Unofficial SXSW 2009: Nerds and noise ordinances
Likewise, as last year’s navigation of badge-less activities showed us, there is no shortage of free and awesome come SXSW time in Austin. In fact, the town is so overloaded with tunage and eyes to watch it that the ultimate marketing experiment is created, party promoters forced to think less free PBR and more, say, PB&J sammies toasted with Elvis prints. Even before the festival proper kicked off, a sweet girl at Beauty Bar was slinging free manicures. Of course I didn’t plan my attack based on the level of free swag I could score. Most of it just sounded... read more
SXSW 2009: Thomas Function Wakes Up Austin
Before Huntsville, Ala.'s Thomas Function took the stage (read: corner of floor) at Headhunters modest porch space last night, I took a quick count. Nineteen. Less than 20 people (including myself) were waiting to see one of the finest examples of power-pop/garage rock the South has to offer right now, and if I were a betting man, I'd say a quarter of them were there to chat and drink cheap beer.... read more
SXSW 2009: Crocodiles Eat Good in the Neighborhood
Crocodiles' guitarist Charles Rowell and vocalist Brandon Welchez have played in bands together in San Diego for nearly a decade, but only started working on this current crop of jagged, psychedelic pop collages as a duo last May. Summer of Hate, due April 28 on Fat Possum, scoops up JAMC fuzz for "I Wanna Kill," but is closer to puttin' on the retro ritz for "Flash of Light." "Songs are super important to us," Welchez explains. "I would never play something onstage in this band that I wouldn't feel comfortable playing on acoustic guitar." After a convincing first of five... read more
SXSW 2009: Chow Report
The other day, I posted a list of my favorite places to eat while in Austin for SXSW. Since then, I've had some valuable feedback from a few trusted locals, and I've also learned that two of the places on my list, sadly, have closed their doors. (So you won't be able to savor those delicious chilaquiles for breakfast at Las Manitas this year, nor that juicy steak at McClusky's. Este es la vida.)But the good thing is that there are plenty of new places I've been tipped off about. Here are a few...... read more
SXSW 2009: Wavves' Secrets for Survival
Scuzzy do wop punk of the moment Wavves' Nathan Williams laid out his SXSW plans while driving to a gig at Phoenix's Trunk Space on Monday. Between Wednesday and Saturday, he and touring drummer Ryan Ulsh will cram in nine shows at various showcases, according to his MySpace page (Williams says there will be 10). Wavves' infectious second album, Wavvves, just got its physical release via Fat Possum this week. Although the San Diego-based Williams comes from a family of musicians, he's never played so many shows in such a short span of time before. Can he keep his growls... read more
SXSW 2009: More movies, music and smokey goodness
The pleasures of SXSW go beyond movies and music. There's also barbecue. After hitting some top spots earlier in the week for this smokey goodness (old standbys like Iron Works and new favorites like Lamberts) I made it over to Stubb's tonight where in addition to BBQ there was delicious live music from BMI's Annual Howdy Texas party. I caught Austin's own David Garza kicking off with the fan favorite "Discoball World" from Euphoria. Garza's tight power trio gave a taste of what to expect at his Continental Club showcase this Saturday. While the two films Sin Nombre (a dramatic mini-epic of a... read more
SXSW Film 2009: Don't Use the M-Word
For good reasons — like the fact that all of Joe Swanberg's features have played here — the annual South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas, has a reputation as the adopted home of mumblecore. The dreaded M-word is used more and more negatively these days, but any term that labels films as diverse as Frownland, LOL, and Mutual Appreciation is a coinage looking for a definition. It was bound to fizzle at some point. The terminology may be disintegrating, but the filmmakers behind these movies are still collaborating and still growing. This year, Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha,... read more
SXSW 2009: Moon and New World Order
I suppose you never appreciate your hometown as much as when out-of-towners spout out about its greatness. That's the way it is in Austin. I DO live in the best city on earth. Especially during SXSW!MoonThis film has two things going for it before it even begins. 1) Its star, Sam Rockwell, is a talented, sometimes underrated, actor, and 2) it's a sci-fi flick, full of cool shots of moon rovers with the big, blue earth in the background, talking computers, life endangerment and extraterrestrial mysteries.Sometime in the future, Sam Bell (Rockwell) is just finishing up a three-year contract for... read more
True/False Film Festival Wrap-Up
The thing about movies is that they keep making more of them. And the thing about festivals is that there's always another one around the corner. So before we kick off Paste's adventures through South by Southwest in Austin, I'd be remiss if I didn't let you know how the True/False festival in Columbia turned out. True/False annually screens nonfiction films in the center of the country, and the event has such a convivial atmosphere that it lends an agreeable aura to the movies on display, even the ones that might not generate much of a glow on... read more
