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!

If you've had your fill of the formulaic Hollywood films that populate theaters in January and February, listen up. Benten Films, the distribution company run by film writers, has released a double-DVD set of Aaron Katz films for you: Quiet City and Dance Party, USA. Quiet City, which premiered at SXSW last year and helped trigger the whole "mumblecore" dialogue, is the standout film of the two, but Dance Party, USA also has some lovely moments.

Quiet City is an exquisitely filmed fairytale of New York, centering around a pair of twentysomethings. Jamie (Erin Fisher) arrives in NYC from Atlanta to spend the weekend with a flaky friend who never shows up to meet her. She asks directions from a stranger on the street, Charlie (Cris Lankenau), and they end up having dinner together, discovering they get along very well. They spend a day having fun around the city. You can't watch a man and woman who become fast friends like this without wondering whether they'll hook up, which provides a small amount of suspense. But you get so caught up watching these people and their friends that the romantic potential hardly seems to matter most of the time.

After several of their shorts played Sundance to acclaim, David and Nathan Zellner make their feature-length debut at this year's festival with Goliath, playing Sundance as part of the Spectrum selection. David wrote, directed and starred in Goliath; Nathan produced, edited, and played a pivotal role on-camera. The Zellners spoke with Cinematical about classic pet movies like Old Yeller, the acting applications of used medical equipment, and what they have in common with their peers in the so-called 'mumblecore' movement. As David explains, Goliath starts with a very simple event: "It's about a man; his cat has gone missing, and that kind of sends him into a tailspin. ..."

This interview, like all of Cinematical's podcast offerings, is now available through iTunes; if you'd like, you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:

This year saw a lot of notice paid to the film movement known as Mumblecore, but it's still low enough on the radar that its members -- including filmmakers Andrew Bujalski, the Duplass Brothers and Joe Swanberg -- are likely still pretty approachable human beings. Of course, that doesn't mean that their biggest fan can easily meet them. While these very indie filmmakers aren't celebrities, their most devout follower, Erin Scherer, lives too far away and is apparently too poor to pay her own way to simply locate the Mumblecore lot, travel to where they're at and pay them a visit. The difficulty isn't stopping her from trying, though. Scherer, a filmmaker and video blogger best known for her monologue "How Mumblecore Saved My Life," has set up a website asking for donations in order to fund her trip to the South by Southwest Film Festival in March, where she apparently will have the opportunity to meet with indieWIRE blogger and festival programmer Matt Dentler, as well as whatever Mumblecore representatives are available. The site, titled GrantErinsWish.com, features some videos of her explaining her predicament and begging for money.

So far, according to the updates on her site, Scherer has only collected $55.00. That's a lot less than the $3200 she needs by March 5, 2008, the date she heads down to Texas for the festival. While I don't completely condone giving a fangirl charity when there are more important causes in the world, I do like the idea that you can purchase t-shirts and other merchandise from her CafePress site, so that you don't have to feel like you simply gave the money away. The merch does, however, state the cute-yet-implicit declaration, "I helped Erin get to SXSW and all I got was this stupid t-shirt." Keep in mind, that if she does not raise the full amount, she will still be going to SXSW -- she's apparently already paid for the trip and is presently in debt -- so you won't likely be receiving a refund. However, if you've had your own dreams of meeting your idol(s) and think it's a good cause, or at least an endearing one (heck, even if you just pity her for all I care), feel free to do with your own money what you wish.

[via The Reeler]

UPDATE: Despite the fact that her current total is still only $55, Sherer has decided to up her amount needed another $400-500.

A couple of film critics decided to take matters into their own hands and start their own DVD distribution company -- that's the way to promote indie films you think need to be seen! Aaron Hillis, who writes at Cinephiliac and who himself is a filmmaker (Fish Kill Flea) and Andrew Grant, who writes at Like Anna Karina's Sweater, have founded Benten Films, which will distribute indie films and world cinema in North America. James Rocchi interviewed Grant and Hillis earlier this month about the new company as part of his Rocchi Review podcast. Benten Films is part of Ryko Distribution, which is able to distribute DVDs nationally in big stores (and through Amazon) so these films will be widely available.

The first DVD being released by Benten Films is LOL, Joe Swanberg's second feature. You might recall that his latest film, Hannah Takes the Stairs, is being released by IFC next month. Karina Longworth reviewed LOL at SXSW last year (we flipped a coin for the review and I lost, sadly) and called it "most remarkable for the way it shackles the sex drives of its protagonists to their digital toys." If you haven't seen any of Swanberg's films, check out Eat My Shorts: The Mumblecore Crowd where I linked to Thanks for the ADD along with some similar shorts. I'm looking forward to seeing LOL on DVD when it hits the streets August 28 -- and the extras look good too, including commentary tracks and another short called Hissy Fits. Keep an eye out for future Benten Films DVDs, which currently include The Guatemalan Handshake, Quiet City and Dance Party, USA.

Where's the line between reviewer and distributor? What's it like to literally put your money where your mouth is? And have new platfroms of distribution actually made it harder to get films in front of audiences? And what is 'Mumblecore," anyway? This edition of The Rocchi Review features a duo uniquely qualified to answer those questions and others, Andrew Grant and Aaron Hillis of Benten Films; Andrew Grant is also the filmblogger behind Like Anna Karina's Sweater, while Aaron reviews films for publications from The Village Voice to Premiere. You can download the entire podcast right here -- and we hope you enjoy.