michael favia

Steve HopsonThe first full days of panels and workshops got underway early Saturday at South by Southwest Interactive, with the first sessions of the day kicking off at 9:30 am. Plenty of intrepid attendees showed up on time after Friday's late-night parties, and the ones who stuck around all day got a full dose of insight.

Early in the day, "Trust Agents" co-authors Chris Brogan and Julien Smith handed out common-sense advice on expanding your network while not coming across as a phony. Clearly at ease with each other and with the topic, Brogan and Smith encouraged the crowed to find ways to make connections even for subjects that you may not be the most interested in.

Danah Boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft Research New England, delivered the festival's opening remarks, focusing on privacy and publicity. She ripped Google Buzz and Facebook for privacy missteps and said, "just because something is publicly accessible doesn’t mean people want it publicized.”

Sound troubles marred the "Media Armageddon: What Happens When the New York Times Dies" session, causing some to bail out of the session for other options. But the Times' David Carr made it worthwhile for those who stayed, sparring with Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos in an classic old-school vs. new-school debate.

One of the great things about film festivals is the chance to attend foreign films you’d never otherwise get the chance to see. Even if one is a pretentiously incoherent meditation on the human existence (or whatever), you walk out feeling good, knowing that you just saw something other lesser film buffs probably have never heard of—cause you’re, you know, “artsy.” The down side, of course: all that damn reading you have to do. Subtitles are like homework for your brain. Well we’ve got a solution for you: Crying With Laughter is an excellent foreign film…but it’s from Scotland! (Thank us later.)

This gritty tale of up and coming stand-up comedian Joey Frisk and the unfortunate events that might just screw up his Big Break takes you into Joey’s life on the comedy circuit. He maintains a careful balance between his career and his relationship with his ex-wife and his 6-year-old daughter, Amy, whom he adores. But when he bumps into an old friend from many years ago, hidden secrets start to emerge and things start to go wrong, putting his career, and possibly Amy’s life, in jeopardy.

Stephen McCole plays Joey, the seemingly fearless comic whose autobiographical routines provide the narrative, and his engaging presence makes it easy to imagine his popularity; when he recounts the horrible things that have happened, you can’t help but laugh yourself—but the humor is just his job, and a look into his eyes reveal that he doesn’t find any of it funny at all. Writer and director Justin Molotnikov de-glamorizes the world of comedy, making it feel real and relatable, like a regular job—a pretty damn cool regular job, but still, something within a normal person’s grasp. This relatability allows us to take Joey’s journey with him, building the suspense as he gets further and further in over his head. And did we mention, it’s a foreign film…in English!

Well, sorta. Some might have a hard time catching every word of the reasonably quick dialog at first, as the Scottish accent is one of the thickest. But by the end, you’ll have completely adjusted your brain and have no issues. It’s like a training session for your ears! And in the meantime, you’ll have seen a good movie that’s a pleasure to watch.

Crying With Laughter plays Sunday, March 14 at 9:30 PM at the Alamo Ritz 2. It’s also screening Tuesday, March 16 at 11:30 AM at Alamo Ritz 2 Wednesday, March 17 at 4:30 PM at the Alamo Lamar 2. For the full schedule, see my.SXSW or B-Side.

We don't know much about writer/director Aaron Katz other than the fact that his John Cassavetes Indie Spirit Award winning film Quiet City played during SXSW 2007 and we somehow managed to miss it. We also don't know much about his newest film Cold Weather, which premieres at SXSW Saturday night. What we do know is that from the very first moments of the cryptic trailer, which hit the internet right before its screening at Sundance, we were captivated by its atmospheric, almost creepy tone.

In Cold Weather, Doug (Cris Lankenau), a former forensic science major and crime novel connoisseur, has royally hosed his life in Chicago and returns to his hometown of Portland, Oregon and to his more responsible sister, Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn). Doug continues a general life of slack: reading crime novels, loafing about Gail's house and being good-for-nothing. He finally secures employment at an ice factory and befriends a fellow employee named Carlos (Raúl Castillo). When Carlos's girlfriend goes missing, Doug finds himself embroiled in a mystery not unlike the ones he reads about in books.

Stay tuned for our interview with director Aaron Katz, which should be up sometime in the next couple of days.

