Annette Kellerman here with my first round of short reviews from the fabulous South By Southwest Film Festival here in Austin, Texas. My first film for the opening night of this year's fest was...

THE 2 BOBS

Written and directed by Austinite Tim McCanlies (Dancer, Texas Pop. 81, Secondhand Lions), The 2 Bobs opens with the origin story of two friends named Bob who after suffering through geekdom in their adolescence, persevere to achieve the ultimate nerd feat by inventing the original first-person shooter video game. As money, accolades, and a small gaming empire follow their initial success, the guys are left without the one thing they never really had to begin with- a life. After the triumphant completion of their latest game, the Bobs vow to get said life, and with the rest of their comrades-in-digital-arms commence with a night of "Boobs and Bar-B-Que" only to return to a ransacked office and stolen computers on which the entirety of their new game (and future careers) exists. From here, the guys and their small band of code-writing cohorts go on a wild goose chase to retrieve their missing data, and as I'm sure you can imagine, madness ensues.

The cast of virtual unknowns do a pretty damn good job of holding their own throughout the adventure. While Devin Ratray aptly portrays the over-the-top antics of "Horizontal Bob", Tyler Francavilla nails the nerdy sheepishness of the more subdued "Vertical Bob." Supporting roles by the lovely Mika Boorem, hilarious goth poser Leonard Nam, and quintessential doofus Cody Kasch help even out the cast with comical yet not cartoonish performances as the 2 Bob's gaming posse. The standout performance of the film, however, belongs to Jay Chandrasekhar (of Broken Lizard fame) as a spamming ringleader who deftly embodies the epitome of skeeviness off and online.

Though there were a few iffy moments for me in the film where I felt like the story got a tad off track for cheap laughs, overall the film is a great effort in the seemingly new genre of the geek caper film. Its incredibly hard to pull off a good comedy, much less a low-budget comedy without "name" actors. Though nudity (real and virtual) and foul language are definitely reason for much of the shock value and big laughs of the film (not that its a bad thing), I really have to hand it to McCanlies for serving up a fresh and funny film that follows the formula but with an entirely new set of ingredients. If the profanity can somehow get simmered to a TV-friendly level, The 2 Bobs seems like the type of comedy that will be playing in constant rotation on network near you like Comedy Central, Spike, and undoubtedly G4.


KNOW YOUR MUSHROOMS

I've been a big fan of documentarian extraordinaire Ron Mann ever since seeing Grass back at SXSW in '99. From there he informed me with the fantastically crunchy Go Further and dazzled me with incredible biography of Ed "Bid Daddy" Roth in Tails of a Rat Fink. So needless to say, I couldn't wait for Mann's latest effort, Know Your Mushrooms.

So, since many of you are probably already guessing that this is merely another propaganda film for the righteousness of another illegal substance- guess again. The film is simply a documentary about mushrooms, magic or not, and their mycophillic fans. Believe it or not, there is a yearly festival in Telluride, Colorado that celebrates the notorious and sometimes delicious fungus. Though the fest appears to be chock-full of the obligatory hippie-filled drum circles, it is mainly about the love of wild shrooms and all the ecological and medicinal benefits there within. Did you know, for instance, that the largest organism on earth is a 5 mile wide fungus in Oregon? Or that catastrophic oil spills can be completely obliterated in just a year by the petroleum-loving oyster mushrooms? This and many other fun facts propel Know Your Mushroom from just another run of the mill alt-doc to a fully informative slice of biological life documentary.

One of my favorite things about Mann's films is the imaginative way in which he disseminates his information. In what could be just a talking head doc, Mann uses terrific creativity to showcase the facts in such a way that keeps the audience engaged. Sound and video bites from various famed philosophers and proselytizing mushroom fanatics appear to be projected against Mother Nature's sound stage- again trees, the earth, the night sky. In fact, I can only recall a few scenes in the entire film that take place indoors.

Though the film covers a wide range of fungus lore through the eyes of mushroom experts Larry Evens and Gary Lincoff, the film of course eventually does pay homage to the notorious hallucinogenic variety with a spirited account of a first mushroom trip by one of the enthusiasts as well as some fantastic stock footage of any early experimentation of the psychotropics by early 60's scientists.

Know Your Mushrooms is not some socially important documentary force feeding you opinions or hitting you in the gut for an emotional impact. It's simply a fun, broad look at something growing all around us that not many know much about.

Well, I hope to check in with more reports and reviews throughout the festival.

Annette Kellerman