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SXSW in 60 Seconds: Thursday, March 19, 2009
Filed under: Independent », SXSW », Festival Reports », Cinematical Indie »
I returned home from Austin yesterday and am still suffering from SXSW Separation Anxiety. Shawn Levy of The Oregonian sums it up well: "Frankly, music people are nuts compared to the film people (who are nuts compared to the interactive people). And as Austin seems genuinely nuts itself, the whole thing works out nicely."
SXSW kept rolling along, even without me and Shawn. While downtown streets were filled with crowds and music, the film venues had somewhat lighter attendance, making it easier for out of town visitors and local residents to catch up with repeat screenings of buzz titles like Alexander the Last, Goodbye Solo, My Suicide, Made in China, and Humpday.
Tonight, an attendee exulted over getting into the Playboy party and seeing Jane's Addiction, while a film critic observed "people in pirate gear blasting 'Kickstart My Heart' in front of [the] Austin Hilton," and another writer "accidentally had another five-movie day." And you wonder why some of us are addicted to Twitter?
Cinematical Coverage. Eugene Novikov called The Slammin' Salmon, the latest project from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, "90 minutes of truly inspired comic mayhem." Speaking of mayhem, this critic felt Australian revenge flick The Horseman was brutally effective: "It's a testicle for a vagina instead of an eye for an eye."
Eric D. Snider says that Craig Johnson's True Adolescents is "an acerbic but realistic coming-of-age story ... the tone gradually shifting from hipster-funny to hipster-introspective." Mark Duplass and Melissa Leo star. Jette Kernion liked Tommy Pallotta's documentary American Prince even more than American Boy, the 1978 Martin Scorsese doc that featured the same subject, Steven Prince, "probably because I preferred watching the older Prince over the younger one."
You can check out all of our SXSW 2009 coverage right here.
SXSW Review: True Adolescents
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Independent », New Releases », SXSW », Theatrical Reviews », Festival Reports »
The genre of comedies about scruffy, directionless 30-year-old man-boys has occasionally produced a sub-genre where those men are pitted against actual young people, either as contrast (when the teenagers are more mature than the adults) or so they can wallow in their juvenile behavior together. We got a big-studio taste of that with last year's Role Models, and now here's True Adolescents, the indie version, which means it has more contemplative moments and a lot of mumbling.
Mark Duplass, already a recognizable face in the so-called mumblecore movement, stars as Sam, a Seattle slacker whose rock band is, at least in his mind, always on the verge of hitting it big. To an impartial observer, it's more like he's unemployed. After his girlfriend throws him out, he crashes with his aunt Sharon (Melissa Leo), who's sympathetic but realistic about Sam's need to grow up and get serious.
Sharon is divorced and has custody of her son, 14-year-old Oliver (Bret Loehr), who looks at Internet porn and behaves in a surly fashion -- "he's in his 'greasy little bastard' phase," Sam says. Oliver and his best friend, Jake (Carr Thompson) ("Little Lord Fauntleroy," Sam calls him) have been looking forward to a weekend camping trip with Oliver's father; when he flakes out, Sam is conscripted to take the boys himself.
As farcical as that scenario may sound -- they're on a collision course with wackiness! -- first-time writer/director Craig Johnson keeps the humor down-to-earth. The film is an acerbic but realistic coming-of-age story, with all three male characters experiencing some growth over the course of the trip, the tone gradually shifting from hipster-funny to hipster-introspective.
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