for the love of movies Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The die-hards and the locals kept trudging into screenings on Friday, the penultimate day of the SXSW film festival, no doubt dodging sidewalk-jamming musicians. Reports filtered in that there was a massive crowd at the Austin Convention Center to see the late afternoon screening of the critically-debated doc Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo, and I imagine plenty of people showed up in the evening for the hilarious and unexpectedly poignant Best Worst Movie.

Cinematical Coverage. Yours truly wrote about Gerald Peary's documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. I enjoyed the chronological overview, but the academic approach made me feel like I was watching a term paper. The inaugural broadcast of The Cinematical Roundtable featured writers Drew McWeeny, Scott Weinberg, and William Goss talking about four SXSW presentations that will be hitting theaters in the coming months: The Haunting in Connecticut, Observe and Report, Drag Me to Hell, and The Hurt Locker.

Two films that played at SXSW opened in theaters today; Eugene Novikov thought I Love You, Man was a "sweet, amusing, and perfectly acceptable comedy," but was especially noteworthy because Paul Rudd "begins to stake out his territory as a comedian and a leading man." Erik Davis extolled the virtues of Cary Joji Fukunaga's drama Sin Nombre, both in his republished Sundance review and in his reminder notice -- with trailer!

You can check out all of our SXSW 2009 coverage by clicking here.

Blog Talk. Now that the festival is almost over, new SXSW Producer Janet Pierson is being hailed for the outstanding job she did. Anne Thompson has a great roundup / photo gallery at Variety, Kim Voynar profiles Pierson at Movie City News, and Eric Kohn talks to Pierson about the film selection process at The Wrap.

(Full disclosure: current Cinematical Managing Editor Scott Weinberg and Cinematical co-founder Karina Longworth, now editor of Spout.com, make brief appearances in this film.)

Some documentaries demand to be seen on the big screen; others are best discovered while channel surfing. Gerald Peary's For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism falls into the latter category.

On the film's official site, Peary declares his doc to be "an unapologetic defense of a profession under siege." It's filled with talking head interviews with critics whose bylines are more familiar than their faces: A.O. Scott, J. Hoberman, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Owen Gleiberman, Kenneth Turan, and many others. It's a treat to see the best-known film critic on the planet, Roger Ebert, give a never-before-seen interview. The sound bites are distinctive, the insider's perspective is refreshing, the historical overview is welcome, and the overall impression is positive.

Here's the sticking point: For the Love of Movies features an academic approach to the subject. Unless you have a great interest in film criticism, it feels like you're watching a term paper. Peary is both a long-time film studies professor at Suffolk University and a film critic for The Boston Phoenix, an alternative weekly, and is obviously not the first film critic to direct a movie.

Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut were critics before they made movies; so were fellow French New Wave directors Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette. The difference is that they were younger men in rebellion; Peary is an older man more interested in defending his longtime colleagues from charges that film criticism is no longer relevant or needed.

Glorious sunshine greeted festival attendees on Monday. The warmer weather pushed more people out onto the streets. Skirts rose along with the temperature, though blue jeans and t-shirts remained the predominant clothing of choice.

Deals. Oscilloscope Laboratories announced that it has acquired North American distribution rights to Gabriel Mendina's The Paranoids, which had its US Premiere at the festival yesterday. The Paranoids is described as an "offbeat comedy" about an aspiring writer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who learns that a childhood friend has produced a very successful TV show in Spain based on the writer's life. Personal chaos ensues. Oscilloscope plans a theatrical release later this year.

Secret (and Not So Secret) Screenings. A large crowd woke up early to see a "super special screening" of Richard Linklater's period romance Me and Orson Welles, starring Zac Efron and Claire Danes. In the evening, another special treat awaited folks who squeezed into the Alamo Ritz: a 16mm print of a film that dare not speak its name (due to legal reasons). Hint: running time was listed as 43 minutes. No wagering, please.

Simultaneously, Jody Hill's Observe and Report, starring Seth Rogen, enjoyed its world premiere at the Paramount Theater. Early word via Tweeter has been very strong. Gerald Peary's doc For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, also debuted. It is, perhaps, too prosaic for a general audience, but it's essential viewing for anyone who wants to be a film critic (and for working film critics, too, for that matter). Bonus: our own Scott Weinberg makes an appearance!

Cinematical Coverage. Eric D. Snider, who never laughs at anything, laughed himself silly at the 20 minutes of footage shown from Sacha Baron Cohen's upcoming Bruno.

After the jump: more links to our coverage, plus some notable coverage on other sites.

Premiering tomorrow at SXSW is this years-in-the-making documentary called For The Love of Movies: A History of American Film Criticism, narrated by Patricia Clarkson and directed by Gerald Peary and Amy Geller. As the current film critic struggles to find a job, an audience and a purpose, this doc -- according to Jeff Wells -- is a "chronicle of magnificent obsessions and magnificent dreams, and a rise-and-fall story covering scores of critics, the entirety of the Hollywood film culture from the '20s to the present, and hundreds if not thousands of movies." Watch the trailer below and keep an eye on the third dude who pops up and let us know if he looks (and sounds) just the wee bit familiar.



Next up is a film I whole-heartedly recommend. A funky, oddly hilarious experimental flick that simultaneously mocks and sympathizes with the Me Generation, My Suicide follows a technology-obsessed high school student who decides to off himself on camera as part of a student project. Though it's still way early, I wouldn't be surprised if the film's lead actor, newcomer Gabriel Sunday, walks away with an acting award or if the film itself takes the audience award. Check out the trailer below ... and more SXSW trailers over here.



I also want to take this time to spit out a reminder that you at home can enjoy a whole lot of the South By Southwest Film Festival right now. IFC currently has four films On Demand via IFC Fest Direct, including the much buzzed-about Alexander the Last (which I was just about to watch myself), Medicine for Melancholy, Zift and Paper Covers Rock. Alternatively, you can watch popular films from last year's SXSW Fest -- like the Potter doc We Are Wizards and The Lost Coast -- on Hulu for free, courtesy of Cinetic Media. There! Plenty to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon, huh?

SXSW jumped their own gun last night by announcing their line-up of film titles for this year's festival in Austin, TX.

Right around the ides of March, we'll be treated to the world premieres of:

• Best Worst Movie (all about the cult surrounding Troll 2 and supposedly containing an appearance by none other than our own Scott Weinberg),
• South By staple Joe Swanberg's latest, Alexander the Last,
• Gerald Perry's For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism (Scott's in this too? WTF?!),
• John Hamburg's bromantic comedy I Love You, Man,
• Gary Hustwit's new doc, Objectified (go queue up Helvetica already!),
• Jody Hill's Observe and Report (because we can't all love Paul Blart: Mall Cop),

...and much, much more! Personally, I'm also psyched to catch up with Sundance hits like Grace, Moon, We Live in Public, Humpday, and a couple of others -- not to mention the U.S. premiere of The Hurt Locker and a special anniversary screening of Office Space (yes, Austinites, another one). All I'd otherwise beg for is 500 Days of Summer, but who am I to look a gift fest in the mouth?

SXSW '09 runs from March 13-21, and you can expect plenty of coverage around these parts.