Trailer after the jump.

Cold Weather screens Saturday, March 13th at 7 PM at the Alamo Ritz. It’s also screening Tuesday, March 16th at 1:15 PM at Alamo Ritz and Thursday, March 18th at 9 PM at the Alamo South Lamar. For the full schedule, see my.SXSW or B-Side.

www.sxsw.comWritten by, directed by and starring Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture is a sardonic and self-aware exploration of post-college life. Though privileged and sheltered in many ways, the main character, Aura, suffers more than her fair share of indignities as well as moments of utter confusion about the future she hopes to enjoy.

After earning a degree in film theory, Aura returns to her mother’s Tribeca apartment in order to plan her next move. What follows is a string of false starts, romantic-ish interludes and many bottles of wine. Like many recent college graduates have discovered before her, Aura finds that the transition to the real world can be pretty humiliating.

Various casting and filming choices should make for an interesting viewing experience; Dunham’s mother, artist Laurie Simmons, plays the mother in the film and local indie regular Alex Karpovsky co-stars as one of Aura’s questionable love interests.

Dunham was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2009 and this is her second feature following Creative Nonfiction, which premiered at last year’s SXSW film fest.

Tiny Furniture makes its world premiere on Monday, March 15 at 2:15 at the Alamo Ritz. It shows again on March 16 and March 20. Check out the full SXSW schedule at my.SXSW or B-Side.

No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson
Sunday March 14, 11am
Paramount Theatre (713 Congress Avenue)
$12 advance tix available
Friday March 19, 2:45pm
G-Tech Theatre (501 E 4th St.)
[info]In 1993, Allen Iverson allegedly hit a woman with a chair during a bowling alley brawl provoked by a racial slur. Even then—at 17 years old—Iverson was a basketball superstar, widely regarded as the best high school player in the country, and the criminal trial that followed made national headlines while dividing his hometown of Hampton Virginia along clearly established lines of class and race. Was Iverson an egomaniacal thug who deserved punishment, or was he unfairly persecuted by a predominantly white small-town establishment?

Told from the perspective of Director Steve James (who also grew up playing basketball in Hampton), No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson revisits the story through the lens of James' own mixed feelings about the incident, and about Iverson himself. Featuring interviews with lawyers, sportswriters and townsfolk, the film isn’t so much about Iverson as it is a meditation on justice, prejudice, and the enduring racial tensions that pervade much of small-town American culture.

James, who also directed the 2008 SXSW feature At the Death House Door and the critically adored basketball doc Hoop Dreams, has done a good job here—No Crossover is as even-handed an account of the incident as you’re likely to find, despite the glaring lack of interviews with Iverson’s white accusers (most of whom declined to be interviewed), and with Iverson himself (though the film features many clips of previous Iverson television interviews). Perhaps James’ greatest accomplishment, though, is that the film transcends the specific issue of Iverson’s culpability, and instead raises difficult questions about racism, fame and justice. Recommended.

* If you don't ave a SXSW badge, individual tickets to the Paramount screening are available here.

Steve HopsonAbout 10 minutes into the 5 pm sessions of South by Southwest Interactive on Friday, emergency lights flashed and alarms buzzed at the Austin Convention Center as a recorded message instructed everyone to leave the building.

Some folks stayed behind, but hundreds filed onto the sidewalks before police declared it a false alarm. A "system malfunction" was the official explanation from the Austin Fire Department.

The alarms could very well have signaled the end to a successful first day of SXSW and the beginning of the official party season, as many took the opportunity to get an early start on evening events.

The day began with perfect weather, with temperatures into the 70s and a cloudless sky. The Interactive Festival was packed with one of its largest crowds ever, but with events at the Hilton and other venues, the halls never seems overcrowded. During the sessions, the building's wireless network, which had problems in previous years, seemed to hold up fine under the first day's strain. Registration and badge pickup times ebbed and flowed, from as little as 15 minutes to as many of 50, but reports from Twitter suggested that the line moved quickly even under the busiest conditions.

Veterans noticed the amusing return of the "SXSW walk", as people walked the halls at about three-quarter speed, with eyes glued to their phones and fingers swiping across the screen.

