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'Small, Beautifully Moving Parts' SXSW Review: A Smart, Female-Centric Drama

By Jette Kernion (Subscribe to Jette Kernion's posts), Posted Mar 23rd 2011 4:15PM
Filed under: Reviews, SXSW Film Festival, Cinematical

It's difficult for me to find interest in "women's films" or "chick flicks" unless the chicks in question are practicing martial arts, wielding machine guns or fighting zombies. But I was charmed by 'Small, Beautifully Moving Parts,' a portrait of a woman who generally prefers the company of technological items over humans until she becomes pregnant and ultimately decides to seek advice from her mother.

Sarah Sparks (Anna Margaret Hollyman) is a "freelance technologist" who loves taking things apart to examine all the components, as you might guess from the movie's title. Even when she is waiting for her pregnancy test to show its results, she admires the way the test is put together. She primarily communicates with people in an interview style, stopping folks in a park or on the street to ask their opinion about whatever question is on her mind at the moment. The exception is her husband Leon (Andre Holland), a supportive guy who is almost too good to be true and might make you envy Sarah just a bit.
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'El Bulli: Cooking in Progress' SXSW Review: Voyeurism for Foodies

By Jette Kernion (Subscribe to Jette Kernion's posts), Posted Mar 19th 2011 10:00AM
Filed under: Reviews, Cinematical
El Bulli: Cooking in Progress

Have you ever heard of the restaurant El Bulli, and do you know anything about its secluded location in Spain, its 35-course meals and jaw-dropping prices? Is the term "molecular gastronomy" familiar to you? If so, you will certainly be fascinated by the documentary 'El Bulli: Cooking in Progress,' an immersion into the research and experimentation undertaken by the restaurant's chefs. If not ... you might feel a little lost.

The conceit of this German documentary is to drop you right in the middle of the chefs' work, with the barest minimum of context, explanation or information. The only set-up consists of a little bit of text informing you that every 12 months, chef Ferran Adria closes El Bulli for six months to develop a new menu for his restaurant.
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'F*** My Life' SXSW Review: Breaking Up is Hard to Do

By Jette Kernion (Subscribe to Jette Kernion's posts), Posted Mar 18th 2011 5:30PM
Filed under: Reviews, SXSW Film Festival, Cinematical

One of the nicer surprises of SXSW this year was discovering that the movie 'F*** My Life' ('Que Pena Tu Vida'), despite the title, was a downright sweet and practically adorable romantic comedy. Chilean writer/director Nicolas Lopez's previous film was a comic-book superhero film, 'Santos,' and this is quite different in story but with the same light touch.

Javier (Ariel Levy) is a young advertising professional whose best friend since childhood is Angela. They text each other almost continually, asking for advice and support ... or in Angela's case, cracking wise. Javier falls for Sofia (Lucy Cominetti), a lovely singer, and while the beginning of their relationship is a bit rocky, they have two years of bliss until he feels stifled and breaks up. He regrets this almost immediately, so most of the story is about his attempts to win her back, to mourn, or to get over the breakup. The title of 'F*** My Life' reflects the way he feels throughout most of the film.
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Ultimate SXSW Guide: Everything You Need to Know About the Film Venues

By Jette Kernion (Subscribe to Jette Kernion's posts), Posted Mar 10th 2011 3:00PM
Filed under: Features, SXSW Film Festival, Cinematical, Festivals
SXSW Venues

The SXSW Film Festival has a whopping eight venues for moviegoing this year. They range in size and style from the cozy Alamo Ritz second theater to the temporary but convenient Vimeo Theater in the Austin Convention Center to the majestic Paramount. Some theaters are walking distance from the convention center and from one another, some are remote satellite venues aimed at pleasing Austin filmgoers.

If you're trying to figure out how to see six movies a day, or how to manage meals and parties around a few films you're dying to watch, this guide can help you get organized ... at least a little.

