SXSW Report: Bernie, Casa de Mi Padre, and Iron Sky

For the last week, Paste has been catching you up on the films of SXSW 2012. Here are three more narrative films we caught there:

Bernie
Like a well-played mystery, director Richard Linklater’s excellent, darkly humorous (and true) story is interspersed with tantalizing interviews of residents of the small east Texas town of Carthage. It’s their recollections about Bernie the local mortician (Jack Black) and his relationship with a rich bitch widow (Shirley MacLaine) that balance out the performances of those two. Matthew McConaughey who plays a sheriff determined to put the sweet and adored Bernie away for murder. Again, Linklater proves fearless in his directing by refusing to remain complacent and formulaic. -Tim Basham

Casa de Mi Padre
Ridiculousness pervades this movie. No one has ever accused Ferrell of being
subtle, and when a talking animatronic white jungle cat shows up, you just sort of nod
and accept your lot, at least for the next hour or so. Everything here is exaggerated and
every joke is exhausted. It makes you wistful for the days when we got Will Ferrell in
smaller doses. Maybe overexposure is the enemy of any comedian. But when you have
the kind of Hollywood power that Casa de mi Padre’s star has, you wish he would use
that power to get great comedy made, instead of indulging in something that reminds us how long it’s been since Ron Burgundy and Ricky Bobby. -Tyler Chase

Iron Sky
Imagine if, at the end of World World II, a large number of Nazis escaped by rocket ship to hide on the dark side of the moon, where they created an attack force to invade America in the year 2018. That is the story behind Iron Sky, a Scandinavian film that was five years and thousands of web hits in the making. A Dr. Strangelove kind of story with a “Hello, Larry” kind of dialogue, the film already had a cult following before ever having been seen. The die-hard cultists will watch and stand loyal, but for most of them it will be through DVD release. -Tim Basham