The day's biggest names of the day were HDNet's Mark Cuban and Boxee's Avner Ronen, who debated PayTV versus the Internet in the battle for the future of television.

The TBA headliners on Saturday night at the Levi's/Fader Fort are Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, with Sleigh Bells performing beforehand. The full lineup, except for an as-yet-unnamed Wednesday evening headliner, is posted after the jump.

Meanwhile, our Fader Fort VIP badge giveaway contest is now in the voting phase -- you can cast your ballot for your favorite haiku until 9:30 p.m. CST.

The TBA headliners on Saturday night at the Levi's/Fader Fort are Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, with Sleigh Bells performing beforehand. The full lineup, except for an as-yet-unnamed Wednesday evening headliner, is posted after the jump.

Meanwhile, our Fader Fort VIP badge giveaway contest is now in the voting phase -- you can cast your ballot for your favorite haiku until 9:30 p.m. CST.

Aquarium Drunkard Aquarium Drunkard @ SXSW Interactive: Strange Boys, Harlem, Blair
Saturday, March 13th
Red Eyed Fly (715 Red River)
free, 8pm, RSVP Required,
[info] | [tickets]What's not to love about a garage band that recorded an album titled Free Drugs ;-) at a guy called Coomers' mom's house? Nuthin', that's what.

To make matters even better, Harlem are teaming up with fellow local lovables, Strange Boys and Brooklyn's Blair for a free show Saturday night. Harlem will soon be following up their dive-bar dissertation Free Drugs ;-) with a new album, "Hippies". You'll want to preview the track "Friendly Ghost" and put on your dancing shoes before Aquarium Drunkard's excellent showcase. Check out our interview with Harlem bassist Jose Boyer for insights on radness, dancing, deaf sound guys, and turning text messages into lyrics.

Proof that God Blessed Texas: our cup runneth over this month with free shows, and many of the not-to-be-missed acts are local. One such band is Strange Boys, who are fashioning R&B garage rock that elevates self-excoriation to an art form. Exhibit A: their recently released Be Brave, which remarkably sounds like rawness refined.

Strange Boys, (benefitting from the newly aquired lady saxophonist Jenna Thornhill) have the sound and appeal of an angsty love note scrawled on a torn out textbook page, crumpled up, tossed out, refound, then smoothed out again and cherished. In other words: kids, get your asses to Red Eyed Fly early, because you don't want to miss out on this one.

The Strange Boys [Myspace] [Official]
Harlem [Myspace]
Blair [Myspace]

I sat down with Alex Jones (@BaldMan), user experience manager, web technologist and self-proclaimed information junkie, to discuss the big concepts at SXSWi this year... and to find out why something called Stickybits should actually be taken seriously.

Alex Jones

W: A few years ago, Twitter was by far the big buzz at SXSWi. What do you think it's going to be this year?

A: The consensus seems to be that location apps are the big ones. Unlike Twitter coming out as really the sole one a few years ago, this year there's more of a battle between Gowalla and Foursquare, and quite possibly a few others... ones who are focusing on aggregating location information... like, 'What are the hot spots? What are the cool parties right now?'

There's also a focus on technologies that augment reality: like looking at your iPhone and being able to move it around to see where everyone is. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some interesting new pieces there.

W: Amazing. Or scary. Keep going...

A: Another thing that should be kind of neat - and again it's tying together the physical with online - has to do with barcodes and QR Codes. 

 
QR Code

On the badges this year, they're using what are called QR codes. So instead of my handing you a business card for us to trade information, you just scan my badge code with your iPhone and it'll connect you with my information on the SXSW site.

W: [You know I spent several hours printing business cards yesterday, right?]

A: And there's another thing I just discovered yesterday that sounds really interesting. It also has an interesting name. It's called Stickybits.

W: Um, Stickybits?

A: Stickybits.

W: Okay...

A: So you use your phone - or anything with a camera - to take a picture of a barcode, and Stickybits allows you to associate information with it. For example, the Stella that you're drinking: I could take a picture of it, and if anyone else has ever scanned the barcode and left notes about it, I could see them. And, I could attach my own notes. You can also go online and create your own, which is kinda neat.

 
Stickybits
W: Create your own…?

A: Your own barcode.

W: You mean a barcode for you? As a person?

