South
by Southwest 2003 - Day 5 - Tuesday, 3/11/03
Sad news today in the "Austin American-Statesman" that
the B-52's co-founding member Keith Strickland lost his
father this week and the band had to cancel their SXSW
Wednesday night Stubbs gig. Bummer. I hope they come back
to town soon. Like Margaret Cho, Bowie, Elton John and
Laurie Anderson, the 52's are performers I refuse to miss.
I saw them once at the Woodlands on the "Good Stuff" tour
and it was an awesome show.
On the way home from work today I was listening
to 107.7 The End and they had a call-in contest for
tickets to their "Schmooze and Booze" party for SXSW.
I called in and lo and behold, I got through and won
the tickets. Now I've got to find a way to pick them
up before Thursday. Kissinger is going to play at that
show and I'd really like to see it, although I may have
to skip "Spun" to do so.
|
After work on Tuesday, I stopped by the house
for a few minutes to change and gather up my stuff
and then headed downtown to the Paramount for
"Phone
Booth." I parked to the west a few blocks
because my plan was to end the night at the Alamo
with the 9:30 screening of the new Pauly Shore
film, "You'll Never Weiz in this Town Again."
There was a long line outside the Paramount
and it grew longer and longer after I got there.
Badges and passes were separate and even though
the Paramount is huge and I knew I would get in,
I wondered if I'd even be able to find a decent
seat towards the front, as is my wont.
There was an older guy who got in line behind
me and then asked me to hold his place while he
talked to his friend in the badges line. When
someone got in line behind me, I turned around
and the guy was already there telling him that
he was in line behind me. He was telling this
to one of the cutest, thinnest, dark-skinned young
men I've ever seen. He was simply gorgeous. I
struck up a conversation with him and his sense
of boredom with it all made him seem wan and disinterested.
He was a volunteer. He had been registering people
at the convention center for the past few days
and he had gotten a free movie pass for this.
He told me he had seen Joel Schumacher and Pauly
Shore during the day there.
|
SXSW
Assistant Film Programmer Matt Dentler introducing
Joel Schumacher
|
I talked to him for a few minutes and soon
realized it was me doing most of the talking. I decided
to stop talking to him and if he wanted to talk to me
he would do so. He never said another word to me. I
don't know if he was just quiet or thought I was gay
or just liked Schumacher so much that he immediately
hated me when I called him a "hack who ruined the 'Batman'
franchise. Regardless, he couldn't have been more disinterested.
(By the way, I misspoke, Schumacher didn't ruin the
"Batman" franchise, Burton did with the second film.
The annoying older guy who wanted his place saved
met up with some African-American woman and then went
across the street and got some pizza while she waited.
When he got back the volunteer girl, who I usually see
running the Convention Center screenings, came up and
talked to him. She seemed to know him. She jokingly
asked him where her pizza was and he gave her a piece
much to her genuinely delighted surprise. When she left
he said something about how hard she works and I told
him she was awesome and I'd never seen anyone run a
screening better than her (which is true). He told me
that he'd known her for years and the woman he was talking
to in the badges line was her mother. As we were going
in and talking about passes and badges and stuff he
told me he had the hook-up at SXSW and got a wristband
and a badge and two film passes every year. Who is this
guy?
|
Photographers
abounded at the Phone Booth screening when Joel
Schumacher came on stage
|
I called Kevin Wild on his cell phone long
before we went in and he was on his way down.
The line was long but I knew with a badge he'd
get in before me. A little later J.H. stopped
by and said hi then went and got in the badge
line.
Once inside, after waiting for the fucking
pretentious badge people, as I like to call them,
to get in, I saw Schumacher in the lobby talking
to some people. I went in the theater and saw
that I could sit down in the front, like I like
to do and so I didn't try to call Kevin to see
if he'd saved me a seat. I saw Ravkill and Jan
and a friend of mine who works in the Tech Center,
where they build up the film prints.
Some interesting stories about film print
problems: The "Assassination Tango" screening
had to be stopped because it was built up wrong.
35mm film prints come in reels. Sometimes film
reels come tails out and have to be rewound before
they can be built up into a print. If someone
forgets to do this on one of the reels and isn't
paying attention, a film gets built tail to tail
and that it a huge mess to fix. That's what happened
at "Assassination Tango."
At the first midnight screening of "Bubba
Ho-Tep" at the Alamo, they had a cracked lens.
This caused a prism which built up heat and eventually
it burned 12 minutes of the print.
|
I sat next to a nice guy with a huge and
cool digital camera. He told me he worked for a Spanish
language newspaper here in town called "La Princa" or
something like that. We talked for a while then both
began to snap pictures when Schumacher came on stage.
