janet pierson 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.

The latest film by Andrew Bujalski, Beeswax had its U.S. premiere at SXSW on Monday. You might remember Bujalski's earlier features: Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation. The term "mumblecore", which describes a certain kind of low-budget indie made by a certain group of people, became popular after an interview Bujalski gave about Mutual Apprecation. But I'd like to talk about Beeswax without mentioning the term and all its associated baggage. Beeswax is a good movie that does some surprising things in a quiet way.

The story in Beeswax takes a backseat to the characters and the way they communicate. Two sisters, Jeannie (Tilly Hatcher) and Lauren (Maggie Hatcher), are sharing a house in Austin. Jeannie is co-owner of a vintage clothing store, and the other owner and former friend, Amanda, is threatening to sue her or possibly buy her out. Jeannie seeks legal advice from an old friend, Merrill (Alex Karpovsky), who's preparing for his bar exam, but a barely mentioned, possibly romantic past colors their interactions. Lauren is trying to help her sister out, but is also trying to get a teaching job, which is complicated by the fact that she's interviewing with Lee (Nathan Zellner), and Lauren just broke up with Lee's brother Scott (David Zellner).

Wow, this news threw me for a loop. According to indieWIRE, our mutual friend Matt Dentler, producer of the South By Southwest Film Festival since 2004, is leaving his post (and Austin) to move to New York City, where he will head the marketing and programming operations of Cinetic Media's new digital rights management unit. Replacing Dentler as SXSW producer will be Janet Pierson, long-time independent film producer and board member of the Austin Film Society.

I've never met Pierson (well, that I know of ... you do get introduced to so many people at film fests, it's hard to keep track of everyone sometimes ... ) but I feel like I know her, from watching the documentary Reel Paradise, which she made with her husband, John. That film documented the year the Piersons and their two children spent living on a remote island in Fiji running the only movie theater on the island. I also wrote last year about John Pierson smacking down on Michael Moore, whose film Roger & Me was sold by the Piersons to Warner Brothers for the then-unheard-of sum of $3 million.

Janet Pierson has fantastic indie street cred, she's a passionate lover of independent film, and I'm sure she'll do a stellar job heading up SXSW. We at Cinematical extend our warmest welcome to her, and wish our friend Matt great luck and joy in his new endeavor. Matt is one of our favorite indie-film-world people, and we hope that he'll come back to SXSW every year to just enjoy the fest for a change, rather than running to and fro introducing films and shepherding talent around. We'll save you a seat at the Alamo, Matt, and there's a five-dollar milkshake with your name on it when we see you there.

*Update: Check out indieWIRE's well-informed piece on Cinetic's plans for Dentler and Pierson on stepping into Dentler's shoes.