For you. Then you can then print out, or apparently you can even buy stickers, and you can put it on whatever you want. I fully expect you'll see a whole bunch of those popping up around Austin almost as kind of graffiti. But it also might be a neat way to, say, label boxes at home. For instance, if you have a box of books and you're looking for one in particular, you could scan the label to get a list of all of them.

So geolocation and augmenting thereof: Those are my guesses for this year.

There are also some web technologies that you'll see, like HTML 5.

W: Right. Why am I hearing so much about HTML 5? Can you give me a synopsis?

Okay, so stop me if I get too far down the rabbit hole… Right now, the big markup languages people use are either HTML 4 or XHTML. But a lot of people are starting to go toward HTML 5. It's adding new tags, trying to account for where the web has gone… trying to provide more semantics. So instead of just having a div, which is like a generic container that says I hold stuff, they've added some new, less generic tags. There's a header tag and a footer tag, a navigation, an article, a section... So a section is not as generic as div, but an article can have sections, or an article could be in a section... It's moving toward relying less on humans to explicitly see what everything is.

W:

 
Alice falls down rabbit hole

I think the other key thing that'll be interesting this year is type.

W: Yeah, I noticed the words web typography in a lot of panel titles. 

Especially with the rise of TypeKit, we're seeing a lot more font flexibility, both in terms of what is available for the web and also in how easy it is to implement. In the past, there have been packages that make it easier to at least make your headlines in cool fonts, but it always took some hacking. But Typekit in particular has done an amazing job of not only making it easy, but also making it worthwhile for the font foundries to license appropriately.

W: How does the font licensing work?

If you're a print designer and you buy a font for a piece, you have the right to use it there, but you don't necessarily have the right to use that same font on the web. They're different licenses. Typekit has figured out how to license the fonts and to guarantee to the font foundries that people aren't misusing them or getting them for free. But they've also made it cheap enough for a designer who's working on side projects or even a full-on design house or corporation to choose to license at a reasonable fee- and it's all delivered in a cross-browser way.

W: So is it subscription-based?

Exactly. They have a premium model, or you can use it for free with a limited number of fonts. They also have a few other plans depending on how much usage and how many fonts are available to you. And instead of your having to know all of the variations in code and CSS for the different browsers, you simply embed the font and Typekit deals with all of that for you. I think we're going to see so many more beautiful websites because of it.

W: Any parting thoughts?

I think this an amazing time. After the bubble burst, it got dark for awhile, but we're in such a cooler space than we ever were in 2000. You don't have to be Amazon anymore. You can not only a living, but you can live pretty well - if you put in some effort ahead of time and go at it a little more slowly. There are so many tools to work with. Each one has its own platform, but people are realizing that by opening them up, they're even that much more powerful.

In your mind, split the United States into two equally populated section and imagine that I-35 is the dividing line straight down the middle. Now, also imagine that all of the people, approximately 150 million on either side, are pushed to the farthest coast possible. Now try to envision, once a year, at the exact same time, that everyone on the east coast would pile into dank, chest-crushing stations and board west-bound trains. Sounds impossible, right? Well, it actually happens every year in China and it is the largest human migration on earth.

During the Lunar New Year, over 130 million residents of industrialized towns sardine themselves through maddening crowds to head back to their rural beginnings. In his directorial debut, Last Train Home, Lixin Fan follows one couple, Changhua and Sugin Zhang, on their journey from the factory town of Guangzhou back to the place where they left their baby daughter 16 years earlier. The Zhangs make the harrowing trip every year, once a year, but this time things are a bit different.

As you could imagine, their now 17-year-old daughter, Qin, resents their choice to leave her with family members so that they could go to work in the garment factories. Qin has quit school, and run away to Guangzhou to join the ranks of the young migrant workers herself. Determined to build a better life for Qin, Changhua and Sugin will participate in the migration once again, but this time with the aim of finding their daughter and taking her back the village to continue her education.

More about the film, screening times, and trailer after the jump!

Last Train Home is at the top of our must-see-documentaries list this year. While the film focuses on a singular family, their story represent the millions of nameless others who must fight to make a life for themselves and keep their culture alive. It looks absolutely beautiful and our prediction is that there will not be a dry eye in the house when the credits roll. Bring you tissues.

