FESTIVAL REVIEW: 2008 SXSW Film Festival

By Mitch Myers

As in past years, the 2008 SXSW Film Festival showcased all sorts of movies: narrative features, cool documentaries, shorts, music-oriented films, midnight horror flicks, Texas-centric stuff, and a whole lot more. While comedy was the new rock and roll of last year’s fest, this time it was weed that was on everyone’s mind, at least for a little while.

Super High Me, the pot-infested documentary by comedian Doug Benson and director Michael Blieden was certainly one of the festival’s stoner highlights. Inspired by a quick joke in Doug’s standup routine poking fun of Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me, the film is equal parts weed, comedy, reality filmmaking, and pot politics. The film follows Doug through an excruciating month of no smoking (to establish a baseline) followed by thirty days of non-stop highness. With a parallel storyline of the federal authorities' continual harassment of medical marijuana facilities in California, this movie makes a far bigger statement than the filmmakers originally intended but Doug, Michael, and the film’s producers stuck to their guns and followed the story to its important conclusion. Note: Doug Benson likes to get high!

Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay starring John Cho and Kal Penn also makes its political points amid the riotous travails of America’s favorite pot-buddies. Escape was clearly a favorite with the Austin locals and U of T students; the show at the Paramount Theater had a line all the way around the block. Knocking the government’s war on terror, which has been fueled by fear and ignorance as well as racial and religious prejudice, Cho and Penn don’t smoke nearly as much as Doug Benson but the laughs are plenty and in some ways this is superior to their classic sojourn to White Castle. There was a great Q&A with the cast and directors after the screening where Neil Patrick Harris stole the show, as usual. The best news is that the whole team have already committed to making a third movie, turning the adventures Harold and Kumar into a stoner trilogy of historic proportions.

The world premier of Humboldt County, a narrative feature starring Peter Bogdanovich, Six Feet Under’s Francis Conroy and the hot-hot-hot Fairuza Balk brings a more dramatic and contemplative side to the marijuana lifestyle, and examines the regional and interpersonal dynamics within a budding locale that we’d all like to visit. While this film is still looking for national distribution, it is well worth seeking out.

The Upsetter: The Life & Music of Lee “Scratch” Perry is another weed-heavy film and a fascinating documentary on reggae’s greatest producer/performer/Rastaman. Although Scratch is obviously bat-shit crazy and perennially self-destructive, he’s also funny, smart, and as creative as they come. Scratch’s history working with the likes of Joe Gibbs, Bob Marley, The Heptones, Max Romeo and hosts of others is examined here, as well as his intentional burning of the Black Ark studio in Jamaica and subsequent move to Switzerland. Scratch may have finally quit smoking weed in his golden years, but he’s still high as a kite.

An odd, sweet and impressionistic film, The Toe Tactic was directed by Emily Hubley, and benefits from a hip musical soundtrack by her sister Georgia’s band, Yo La Tengo. Mixing live action with strange animation, Hubley has created a touching, mystical, and often-funny tale where coming to terms with the death of a parent is an inevitable part of life’s process.

Helen Hunt’s directorial debut, Then She Found Me starring herself, Bette Midler as her long lost mother, and Colin Firth as the man of her dreams was only pleasant and occasionally funny. The film clearly lacked the edge that Hunt was striving for, but happy endings aren’t necessarily a bad thing, and you’ll have to wait for that ending to determine exactly who found who.

There were several documentaries on artistic iconoclasts that need to be seen. Gonzo, directed by Alex Gibney, focuses on the life and times of revolutionary writer Hunter S. Thompson and tells his story; alcohol, drugs, sex, immortal writing and all. Obscene is about Grove Press (and Evergreen Review) publisher Barney Rossett and his legal struggles to print groundbreaking books like Tropic Of Cancer and Naked Lunch. With footage of folks like Lenny Bruce, William Burroughs and Jim Carroll and music by Patti Smith, Bob Dylan and The Doors, Obscene is educational and entertaining.

Dreams With Sharp Teeth is devoted to the infamous Sci-Fi/mystery writer Harlan Ellison, and features a sterling instrumental soundtrack by guitarist Richard Thompson. Ellison is an outrageous genius and legendary curmudgeon who has to be heard/seen to be believed. Wild Blue Yonder is a film by Celia Maysles about her filmmaker father David Maysles, who, with his brother Albert, made documentaries like the Gimme Shelter and Grey Gardens. The screw turns on Celia’s unexpected conflicts with her Uncle Albert, and results in a filmmaking family feud well worth seeing.

Oddly, there were two documentaries focusing on race relations in Alabama: The Order of Myths, which deftly examined the “separate but equal” status of black and white Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama (which started 13 years before New Orleans’ annual celebration). The other is ’Bama Girl which follows the festivities surrounding the election of homecoming queen at the University of Alabama and the secretive white voting block known as “The Machine,” which has ensured the selection of a white homecoming queen for almost two decades.

Star director Morgan Spurlock’s latest documentary Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? was well received, but the clever movie suffers from a lack of bite, and Morgan’s meandering Middle East search is ultimately supplanted by his feel-good need to return home to his family. One exciting moment was when the power briefly went out in the theater, resulting in a 45-minute delay and Morgan buying a round of Tecate beers for the entire audience, shouting, “This one’s on Harvey Weinstein!”

There were numerous music documentaries in Austin, and most were quite worthwhile. Lou Reed’s Berlin, directed by Julian Schnabel, gives us contemporary Lou performing his drug/despair/romance classic (1973) album Berlin in its entirety. Filmed at St Ann’s in Brooklyn with a cinematic backdrop (also by Schnabel), Reed’s band included a couple of the people who worked with him on the original recording three decades earlier, specifically guitarist Steve Hunter and producer/arranger Bob Ezrin. In his SXSW keynote Q&A with producer pal Hal Wilner, Lou confessed, totally deadpan, “I have a B.A. in dope, but a PhD in soul.” Nuff said.

Joy Division investigates the amazing post-punk-rock band and its Manchester milieu, as well as the sad-but-inevitable demise of lead singer/lyricist Ian Curtis. While they only made two albums before Curtis hanged himself in 1980, this film is sure to spur a whole new generation of fans. The Night James Brown Saved Boston tells the story of the Godfather’s Boston performance in the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King. You can catch it on VH1 and you should, for besides the drama behind the 1968 show, Brown was at his peak and his performances are completely electrifying.

Bananaz follows the evolution of Gorillaz, a virtual music group led by Blur’s Damon Albarn and illustrator Jamie Hewlett. Informative and well meaning, the film fails, mostly because, despite total access, the director doesn’t provide enough of the band’s classic animations.

Much like Standing In the Shadows Of Motown, The Wrecking Crew tells the inside story of the studio musicians who played on the many hit records recorded in Los Angeles in the 1960s, including songs by The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Sonny & Cher, numerous Phil Spector productions and countless, countless others. Basically examining the music that became “the soundtrack to our lives,” this is a nostalgia trip well worth taking.

One of the oddest music docs had to be Of All The Things, devoted to forgotten pop songwriter Dennis Lambert. Lambert made his bucks in the 70s writing and producing middle-of-the-road fare for the likes of Glen Campbell and the Four Tops, but the movie (directed by son Jody) focuses on Lambert’s inexplicable and enduring popularity in the Philippines, where his obscure solo album has long been treated like a national anthem—inspiring a quickie concert tour of the country. It is touching, but in the end you still wonder, “Why?”