He was introduced with a fanboy fervor by SXSW Assistant
Film Programmer, Matt Dentler.
The screening began with a "X2" preview that had
the audience applauding.
I didn't stay for the Q&A because I wanted to get
over to the Alamo for the Pauly Shore screening. There
were posters for the show in the front of the Paramount
that screamed "PAULY SHORE IS DEAD." I really wanted
to see the film. In the lobby, on my way out News 8
film reporter Victor Diaz was interviewing a couple.
Then right outside the front waiting in line already
for the next show at the Paramount was my friend Jan.
We talked for a minute and she told me that the screening
of "A Mighty Wind" had been moved the the Paramount
the next night.
At the Alamo the line for badges was already long
but I wasn't too far back in the passes line. I should
have known better than to wait, but I decided to anyway.
I ended up talking to a few really cool people including
a real cute couple, a long haired guy who I thought
might be a Harry Knowles clique person and a really
odd guy who was probably my own age (but people my own
age always seem older to me so I'll call him older weird
guy).
We talked a lot and all of us agreed that we probably
wouldn't get into the showing. The couple was going
to go get dinner but I told them that they should at
least try. We continued to talk as the badges line got
longer and longer (and more and more like a mob than
a line).
The long-haired guy was really into films and we
all talked about "Bubba Ho-Teop," "Phone Booth," and
Pauly Shore. We also talked about "The Eye" and that
brought up "The Ring." The long-haired guy told me that
the original Japanese series has three parts, part 1,
part 2 and part zero. The weird older guy made some
Linux computer joke about that which I didn't understand.
The long-hair guy talked about some Japanese ghost story
films, there's a name for the genre, and seemed to be
really knowledgeable about them.
He also told me about when Troma had a 10 year
retrospective at the Alamo at midnight a few months
ago and nobody came. Lloyd Kaufman came down for it
and after a few nights of only 10 people in the audiences,
went home.
I really liked the cute couple. The girl was funny
and smart and talkative and her boyfriend was just as
cute and verbose and had a smile that would melt butter
- fuck - it would melt steel. He was really preppy looking
and fashionably dressed but when he raised up his arms,
I noticed that he had two black stars tattooed on the
soft white under-portion of his biceps. I asked him
if they meant anything and he said not really. I asked
if it hurt when he got them and he said it didn't hurt
that bad at all. He was hot. This couple was what I
like to call "a bisexual weekend waiting to happen."
I got a cell phone call which was funny because
earlier the long-haired guy said he refused to have
a cell phone and be tethered electronically and I said
I just hated that I had no friends and no one ever called
me. So when it rang I answered "Hi Mom" and everyone
laughed. I could see that it was Johnny Oh! calling
John was looking on-line at Margaret Cho tickets
and I told him the story about not finding good ones
at the box office so I hadn't bought any. He told me
he would treat if I wanted to go, so I gave him a whole-hearted
YES on the phone and he told me he would try to find
the best tickets he could on line.
|
Eventually the line to the Pauly Shore movie
went in and we knew we weren't going to get in.
I was forth in the passes line when they said
it was full. I tried to decide what to do. The
cute couple disappeared with nary a goodbye. The
long-haired guy headed to the Paramount but I
was still deciding whether I wanted to go there
or just go home. After I decided to go to the
Paramount, the weird older guy walked with me
and I finally realized what it was I didn't like
about him. He didn't "get" my jokes. He didn't
laugh at them. That just bugged me.
Back at the Paramount, John called and said
he had gotten two tickets on the floor but towards
the side, not the best seats, but they were over
50 bucks apiece. I told him I would take him to
a nice dinner in return. I saw my friend Jan in
the concession line and she asked me if I had
seen Alan Cumming. Apparently he had been sitting
with Harry Knowles' clique during "Phone Booth."
I guess he's in town filming "Spy Kids 3."
|
Former
SXSW and AFF rock star Kim Garcia at the screening
of "Cinemania"
|
I was sitting at the front of the theater
writing notes when Kim Garcia, who used to work for
AFF, came up and said hi. She gave me a big hug and
we talked for about 10 minutes. She's out in LA now
working for the people who made the They Might Be Giants
documentary "Gigantic."
It is finally getting distributed this year!
"Cinemania"
was preceded by a SXSW/Cinemaker trailer I hadn't seen
before. It was a stop-motion thing with a film projector
running through a field while whimpering like a dog
and trying to get up on a stool so it could project
something onto a screen. It was cute.
After the showing, I headed straight for my car
and went home. Well, first I stopped at Wan Fu and got
some Chinese food then went home and ate it and went
right to bed. I was exhausted. Tuesdays' are rough.
Lodger2003 @ SXSW2003
|
