Hey folks, Harry here and of all these films - WATERBORNE is at the top of my list. That sounds fucking awesome. Really great. Here's Monki & his balletic buddy, Edison! Here ya go...
Monki here again, checking in after the third day of SXSW. We started off early to get to a panel but it turned out to be an invite only type of deal so we caught Waterborne instead of staring at a wall for three hours.
WATERBORNE
Waterborne is an account of a terrorist attack in Los Angeles in which the city’s reservoir is poisoned and effectively turns the town into chaos. During the movie we follow a few different strands of characters as they interact with each other in this catastrophic time.
I dug the hell out of this movie. It doesn’t have any major stars in it, but rather a bunch of people who you will recognize as sort of side-characters from other films. Chris Masterson is probably the biggest name on the bill. The other actors and actresses include the female neighbor of Peter Parker (Mageina Tovah) in Spider-Man 2, the O-Face guy (Greg Pitts) and Samir (Ajay Naidu) from Office Space and Uncle Rico (Jon Gries) from Napoleon Dynamite. This excellent cast brought the movie together and didn’t draw attention to themselves by making it into a big action-movie type of thing. There are a few really tense moments in this piece, but the characters were the most important part.
Afterwards, the director, producers and most of the cast was there to do a Q&A which was pretty awesome considering the lack of Q&As at some of the bigger “more prestigious” films showing this year. Check this one out if you get a chance.
PALINDROMES & Todd Solondz Panel
After that we went and saw Todd Solondz’s panel and followed it with a screening of Palindromes.
Palindromes made me feel dirty. It is a story about a young girl (13 or 14) who wants to have a baby. And she will do anything in order to have this baby. Including pedophilia. Including joining a Christian band with “special needs” children in it. (“Skippy, like the peanut butter!!”)
This movie deals with some crazy issues. When Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a 14 year old girl, and that is the LEAST edgy thing about the movie, you know something is up. I enjoyed this movie, but I don’t know if I could recommend it to most of my friends.
THE COMEDIANS OF COMEDY
After the film was over we rushed over to the Alamo Drafthouse to catch the premier of The Comedians of Comedy.
This documentary follows Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Zach Galifianakis and Maria Bamford as they do a comedy tour. We spend about half of the doc watching their stand-up routines and the other half just following them around in their daily lives as they tour. What stands out is that these are all really cool and interesting people. Brian and Patton both have unhealthy geeky obsessions with comics that make them THAT much cooler than they already were. Zach Galifianakis using the term “farting businessman” is pretty badass too.
This movie made me laugh so hard my cheeks actually hurt. I am being completely honest here. After it was all said and done, my cheek muscles hurt from repeated use.
After it was all done there was another brief Q&A where director Michael Blieden came out and said thanks to the receptive audience and Zach walked away on a cell phone cause he didn’t have time for this shit. Best friends for life.
The after party was pretty cool too. Free alcohol and good conversions were had. A great way to wrap up yet another evening of SXSW here in beautiful Austin, Texas.
-Monki
Edison follows the nimble Monki slut!
Greetings and salutations, biggest of Big Reds. It’s Edison once again offering my two plump cents to anyone willing to listen. This was the biggest day of SXSW for me personally so far. Here goes…
WATERBORNE
WATERBORNE has a lot going for it. This little film that could has a cool premise (someone’s poisoned the water hole!), a very competent cast (including Jon Gries, who was in “Born of Water”, heh!) giving solid performances, great music, and compelling camera work. I like the fact that the bio-terror plot device is just the backdrop for the development of the ensemble of characters. My friends mentioned that this is the kind of film that may get overlooked by distributors because they’re all sure someone else will buy it. I hope that doesn’t happen, because this film really does deserve to be seen.
Edison’s score: 76% inspiration 92% perspiration
PALINDROMES
PALINDROMES is the latest from Todd Solondz, the mind that brought you Storytelling, Happiness, and Welcome to the Dollhouse. Someone once said, “palindrome isn’t.” And I laughed at that. I also laughed at Palindromes, the film and quite often. But usually it’s the kind of laughs that make you feel guilty later. Solondz called this film’s subject matter “tricky”. I suppose that’s his way of saying if you really enjoy the edginess of Seventh Heaven every week, steer well clear of this flick, you’ll likely pass out. If you’re familiar with Todd’s other stuff and like it, you shouldn’t be disappointed with this. It’s a film that refuses to let you sit back and be a passive audience. You’re going to have to work on this one.
Edison’s score: 79% inspiration 78% perspiration
THE COMEDIANS OF COMEDY
THE COMEDIANS OF COMEDY. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a trifecta. The Aristocrats, Jesus is Magic, and now The Comedians of Comedy, all on successive nights seems like a supernaturally evil amount of funny to be concentrated in one place and time. It’s just flat seems unfair that these movies are this good, this likeable, this funny. If you are a fan of any of the four featured in TCOC, Patton, Brian, Maria, or Zach, you owe it to yourself to make a great effort to see this movie. Director Michael Blieden said it best at the Q&A afterwards, that the comedians involved were all really gracious and open towards the cameras, so you as an audience gets a feeling that you get to know them. They’re all the kind of people you’d just like to hang with. ( ß ended with a preposition). Find it and see the hell out of it.
Edison’s score: inspiration: 90% perspiration: 90% (would have been higher, but the funny seemed so effortless for this group)
What a great day. Thank you to everyone that was involved. More tomorrow.
Jackets pressed while you wait.
Edison