Last Train Home screens Saturday, March 13th at 2pm at the Alamo South Lamar, Friday, March 19th at 12:00pm at the Paramount Theater and finally Saturday, March 20th at 11:30am at the Alamo Ritz. For the full schedule, see my.SXSW or B-Side.

Image from Myspace Flaming Lips with Stardeath and White Dwarfs
Friday, March 12
()
Sold out, doors 7:30pm
[info] As the taste, sights and sounds of South By Southwest start to trickle back into Austinite's stream of consciousness, it's easy to forget that there is still stuff going on this weekend. And some big stuff at that. One event not to be dismissed is a Flaming Lips performance at Austin Music Hall. The mega group is currently on tour to promote their latest album, Embryonic.

Flaming Lips are a band that hardly need an introduction. Wayne Coyne and his crew have a legend of kooky shows preceding them and have a natural ability to finesse the weirdest of the weird into something palatable for pretty much any audience. The mad doctor's stage antics typically include: walking through the crowd in an outfit similar to that of The Bubble Boy, singing through a megaphone, wearing giant foam hands and pouring tons of confetti and balloons onto the audience.

Regardless of the band's complicated relationship with heavy drugs, the music is still dramatic and they are undoubtedly a spectacle to be seen. And an epic tale to tell future generations. Think about it: will you one day sit down to tell your grandchildren the story of that really sweet indie electro-pop show or the time you saw Wayne Coyne parading down Sixth St. in a giant bubble? Just sayin'.

Tonight's show is already sold out, but that just means an excuse for a road trip. Hitch a ride up to Denton to catch them Saturday evening at the NX35 Music Conferrete alongside Midlake. Tonight's opening act is Stardeath and White Dwarfs.

Flaming Lips [myspace] [official]
Stardeath and White Dwarfs [myspace]

Marc Ott, City of Austin On the heels of Chief Acevedo's announcement that he's a finalist in the Dallas Police Chief search, the City of Austin decided to fight to keep Chief Acevedo here.

In a press release issued yesterday, City Manager Marc Ott stated: “Art is an exemplary Police Chief for this community, and has shown the courage to take bold steps to ensure that we remain one of the safest large cities in the country [. . .] To that end, we’ve decided not to wait until the conclusion of the hiring process in Dallas to make an offer to retain Art Acevedo as Austin’s Police Chief."

While Ott did not comment on how much Acevedo would be offered, he assured Austinites that every reasonable step is being taken to "keep Art in Austin."


However, following that release, KVUE reported that Acevedo had turned down a $7,000 raise (his current salary is $181,000, with the Dallas position offering up to $195,000).

According to KVUE, Acevedo commented to a Dallas reporter that it's not about the money: "I think it's irresponsible for police chiefs to try to leverage their current positions for a pay raise. I love what I do."

Currently the City of Austin has no plans to make a counter-offer if Acevedo wins the Dallas search.

Our next giveaway contest is up now over on our dedicated SXSW twitter account, @SXSWist! This one's pretty simple: send us a haiku in tweet form about a past or future adventure at the Fort, and start your response with "@SXSWist @LEVISFADERFORT" so we'll have an easy way to find it. The challenge is valid until 3:30 p.m., after which we'll pick our 10-15 favorites, which you'll get to vote on to decide who wins the grand prize of a pair of VIP badges to the Fader Fort, valid all weekend.

Voting is now closed. Congrats to winner @dennishegstad!

Vote For Your Favorite @LEVISFADERFORT Haikupoll

In the least surprising political news of the week, Governor Rick Perry’s campaign has wasted no time going on the offensive against Democratic challenger Bill White, hitting him hard on his non-commitment on ruling out tax increases during his TribLive interview on Tuesday (video at right), and for his refusal (initially, at least) to release his income tax returns to the public.

On Wednesday, Perry campaign consultant Dave Carney sent out another letter to supporters that accomplished two tasks. First, it made the obligatory -- albeit brief -- request for party unity after the GOP’s divisive primary. And second, it served as a sort of blueprint for how the Perry camp plans on attacking Bill White’s record and Democratic credentials. “Our hapless opponent is a failed liberal frustrated politician who spent the last year office shopping,” Carney writes. “In few interviews he has morphed into a combination of Jimmy Carter, Mike Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry rolled in to one.” Carney goes on to rail against White’s career as a trial lawyer, his role in turning Houston into a sanctuary city, and his opposition to guns: three red-meat issues sure to both stir up the conservative base, and draw some objection from White himself.

