SXSW Round Up: Panel Reports, Movie Reviews and Video Interviews From Around The Web

As for the films themselves, Eric Kohn has hammered out ten “snapshot” reviews, including Michael Paul Stephenson’s “Best Worst Movie”, Gary Hustwit’s “Objectified”, Daryl Wein’s “Breaking Upwards”, Dia Sokol’s “Sorry, Thanks”, Kris Swanberg’s “It was great, but I was ready to come home”, and Jody Hill’s “Observe and Report”.

Outside of indieWIRE-land, Kohn also talked to “Funny Ha Ha” director Andrew Bujalski for New York magazine.

As for more reviews, Spout has been keeping up quite the pace thanks to Karina Longworth and Vadim Rizov. Two examples:

“Eileen Yaghoobian’s documentary is unexpectedly excellent, a bracingly free-form group portrait of people who only recently discovered each other’s existence when the founding of GigPosters.com showed isolated artists they weren’t just working alone in the dark,” Rizov says of “Died Young, Stay Pretty.” “I’ll have to take Yaghoobian’s word for it that eminently quotable interviewees like Art Charney and Tom Hazelmyer are actually luminaries of the poster world, but this is one entertaining film regardless of how its profiled community receives it.”

“In creating a uniquely cerebral film in which the bulk of the drama is based on which words will fly out of mouths and what they’ll really mean, Bujalski has made a “talky” film that lovingly critiques the mysteries of speech,” Longworth says of “Beeswax.” “At the film’s climax, two of our heroes look at a letter, and one asks the other, ‘You like that language?’ The response: ‘Beautiful.’ It is.”

Cinematical‘s coverage includes numerous reviews (such as “The Way We Get By”, “Bomber”, “Women in Trouble”, and “Best Worst Movie”), and exclusive new images from Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker.” 

“I was going to go back to my hotel and crash early after my final jury screening tonight,” Movie City News (and SXSW jury member) Kim Voynar reported from Austin, “until I got a text message from a friend that the 9:30 TBA at the Alamo Ritz was something worth sticking around for—an exceedingly rare opportunity to see Todd Haynes’ Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story on a 16mm print in a theater. Wow…. I have no idea how the fest pulled off getting the print or showing it, but man, what an amazingly bold coup—huge kudos to SXSW for pulling it off. I’m so glad I stayed out late tonight to catch it—definitely a highlight of the fest. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am one ecstatically happy film geek tonight.”

Another SXSW jury member, Anne Thompson’s blog has technically provided most of Variety‘s coverage. This has included interviews with and Adam Yauch, who’s Oscilloscope picked up SXSW entry “The Paranoids.”

Variety‘s Joe Leydon also posted of the trade’s few reviews: an intensely glowing one of “Observe and Report.” “Think Travis Bickle: Mall Cop; and you’ll have some idea of what to expect from ‘Observe and Report,’” he writes, “writer-director Jody Hill’s shockingly and sometimes discomfortingly funny comedy about an unstable security guard who views himself as vigilant protector - and, occasionally, avenging angel - while patrolling a suburban shopping mall. Taking a setup that could have been played for sitcom jokiness and family-friendly slapstick, Hill attempts something much darker, if not downright transgressive.”

Finally, for a local flavor, Austin 360 has numerous photos and videos from premieres and parties, as well as a report from “The 2 Bobs” premiere, an interview with Seth Rogen, and word from Richard Linklater’s “surprise” screening of “Me & Orson Welles.”