SXSW, 3/22.

First, the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown is moving. Wiley Wiggins has the news and Reel Distraction shows us what it might look like in its new digs.

"Wandering round Austin, you could be in today's hip downtown-anywhere - not just Los Angeles and New York, but Park City, Prague, Moscow or Honolulu, all of which I've visited to attend film festivals, and all of which have convinced me that provincialism, for better and worse, is on its way out," writes Ella Taylor in the LA Weekly. "The lone blue spot on Texas' redder-than-red map, Austin is the state's multi-culti liberal oasis, and nowhere more than at SXSW, which attracts thousands to its annual three-pronged festival." And she saw films. The focus of her report, naturally, is Hannah Takes the Stairs, the "entertainingly skittish piece about a romantically confused playwright" and this year's standard-bearer for the "mumblecore movement," a casually related group of films that "speak to a fragile culture of impermanence and addled identity crisis."

Updated.

More on Hannah from Rumsey Taylor at Not Coming to a Theater Near You: "[D]espite how sophomoric you may find its characters, or how indifferent you may be to their everyday conflicts, your response is simply one against the nine responsible for the making of this film."

Speaking of Joe Swanberg, the Austin Chronicle's Spencer Parsons tells the story behind (and links to) a most amusing prank he pulled on Quiet City director Aaron Katz.

A great string of highlights from Michael Tully.

Even though he was cut from the final version, the Boston Phoenix's Gerald Peary still finds Manufacturing Dissent "an engrossing, and convincing, indictment of [Michael] Moore's shady, manipulative tactics as a documentarian. And it shows him to be a thin-skinned, selfish-minded human being, with a dark history of screwing his friends on the left."

New reviews at Cinematical:

• James Rocchi: "Sisters has De Palma's original story and credits him, but a lot of the film's look, feel and sensibility are on loan from that other avatar of 70s horror, David Cronenberg."

• "Basically, me and Severance go way back," writes Scott Weinberg. "But what I remember most from that first screening way back in Toronto is this: 'Damn, this is a fun movie.'"

• "[Y]ou don't have to be Canadian or a fan of the show to get a kick out of Trailer Park Boys," advises Jette Kernion. "However, you do have to enjoy drug, alcohol and strip-club humor." Also, Running With Arnold "doesn't offer audiences much new information about the actor-turned-politician." And Jette posts photos she snapped at the festival.

In the Austin Chronicle, Toddy Burton talks with The Lather Effect writer/director Sarah Kelly and star Connie Britton.

Matt Dentler notes that a few Audience Awards were presented after the big awards night on Tuesday: Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher's Dirty Country in the "24 Beats Per Second" category and Marcy Garriott's Inside the Circle in the "Lone Star States" category. To review, then, the full list.

At AICN, a slew of reviews from Psychedelic.

"[R]oughly everybody that was in Austin last week is going to be in Florida for the 9th Annual Sarasota Film Festival in mid-April," notes David Lowery. "The just-announced lineup includes Hannah Takes the Stairs, Quiet City, Silver Jew, Great World of Sound, Kurt Cobain About A Son, and also, in the shorts programs, Some Analog Lines and The Outlaw Son."

Online viewing tip. Tamara Krinsky talks with Matt Dentler and Gregg Araki.

Update: The Hannah team's SXSW trailers are online. Download to own.

Posted by dwhudson at March 22, 2007 10:21 AM