Some of the films I’ve seen over the course of SXSW include: Source Code, Viva Riva!, Super, Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, Square Grouper, 13 Assassins, Paul, Win WIn, and the documentary on SXSW appropriately titled Outside Industry: The Story of SXSW.
Source Code director Duncan Jones told me that there are six source codes in the film with a couple of deviations running off of those that travel in parallel universes. What I am talking about will only be clear upon seeing Source Code, which opens in April.
Super, directed by James Gunn, wants to be Kick Ass but the direction doesn’t bring the level of farce to the forefront. Instead Super gives us scene after scene of religiously frustrated cuckolded husband Rainn WIlson dressing up as a super hero and being cruel and mean for the sake of cruelty. He’s a bit of a psycho actually and Super constantly showers the audiences with violent scenes with little of the humor it promises. At the post screening Q&A someone asked co-star Ellen Page what super power she would like to have in real life. Page replied “The power to digest glutton.” Asked the same question Wilson, quite keeping in character said “That’s a stupid fucking question.”
Conan O’Brien slayed the audience at his Q&A with snappy answers. Here is a Youtube video of Conan addressing the audience posted by Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeff Wells.
Later that same day the screening of 13 Assassins unrolled without director Takashi Miike in attendance. Miike wasn’t able to leave Japan after that country’s horrible natural disaster, itself the subject of quite a few conversations at SXSW. 13 Assassins ends with a bloody 45-minute battle between the 13 protags of the film and an army of 200. Walking from 13 A to The Future by Miranda July I happened upon a line where the standees were being given free bar-b-q. Similarly today there was a Fed Ex truck handing out free hummus and falafels. If you buy food here in Austin during SXSW you’re not doing something right.
The Future was packed and I couldn’t get it so it was back to the Paramount for the US premiere of Paul (opening Friday). Simon Pegg, Greg Mottola, Nick Frost and Kristen Wiig gave the audience all they could want in the way of laughs and good vibes during the Q&A although the film itself only works some of the time.
- Michael Bergeron