Citizen-Bot did some writing for us in the past and starting with this post, he’ll be coming back for more and getting into the Adult Swim beat, among other things. So welcome him back with this comprehensive roundup of his experience at SXSW. -Swank
Hello and welcome from Austin and the SXSW festival. For those of you who weren’t able to come to Austin for the world’s most intense 2 week smorgasborg of film, music, and general geekdom, I thank you for not being among the industry jerks and general tourist hipsters who clog up my fine city. So, let me give the highlights, especially since an all-access badge costs like $1500- far out of the price range of your average fan. Luckily, Austinites can get their hands on wristbands for $150 which get you access to most stuff…as long as it isn’t full of badge-holders.
So, here are the highlights, free of charge:
Film
Among the most fun I had at this year’s SXSW was Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It stars Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Dollhouse, I Robot) and Tyler Labine (Reaper, Sons of Tucson) as dimwitted hillbillies looking for a lil R&R who, through a comedy of errors, become mistaken for psycho killers by a group of too-pretty college students. Hijinks ensue.
There was a reason this won the audience award– it was the most fun I’ve had not just at a SXSW movie, but at the movies in general for a long time. Winning the audience award is sayign quite a bit, especially considering its competition: the premiere of “MacGruber,” the funniest movie adapted from Saturday Night Live in many, many years, and the critically acclaimed “The Runaways,” the rock n’ roll story of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
But Tucker and Dale deserved the win. Watch the trailer below and dare to disagree! (This gives away a lot, but not everything, so don’t watch if you don’t want some awesome spoilage)
They say that everyone borrows from each other, but the great ones outright steal. There was too much that was more than a simple homage to classics like Evil Dead or Friday the 13th- but it lifts from these sources so effortlessly, it’s like listening to The Beatles play “Till There Was You” and forgetting it was ever part of “The Music Man.” Nipping on the heels of Zombieland and Shawn of the Dead, we have a new entry into the genre of horror comedies.
Honorable mention: The People vs. George Lucas – a documentary about the love/hate relationship between George Lucas and his fans, the best and worst part of this doc is that it was “Crowdsourced,” meaning the filmmakers took over 6000 hours of user-submitted comments, skits, fan films, etc, and put them into one documentary. So we get rants and puppet shows about the now cliche phrase that George Lucas “raped your childhood.” This is both its biggest strength and its weakness- honest but sometimes a bit disjointed. It reminded me somewhat of “The Aristocrats”, another doc which just strung together dozens of comics telling the same joke. Hopefully coming soon to a theater near you? I hope this is something Swankmotron will enjoy, at least as much as a Tea Party activist at a Michael Moore film.
Don’t be a jerk– what about Kick Ass? Unfortunately, I couldn’t ever get into a screening of Kick Ass. However, I did have a good time futily standing in line for these screenings in the rain… and also standing in line at a signing by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr at my local comic shop where a few lucky folks had seen it. They had loved it, but it sounds like this may be a movie with a pretty high bar for entry. The fanboys seemed to love it, so if you’re a big fan of the source material, that’s probably encouraging. Everyone else? Let’s withold judgment.
Music
Hands down, the best thing at this year’s music fest was Provo, Utah’s own Neon Trees. Of course, I’m a little biased– anyone that can make Provo seem cool has got it going on. In any case, if you’re a fan of The Killers, Muse, or just good music, you should check them out before they get too huge. Their big show here in Austin coincided with the release of their new album AND their song “Animal” being the iTunes free single of the week. I sincerely hope you picked it up- if not, the entire album is worth the $6.99 you have to fork over to the iTunes store. Or go see them play at Velour in Provo and pick up their CD there…or wherever they’re playing these days. I’m sure they’ve move on to bigger venues in Provo by now, like the Wilkinson Center Ballroom on BYU campus. (I kid, I kid– because I love)
In any case, the show I saw them play at Maggie Mae’s on 6th St was fantastic. Obviously someone else was impressed by their performance, too, as they showed up on Jimmy Kimmel the night of March 22 less than half a week later. Oh, by the way- that’s available on Hulu and you should check it out, too. Best of luck, you crazy kids.
Honorable mentions:
$ Sarah Jarosz, a musical prodigy who treads the thin line between Allison Krauss bluegrass and Sarah Mclachlan/Joni Mitchell singer-songwriter folk is absolutely fantastic. She did have the advantage of having a large fanbase show up to her show to cheer her on, as she get airplay on a couple of the Austin stations and is fairly well known, so that’s why I had to give it to Neon Trees. She had fans at her show, Neon Trees had a room full of jaded industry executives and still managed to kick some ass. Although, I don’t know any other 18 year olds who are near as naturally talented as she is.
$ Stone Temple Pilots, also an honorable mention- didn’t actually get in to see this one (again, no badge) but according to other reports the show was great, and I think their reunion is going to be well worth it. They also had listening station set up to check out their new album, and it doesn’t disappoint. I’m telling you, with new albums recently by Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and now STP, this is feeling more like 1996 than 2010.
Interactive
The often overlooked portion of SXSW is the Interactive portion of the festival, mostly centered around technology, the internet, etc. The “best” thing about it is that it usually crashes the AT&T network downtown because everyone’s on their iphones all the time, which is loads of fun for me as an AT&T customer. Actually, no big outages this year, but there were some fun goings on.
A few hundred SXSWi attendees (not me) got to test drive a Chevy Volt. Ok, maybe you all aren’t as excited about an electric car as I am, but this thing is pretty freaking sweet. If someone would’ve walked up to me and said “You can go see Kick Ass or drive the Volt” I would’ve chosen the car. Check out the slide show from CNET, and see if you get as jealous as me. Aside from that, though, Chevy did provide free “recharge stations” around the fest where you could plug in your laptop or phone. Thanks, Chevy. Next time someone says something about your crappy cars or your bankrupt business model I might stick up for you. : )
Among the best presentations was one from Microsoft’s development team about the creation of their new search engine Bing. The keynote was titled, “Be honest- you all thought it was going to suck, didn’t you?” Honesty? From Microsoft? Listening to them actually made me rethink my affinity for Google, and I must say, I have used Bing in a couple of cases since then when Google has failed me- and it worked. Touche, Microsoft.
My new favorite development at the festival was the use of new locational social networking tools, specifically Gowalla and Foursquare. What the hell is locational social networking? If you have an iphone or android phone, you can download one of these programs, and create a profile. Then, wherever you go, you can “Check In.” So, heading to Austin Books and Comics. Check in. Going to Starbucks. Check in. Back at work. Check in. And it can publish this to your Twitter or Facebook, so it shows up there, too. Ok, so that’s not all that cool, granted.
What is cool is what they did with it. Gowalla and Fantastic Fest created a “Tour” of cinematic history around Austin. Go see a location from Slacker, or Office Space, or Dazed and Confused, or Planet Terror/Deathproof. This was actually a lot of fun, and showed me where all of these places are. Next time you’re in Austin, we can actually go get coffee at “Chotchkey’s” from Office Space.
My only hope is someone from Comic Con was paying attention. The scavenger hunts for The Dark Knight a few years ago? Will be even better. Or maybe they make a tour of great places to go in the Gaslamp District or Seaport Village. You know they filmed the bar scene from Top Gun in that barbecue shack on G Street, right?
Anyway, those are my feelings about SXSW this year. Won’t do it next year because I’ll be too busy with work. But 2012? I’ll make sure to enjoy the last festival ever before the world ends. And i hope you’ll come along.