We checked in after our 20-hour car ride from Madison to the cheapest hotel near downtown Austin, and within 20 minutes of arriving we were again rushing out the door, dripping from much-needed showers and scarcely dressed for the uncharacteristically drizzly Texas weather. We dashed into a frenzy of conference-goers and film fans desperate to register for the ID badges that would admit them to screenings over the course of the next week. Done there, we were off to the Paramount Theater for the premiere screening of ""I Love You, Man,"" nearly tripping over the red carpet into Jason Segel, who was posing awkwardly five feet in front of us for a photograph.
A week of stellar flicks, chance celebrity encounters and breakneck dashes from screening to screening. That's the South By Southwest Film Festival, a whirlwind ride through some of the best that filmmakers have to offer.
The aforementioned Paramount Theater is something like the Orpheum here in Madison, only with a capacity over a thousand seats; it's used on this special occasion as a film venue to make room for the droves of people here at SXSW to see the big Hollywood premieres: ""I Love You, Man,"" Seth Rogen's dark mall-cop comedy ""Observe and Report"" and Sam Raimi's return to horror, ""Drag Me To Hell.""
""Observe and Report"" is depraved and dark, showcasing not only the great direction and writing of Jody Hill (""The Foot Fist Way"") but also the acting range that Rogen can have when you give him free reign over a character that is psychotically violent and off his meds. Paul Blart this ain't; expect as much cringing as laughter.
Blockbusters are really in the minority at a festival like this, though. Sam Rockwell stunned in the sci-fi character piece ""Moon,"" a Sundance favorite that follows Rockwell's Sam Bell after he's been stranded on a mining operation on the moon for the last three years. Employing miniatures for the moon's surface and Rockwell as the only breathing cast member (Kevin Spacey voices a robot), the film was made for practically nothing but could easily be one of the best looking and most thought-provoking science fiction films released this year.
All the high-quality films began to get overwhelming after a while—it was nice that many of the screenings were held at the two locations of the Alamo Drafthouse, the legendary Austin theaters where you can kick back and order a Five Dollar Milkshake and a Royale with Cheese from your seat while trailers from blaxploitation films run on a loop before the feature. A unique and fun place for film lovers to see films, the Drafthouse quickly became our home for the festival. With a Tony Stark whisky sour in hand, we watched ""Lesbian Vampire Killers"" and ""Trailers from Hell,"" a collection of laughably bad trailers for obscure films from the '60s and '70s. Yeah, they know how to get asses in seats in Austin, Texas.
The moments of peace in the Drafthouse were short-lived-—there was always another comedy to get to, a local filmmaker to support, a documentary to see. If you love film and don't believe in too much of a good thing, join the frenzy next year.