Our Favorite Things About Cayamo
Several Paste staffers are out of the office this week covering the Cayamo cruise. These are a few of their favorite things so far:... read more
True/False Film Festival 2009
Some people look askance at the prospect of a very good film festival popping up in Columbia, Missouri, but many of them are the same people who freeze their toes every January trudging between movies in Park City, Utah. Columbia makes perfect sense compared to that. The True/False Film Festival takes place in the middle of the country, just a short drive west from St. Louis, in what is arguably Missouri's hippest city (don't hurt me, Kansas City). The films screen within easy walking distance of one another in Columbia's lovely downtown, a strip of pre-sprawl America that sits... read more
by:Larm - Oslo, Norway - Day Two
Pictured: Jenny Wilson. Photos by Andrew Lee.It stopped snowing today, so after a full day of sightseeing, I ventured into the slush to check out some Swedish acts. ... read more
by:Larm - Oslo, Norway - Day One
Pictured: Hanne Hukkelberg. Photos by Andrew Lee.Norwegian music fest by:Larm got off to a great start today, despite the c-c-cold weather. It snowed all day, but my hotel has heated floors, so that's awesome.I camped out at the Kongressenter to see three Norwegian bands, two Swedish bands and an Icelandic band. Not bad for the first night!... read more
Sundance 2009: Film Round-Up
Sundance Film Roundup Narrative Films An Education Nick Hornby wrote the script for An Education, so you’d expect the dialogue to be superb, and it is. (Although, it’s a strange choice to adapt someone else’s book instead of one of his own; he’d “rather mess up other people’s stories.”) And newcomer Carey Mulligan is spectacular in the leading role, so good that if I had seen the film earlier I would have made a point to see The Greatest, another Sundance selection starring Mulligan. In this one, though, she plays a schoolgirl who begins to spend time with an older... read more
Sundance 2009: Music Round-Up
Cee-Lo is best known by hipsters these days as the vocal half o Justin Nozuka Justin Nozuka is a name that you will be hearing a lot in the coming months. A Canadian of Japanese and American descent who’s still just 19 years old, he comes across as a bizarre blend of Michael Jackson and Jeff Buckley...in a good way. His set at Tatou was a stunner, and certainly a harbinger of great things to come. Nozuka has a gift of being sensitive without cloying, pleading without whining. His vocals have a beautifully immediate quality; there’s no artifice to be... read more
Sundance 2009: Final Scorecard
Sundance 2009 began two weeks ago, and while I still have a few mini-reviews to post, I'll join the chorus of commentary to present a final scorecard. My overall impression of the festival is that there were few films at the extremes — I saw no masterpieces and no awful films — but the mid-section was rich with movies that tried something new even if they found only partial success. I think it's unlikely that many of these films will end up as favorites at the end of the year — although a few might — but I still feel... read more
Sundance 2009: Ma Bar, A Film From My Parish and Old Partner
As Paste winds down its Sundance 2009 coverage, here's a round-up of a few films we haven't covered extensively yet:... read more
Sundance 2009: Eleven Documentaries to Wrestle With
In a short video remembrance of Sundance that played before many of the screenings in Park City last week, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim says the "dirty little secret" of the festival is that the best films every year are the documentaries. That may be overstating the case a bit, but it's true that films like Man on Wire, In the Shadow of the Moon, Iraq in Fragments, Trouble the Water, The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierez, and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired are among the most memorable films I've seen at the fest. This year, while I'm not sure I... read more
Sundance 2009: Hideous Men and Big Fans
Robert D. Siegel wrote the critically acclaimed film The Wrestler (which just scored an Oscar nomination for Mickey Rourke's performance), and before that he was a senior editor for The Onion. And now he's making his directorial debut at Sundance with Big Fan. Patton Oswalt plays the title character, Paul, a Staten Island parking lot attendant who spends his nights and weekends obsessing over the New York Giants and their star linebacker. He lives with his mother, writes rant-filled commentary to read on late-night call-in radio shows, and sets up a lawn chair, a cooler, and a TV outside of... read more
Sundance 2009: Award Winners
Moments ago in Park City, Utah, the Sundance film festival announced the winners of its 2009 awards. While the noisiest competition at Sundance often seems to be the one among distributors vying for marketable films, or the one among filmmakers trying to drum up interest in their movies, Sundance also referees an official competition in which juries choose their favorites of the eligible films. Of the many prizes awarded by juries, the most prestigious are the two "grand jury prizes" for American dramatic and documentary films and the two "world cinema jury prizes" for foreign dramatic and documentary films. Each... read more
