen Ross, but by the time the film festival was winding down, me and my movie-geek posse were quoting this short non-stop and chuckling like morons. ("Brass balls!" Ha!) Check out the rest of the promos right after the jump!

Later this month we're getting our next helping of the green, health-promoting ogre, the parfait-loving donkey, the bubbly Fiona and the cute yet sneaky Puss in Boots. But time is a-ticking and to keep up with this Shrek-every-three-years schedule, DreamWorks is already gearing up for Shrek 4 to come out in 2010. In March, Christopher Campbell shared that the next sequel will be in 3D, as part of DreamWorks' plan to only release features with the extra dimension as of 2009. Tim Sullivan has already penned a script for the sequel, which has also gotten a rewrite by Josh Klausner, scribe of the horror film The 4th Floor.

Speeding ahead, The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Mike Mitchell is currently in negotiations to direct the next installment. The director has a varied, but applicable resume for the task -- he helmed the original Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, some television animation like an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants and my personal favorite -- the superhero high school movie, Sky High. I'd rather see him tackle a sequel for Will Stronghold, but Shrek's got a lot more box office power out there -- after the first film got an impressive gross of $484.4 million worldwide, the second did almost doubly well with $920.7 million. Whether the next two sequels do as well, that remains to be seen. I'm just wondering how long this franchise will continue. Will we get Shrek 9 in 2025? It's been Mike Myers' main gig for years now, so I wouldn't be entirely surprised.