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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 20, 2000)
Monday. March 20. 2000 AGGTF.T.TFF. THE BATTALION Page 3 a '(Hi Q X f U ^ GOO h •sa/ BY KYLE WHITACRE The Battalion PART 1 OF 2 A nother year has swept the annual South by Southwest music and film festival into history, which descended upon Austin with all its might and fury this spring break, breaking rules and standards, and setting the bar for modem culture. My trip began with a two-hour bum down Highway 21 and 290, which brought me straight into the heart of Austin and to the Austin Convention Center, the headquarters of this year’s festival, where I hosted the filmmaker’s lounge for the next five days. Work began early Friday morning, where one of the first things we learned was that the AC thennostat was bro ken and the lounge would be a brisk 55° F for the next five days. I lamented not bringing anything long-sleeved. Saturday 1 hunted down the MSC Film Society execs, who bought badges for their members but ended up using the badges themselves. We began the day by attending the world premiere of the modern day remake of Hamlet, staning Ethan Hawke, Bill Murray and Kyle MacLachlan. It’s amazing how well brooding Gen-X actor Hawke can portray Hamlet. The film had excellent night cinematog raphy and musical score but was marred by horrible day photogra phy and bad acting by Bill Murray. After Hamlet, I headed over to the Alamo Draft House for the midnight showing of Rated X: A Journey Through Porn, a funny and insightful documentary about the pornography industry and the issues involved. Sunday started out the same as the previous days, with corporate spon sors freaking out about the fact that no filmmakers showed up for the com- plimentaiy breakfasts in the lounge while starved volunteers watched pans of eggs and bacon go untouched. When will people learn filmmakers are second only to mu sicians as the laziest people alive? In the afternoon, one of the feature con ference sessions of the festival took place — ~ r \i a conversation with John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape from New York), Robert Rodriguez (Desperado) and Harry Knowles (Ain’t It Cool News). In a confer ence room fifty people over capaci ty, the three talked about everything from censorship in film to the revo lution in digital filmmaking. Car penter remi nisced on how cen sorship in the ’70s caused more filmmak ers to be more creative with the pre sentation of violence in storytelling and said that because of more gov ernment involvement today in cen sorship and lawsuits, the same kind of creativity is starting to reappear. Sunday night also saw the pre miere of one of the most anticipat ed films of SXSW, The Indepen dent. The line for the film stretched around an entire block, and I ar rived an hour early to take my place behind a hundred other people al ready in line. While waiting with the Film Society crew, we talked with Ann, a Canadian film student who was on an internship that gave her three-all-expense paid trips to three U.S. Film Festivals. She explained to us why many U.S. film business is moving to Canada and taking with them big- budget projects like the upcoming X-Men movie. Apparently the government there does not tax and censor films, but instead sup ports them financially, gives them tax breaks and funds the ed ucation of artists. Impressed by the brilliant ideas of the Canadi an government, I told her how most our taxes go to military re search, and while most of our cre ative minds struggle to eat, we could wipe Canada off the face of the Earth. We were then let into the theater where Janeane Garofalo and Jerry Stiller introduced the film. What followed was an hour and a half of non-stop comedy centering around the life of fictitious exploitation di rector Morty Finemann (Stiller), whose firms include Acupuncture Academy IT. Pointy, Pointy, Pointy, World War III II and The Justice League of Superfreaks. Monday, after a boring day in the filmmakers’ lounge, Jason Puckett, next year’s chair of MSC Film Society, and I headed over to see the animated shorts. All the shorts were amazing, but the best was When The Day Breaks, an an imated short from Canada which is up for an Oscar this year. After the shorts, we met up with everyone else to see the much-anticipated Dark Days, a See SXSW on Page 4. ^ PERFECT CHECKING ACCOUNT for faculty and students! We understand limited budgets and time constraints so we got together and came up with an account to make your life easier - our SERVICE CHARGE FREE CHECKING ACCOUNT (other accounts available)! There's no monthly service charge fee, no matter how many checks you write. You can access your account day or night through our website or automated telephone teller; or call one of our live tellers during office hours. All for FREE. 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