Some of the info in this venue guide has been excerpted (with permission) from the Slackerwood Guide to SXSW 2011 Film Festival Theaters/Venues. Check out that online guide for more detailed information about places to eat near theaters, parking options and theater pros and cons. In addition, SXSW Film badge-holders can attend the Beginner's Guide to SXSW Film panel on Friday (which I'm on) and feel free to pelt the panelists with questions.
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Scenes We Love: 'Home for the Holidays'

By Jette Kernion (Subscribe to Jette Kernion's posts), Posted Nov 23rd 2010 7:00PM
Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Best and Worst, Holiday Movies

Thanksgiving gets somewhat shortchanged in the movies, Eli Roth fake trailers aside. Perhaps screenwriters and filmmakers think that Thanksgiving doesn't present opportunities for cinematic conflict and action. If that's the case, they have a profound lack of imagination ... and they haven't been to a big family Thanksgiving dinner. My favorite Turkey Day scene in any movie is set at a family dinner table, but the action is riveting, just like a train wreck. Director Jodie Foster and writer W.D. Richter get it exactly right in the 1995 film 'Home for the Holidays.'

'Home for the Holidays' is a lovely movie to watch on Thanksgiving with your family, if for no other reason than to feel thankful your own dinner isn't like the one in the movie. Holly Hunter's single mom Claudia, laid off from her dream job and feeling low-spirited, is spending her holiday with her parents. It's easy to sympathize as she battles a cold, is enveloped immediately by her mother in a pink monstrosity of a coat, and can't even get a decent night's sleep without being attacked by relatives. Fortunately, her family is portrayed by a fantastic array of actors who bring empathy to characters we might not want to spend our own holiday with: Anne Bancroft as her chain-smoking mother; Charles Durning as the sentimental dad, complete with video camera; Cynthia Stevenson as the super-perfectionist, super-unhappy sister.
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Two Views of Austin at AFF: 'Echotone' and 'Boxing Gym'

By Jette Kernion (Subscribe to Jette Kernion's posts), Posted Nov 4th 2010 2:35PM
Filed under: Reviews, Festivals

Austin Film Festival prides itself on showing a number of local films -- there's even a category called Austin Screens, and other films with local connections often appear elsewhere in the lineup. Two locally shot documentaries stood out this year, showing audiences two very different perspectives on the city. One was a "marquee screening" of Frederick Wiseman's film 'Boxing Gym', shot at Richard Lord's Gym in north Austin; the other was 'Echotone,' a look at local musicians and how local condo/building development is affecting the music scene.

'Boxing Gym'

Don't expect a neatly plotted story arc in Frederick Wiseman's documentary 'Boxing Gym.' You won't find a "cast" of several selected documentary subjects working toward a specified goal, either. Instead, you'll spend 90 minutes or so inside a boxing gym, just as you might if you were sitting on a bench in a corner, watching and listening without anyone noticing. The members and visitors at Richard Lord's Gym in Austin appear to be entirely unaware of the camera as they train, spar or chat.
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AFF Reviews: 'Raging Boll,' 'Miss Nobody' and 'S&M Lawn Care'

By Jette Kernion (Subscribe to Jette Kernion's posts), Posted Nov 2nd 2010 5:32PM
Filed under: Reviews, Festivals
Raging Boll

'Raging Boll,' directed by Dan Lee West

The first 20 minutes or so of 'Raging Boll,' the documentary profiling director Uwe Boll, are excellent. The film, which had its U.S. premiere at Austin Film Festival, provides background on Boll for those who aren't familiar with him, while at the same time entertaining the Boll lovers/haters with some good interview lines and fascinating details. The movie consists primarily of interviews with Boll, both on a black background and during some key events, with a smattering of footage from his events and a little extra media coverage. Title cards fill in the gaps.

However, the film's second half becomes slow and repetitive, and Boll's dozenth or so rant against "fanboy" bloggers, Michael Bay and the Hollywood distribution system becomes terribly tedious. It builds to a climax around Boll's "Raging Boll" boxing match against several online journalists, a publicity stunt that turns out to be much less interesting than it might sound. The movie settles for showing us Boll's public persona and the cult of personality that has formed around it, instead of trying to find the man underneath the rants.
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