SXSW Fest Films Announced

wireless_mad

For the last 22 years, gazillions of stinky, delusional musicians have descended upon Austin, Texas in March to join the native population of stinky, delusional musicians in pursuing their pipe-dreams of rock n’ roll stardom and gratuitous groupie-banging at the South By South West Conference (SXSW for the acronymically inclined). The Film Festival portion of SXSW had traditionally taken a back seat to its bed-headed, girl pants-wearing effeminate indie-rock cousin, having neither the industry cache of Sundance nor the paparazzi glitz of Cannes (France and Texas might as well be on opposite poles). But over the last few years the SXSW Film Festival has come into its own — mouth — no wait, that was me (3 points!); as Sundance has devolved into nothing more than an excuse to do shit-loads cocaine (like we needed one) and for Fox Searchlight and Lionsgate to trot out their faux indie fare (rehashed 80’s teen sex comedies infused with quirk and annoying zoom shots in the case of the former, after-school-specials infused with hot interracial sex in the case of the latter) – and Cannes is chock-full of icky French people (Fact: French men don’t wash their balls and French women all have gonorrhea) – more and more, the hipster cinephile set is viewing SXSW as the alternative to the alternative to the alternative, festival wise.

And the industry is starting to notice. Last year the food-loving Hermanos Weinstein chose SXSW as the place to kick off the marketing blitzkrieg for their HUGELY successful GRINDHOUSE films (and by hugely successful, we mean the exact opposite of hugely successful). This year, actual movie studio Sony will premiere an actual entire movie at SXSW, namely director Robert Luketic’s 21, starring Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne, and Kevin Spacey — some of whom are actual movie stars.

21 — besides being the age at which white women are no longer attractive — is an adaptation of the Ben Mezrich nonfi tome “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions,” which is about… well I think you can figure it out from the title. Pic is set to bow in theaters on March 28.

While the entire filmic line-up has yet to be announced, 2008’s SXSW also touts impressive offerings such as Michael Radford’s FLAWLESS; UK hit RUN FATBOY RUN, starring that English dude from all those English movies, directed by multi-talent David ****ing Schwimmer (!!); and the AWESOME documentary DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH about sci-fi icon/word ninja Harlan Ellison (whom I’ve had brunch with, because that’s just how I roll).

__________________