For the first time in a few years, ComingSoon.net will be down in Austin, Texas for the annual South by SouthWest Film Festival, running from March 8 through March 16, with our writers Edward Douglas and Joshua Starnes seeing movies, sharing their opinions and hopefully talking to some of the directors and cast.
It began as a music festival where bands and music industry types could get together and bond and maybe even sign a couple of deals, but in 1994 they added the âFilm and Multimedia Conferenceâ which essentially broke off into a full-fledged film festival that lasts nine days.
This yearâs film section is kicking off on Friday, March 8, with two big movies opening in the coming weeks, the magical comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (Warner Bros. Â March 15), starring Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi, Jim Carrey, Olivia Wilde and Alan Arkin, and then the remake of Evil Dead (TriStar Pictures â April 5), which is quite a double feature. Weâll have reviews of both of those by this coming Saturday, March 9.
The festivalâs Closing Night film on March 16 is Brit Marling and Yal Batmanglijâs follow-up to Sound of My Voice, the cult thriller The East (Fox Searchlight â May 31), which co-stars Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd, Ellen Page and Patricia Clarkson.
South by SouthWest is screening a lot of movies that have premiered at other festivals (like The East) but will be screening for Austin audiences for the first time. Local Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater brings the third chapter of his dramatic triptych Before Midnight (Sony Pictures Classic â May 24), once again starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, to the festival.
After premiering at Venice and Toronto last year, Harmony Korineâs most mainstream film Spring Breakers (A24 Â March 15) will get Austin residents ready for Spring Break with a crime thriller starring some of Disneyâs biggest stars: Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgins and James Franco, but this is definitely not Disney-friendly.
Primer director Shane Carruth returns with his second feature Upstream Color (erbp â April 5), in which he plays a man drawn to a woman for unknown reasons.
Another SXSW regular, David Gordon Green is also bringing his new movie Prince Avalanche (Magnolia), starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch, arriving in Austin after winning awards at Berlin.
The Avengers director Joss Whedon gathered some of his friends, including Nathan Fillion and Clark Gregg, to do a modern-day version of William Shakespeareâs Much Ado About Nothing (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions â June 7).
Jeff Nicholsâ second movie Take Shelter got a lot of attention a few years back and he returns with Mud (Roadside Attractions â April 26), starring Matthew McConaughey as the title character, a homeless guy who becomes the mentor to two kids.
Likewise, James Ponsoldt did the festival circuit last year with his film Smashed, which received enough acclaim that he could immediately jump into The Spectacular Now (A24 â August 2), an adaptation of Tim Tharpâs novel by (500) Days of Summer writers Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber. This one stars Miles Teller (Footloose) as popular high school party animal Sutter Kelly, who falls for the socially inept Aimee, played by Shailene Woodley (The Descendants).
Joseph Gordon-Levittâs directorial debut Don Jonâs Addiction (Relativity) premiered at Sundance and was picked up for distribution in a heated auction and heâll be bringing it to SXSW as he portrays Jersey-based sex addict Jon Martello who wants to ends his promiscuous porn-filled lifestyle and settle down with one of two very different women.
Like most good film festivals, SXSW has a strong Midnighters section full of cool genre flicks and this yearâs roster includes Rob Zombieâs The Lords of Salem (Anchor Bay Films â April 19), starring his wife Sheri Moon as a radio DJ in Salem, Massachusetts who comes across a mysterious album that hearkens back to the townâs violent witch-killing past. Having had success with their previous anthology, more filmmakers come together for V/H/S 2 (Magnet) including Gareth Evans (The Raid: Redemption), Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun), Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett (Youâre Nextâwhich is also playing at SXSW), Eduardo Sanchez (The Blair Witch Project) and more.
E.L. Katz makes his directorial debut with the comedy Cheap Thrills (right), reuniting Pat Healy and Sara Paxton from Ti Westâs The Innkeepers along with Ethan Embry, David Koechner and Amanda Fuller, about a new dad experiencing problems at work and home when he meets a rich couple who offers him a way out of his problems.
