Two things that really stood out on the day: the film fest crowd is WAAAAY different than the Australian Rules Football guys I’d been hanging out last weekend (the National tournament was in Austin–if you don’t know the sport, YouTube it) which isn’t much of a surprise. But it hit me when a panelist this afternoon made the following reference to people’s arbitrary taste, “Hey, some people hate to watch Star Wars. And some people love to watch the Phantom Menace.” As a joke, it killed. We are not in jockland anymore. And hopefully, I won’t be tempted to de-cleat anyone this weekend.
The second thing: if you can, stay downtown somewhere. You never know when you’ll bump into the Finnish director of a short film who’ll ask you to go pound some beer with him at 1am. That 4-mile drive to the backyard cabin you’re renting can be a buzzkill. Next year I can concentrate on partying.
I went to a couple panels today. The first, “How to Work the Conference,” was a helpful reminder to not be an introverted spaz. The second was called “New Television, New Media” and featured the creators of Netflix’s HEMLOCK GROVE along with an AMC exec. I left my notes in the truck and I’m not gonna walk out and get them, but one of the main takeaways from that panel was that we may be close to a truly “novelistic” media form. Longer than a feature, one writer, one director, no structural restrictions. But even now, a show like HEMLOCK GROVE, which the creators conceived as a 13-hour movie, is still under the thrall of “old” TV practices. For instance, they were required to so a 13-hour long season because the show needs to be packaged as a “TV series” for foreign distribution and not a 13-hour movie. Also, the creators felt that a 42-minute episode was the sweet spot to shoot for, but once production was underway, they were asked to add 10-ish minutes to each episode to fill them out. Despite feeling they were already paced too slowly.
So the dream of a (big-time, mainstream) web-based series approaching a truly new format isn’t quite realized.
Then I adjoined to eat gyros, drink a beer, and play skee-ball.
The opening film of the festival, COFFEE, KILL BOSS is a bit of an AFF darling because the script was a semi-finalist two year ago. It was an up-tempo Ten Little Indians-esque thriller/farce on corporate America that had some strains of 30s/40s crime comedies. Peter Breitmayer as the office asshole was the standout.
The ushers cleared the theater, so I got in line for the next showing at the Paramount Theater, THE ART OF THE STEAL, a heist flick starring Kurt Russell. The badge line stretched from the theater doors, around the corner, down the block, and around the next corner. A massive, massive line.
But good Christ I’m glad that didn’t deter me. THE ART OF THE STEAL (written/directed by Jonathon Sobol) is the best movie I’ve seen in awhile. Slickly made and entertaining and satisfying and flat-out hilarious. And smart in the way that heist movies need to be so you don’t feel cheated. I’m too tired to write anything more profound than MOVIE = GOOD.
(And I have to be up in 6 hours so I can see Shane Black talk about injecting comedy into action scripts. Weeeee!)
By the way, I also took a headfirst dive into twitter today, so you can follow my dumbs musing on the Austin Film Fest via @tylerresmith. Hooray for more timesucks!
Cumulative beer tally:
Southern Tier Pumpkin Ale
Independence Stash IPA
Austin Beerworks Fire Eagle IPA
Independence Brewery Convict Hill Oatmeal Stout
512 Brewing Pecan Porter
Modelo Especial
Full Circle Blur (banana hefe)
Lonestar
Shiner Prickly Pear
Dogfish Head American Beauty
Current *best* TX beer:
(tie) Independence Stash IPA & 512 Pecan Porter
FADE OUT 