Our 2009 SXSW Film Festival preview continues with a look at the most promising narrative features on the slate. (You can check out my documentary picks here and here.) I’ve left out the big ticket items that are due in theaters soon, like Adventureland and I Love You, Man. They don’t need my help.
BEESWAX
Mumblecore maven Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha) returns with this legal thriller “for anyone who finds 'legal thriller' to be an oxymoron.” Real life twins Tilly and Maggie Hatcher star as identical twins Jeanne, who is paraplegic, and Lauren, who isn’t. The pair find themselves dealing with a vague threat from Jeanne’s partner in a vintage clothing business, Amanda. New SXSW producer Janet Pierson has a supporting role, which is certainly an ingenious tactic by Bujalski.
(Screens March 14th at 2 pm, Paramount Theater)
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF LITTLE DIZZLE
Strange. Odd. Twisted. These are words that crop up frequently in reviews of Little Dizzle, which debuted earlier this year at Sundance. A cleaning crew of misfits, hallucinatory cookies and a strange new toilet-based life form are the ingredients that could only add up to a fun time at the movies. Presumably.
(Screens March 15th at 9:15 pm, March 19th at 4 pm, Alamo Ritz, March 21st at 11 am, Alamo South)
EGGSHELLS
This 1969 “American Freak Illumination Time & Space Fantasy of the exploding Austin inevitable” was the first feature directed by Tobe Hooper and has long been considered a lost film. But it’s lost no more! A print has been found, and Hooper’s hippie poltergeist movie will finally see the light of day. Or the dark of theater, I guess.
(Screens March 17 at 7 pm, Alamo South)
LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS
Once you’ve come up with the title Lesbian Vampire Killers, do you even have to bother writing a script? Won’t the financiers immediately start lining up at your door? Actually, the title is slightly confusing: are the lesbians killing vampires or are the vampires also lesbians who are being killed by someone else? Judging from the trailer it’s the latter, but hey, either way works for me.
(Screens March 16th at 11:59 pm, March 18th at 11:30 pm, Alamo South)
MAKE-OUT WITH VIOLENCE
The Deagol Brothers would have you know that, although it involves an animated corpse, Make-Out with Violence is not a zombie movie. Rather, it’s “a dreamlike coming-of-age tragicomedy.” And a “rock musical wherein the living love the dead and break into silence instead of song.”
(Screens March 14th at 8 pm, Alamo Ritz, March 17th at 9 pm, March 21st at 9:30 pm, Alamo South)