Others Midnighters include Haunter from Cube director Vincenzo Natali, Xan Cassevetesâ Kiss of the Damned (Magnet â May 3), and the self-explanatory Big Ass Spider!.
Although many of the movies above have already had their festival debuts, there are quite a number of World Premieres of movies that are up for acquisition at the festival and how well they play in front of audiences may determine how quickly theyâre picked up for distribution so that audiences outside Austin will have a chance to see them.
Highly prolific indie filmmaker Joe Swanberg is a veteran of SXSW with many of his early films like LOL having premiered at the festival, and his new movie Drinking Buddies, starring Olivia Wilde, Anna Kendrick, Jake Johnson (âNew Girlâ) and Ron Livingston, is said to breakaway from the âMumblecoreâ style he helped originate as it has Wilde and Johnson playing friends Kate and Luke, who end up alone with each other for a weekend, away from their significant others.
Former âThe Stateâ member Ken Marino is going to be at SXSW in a big way, not only by showing a couple episodes from Season 2 of his hit show âBurning Loveâ but also starring in Jacob Vaughnâs Milo as a man suffering from chronic stomach problems which he discovers is a demon baby living in his colon. It co-stars Patrick Warburton, Stephen Root, Gillian Jacobs (âCommunityâ), Mary Kay Place and Peter Stormare.
Radha Mitchell and Michelle Monaghan star in Jessie McCormackâs Gus as a married woman unable to conceive and her best friend who gets pregnant one night and offers to give her the baby, so she moves in with the babyâs future parents.
Bryan Poyser was at Sundance a few years back with the Duplass Brothers-produced Lovers of Hate and now heâs back with The Bounceback starring Michael Stahl-David as a guy who travels down to Austin in hopes of running into his ex (Ashley Bell), as their respective friends (Zach Cregger, Sara Paxton) try to keep them apart.
Written and produced by Neil LaBute and based on his play, Daisy von Scherler Mayerâs Some Girl(s) stars Adam Brody as a writer who travels across country meting up with his ex-lovers to make amends before getting married. The girls are played by Jennifer Morrison, Mia Maestro, Emily Watson, Zoe Kazan and Kristen Bell.
Paul Walker co-stars in Hours, the directorial debut by screenwriter Eric Heisserer (Final Destination 5, The Thing), with Genesis Rodriguez as a couple who arrive at a New Orleans hospital on the eve of Hurricane Katrina, forcing him to try to protect their prematurely born baby.
Working Title Films has a fairly healthy ongoing relationship with Universal Pictures and Focus Features so itâs strange to see them bringing a movie to a festival looking for buyers, and thatâs the case with Borat and Bruno co-writer Dan Mazerâs romantic comedy I Give It a Year, starring Rose Byrne, Anna Faris, Rafe Spall, Simon Baker, Minnie Driver, Jason Flemyng and Stephen Merchant, looking at that difficult first year of marriage.
As you might expect from a film festival that originated out of a music festival, there are a lot of music-based docs playing in Austin over the next couple weeks in the â24 Beats Per Secondâ section which includes The Punk Singer, about Bikini Kill and Le Tigre front person Kathleen Hanna, Muscle Shoals and Born in Chicago, about the Alabama and Chicago blues scenes, respectively, plus the acclaimed Sundance hit Twenty Feet from Stardom. Playing outside that section is The Punk Syndrome, about Finnish punk band Pertti Kurikkaâs Name Day made up of four developmentally-challenged guys,
Otherwise, we donât normally cover many docs at film festivals, but weâre definitely curious about Josh Johnsonâs Rewind This!, produced by Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow), which looks into the phenomenon of the underground VHS trade which includes backyard filmmakers, piracy and a continued boom of a type of media many feel is long dead.
There are hundreds more movies playing over the next week in Austin, but the ones above are just a small sample of whatâs being offered at this yearâs SXSW.
Look for our SXSW Film coverage over the next week right here on ComingSoon.net!