What remains to be seen is how successfully White can frame his own attacks and withstand Perry’s jabs over the course of this general election. There’s certainly no shortage of material for White to work with, but does he risk alienating the coveted cross-over vote if he hits back too hard? WIll he be playing too much to Perry's strength? Negative campaigning is a delicate art form, and in a race of this magnitude against an incumbent with a shaky political record, a necessary evil. White is faced with the formidable task of both expanding the Democratic voting base and dethroning King Rick in the reddest of the red states during a time when the Democratic Party on the national level is facing some fierce opposition.

It won’t be easy, but the Republican Party may be just fractured enough for White to make some noise. Governor Perry has been considered politically vulnerable for quite some time, yet no candidate in the past decade - Republican or Democrat -- has been able to successfully translate that vulnerability into a competitive challenge.

National insiders are starting to pay attention, and right now at least, it’s anybody’s ballgame. And while many questions remained unanswered, one thing’s for sure: there may be multiple routes to the Governor’s office, but the high road isn’t one of them.

Bill White on taxes:

Bill White on taxes from texastribune on Vimeo.

americansleepover.com "I just feel like I should have done more this summer."
"You did a lot."
"I mean fun stuff like...I don't know."

Don't look at us, 'cause we didn't know either. High school summers were so hit and miss. There were those of us that did absolutely nothing, while a few of us were lucky enough to travel. A number of people tried out their first summer jobs as lifeguards or waiters—perhaps you were the teenage dirtbag in the booth or poolside chair pining over those shiny, new employees? No matter what you were doing, we think it's safe to put the following in all caps: ANGST FEST.

One of eight films in the Narrative Features Competition, David Robert Mitchell's The Myth of the American Sleepover follows four Metro-Detroit teens trying to make the most of their last summer night. They haunt neighborhood streets, swimming pools, lakes, and abandoned factories as they scramble to find that moment worth talking about. Anything...a connection. Something to combat that endlessly looping thought that they just haven't done enough. On their quest to live before it's too late (an incredibly dramatic statement for anyone that still has a "teen" at the end of their age, btw), they find themselves immersed in the stuff of nostalgia—those real, quiet moments we learn to appreciate a bit more as years pass.

Once a Metro-Detroit teen himself, Screenwriter/Director Mitchell brings us the world premiere of his feature-length, directorial debut this Saturday at the Alamo Ritz. Littered with little hints of first experiences and growing up, the available sound bites and shots look promising. That could be your friend lit by streetlight and looking more beautiful than ever. You might recognize a little bit of someone in the kid that doesn't seem entirely natural and committed to that cigarette they just accepted. And maybe you'll let out a big ol' sigh of understanding when you hear the question, "You ever think about a person so much that you start to believe that they might know you're thinking about them?" Looks like you'll be remembering some things at this screening, so prepare for pangs of nostalgia.



The Myth of the American Sleepover has its world premiere at the Alamo Ritz on Saturday, March 13 at 2pm. The film also screens on Sunday, March 14 at 11:30am at Alamo Lamar and Wednesday, March 17th at 9:30pm at G-Tech. For the full schedule, see my.SXSW or B-Side.

John Fago Ellen Fullman and the Long String Instrument
Saturday, March 13 - Sunday, March 14
Seaholm Power Plant (214 West Avenue)
8 PM, $12/adv, $15/door
[info] This weekend will be a long-awaited return to Austin for inventor, composer and sound artist Ellen Fullman, who spent twelve years here developing her instrument/sculpture and approach, in a Manor Road studio. Fullman's work mostly hinges upon the Long String Instrument, initially conceived as an enveloping, spatial string-and-movement activated installation. The instrument is played by walking its 100-foot strings, placing rosin on one's hands and other objects, and integrating body, action and space into a complete sound experience. Each point on the strings carries with it different harmonic possibilities, which are attuned to both the performer's self and inhabitant area. For this Austin exhibition/performance, the Long String Instrument will be installed and played in the cavernous space of the Seaholm Power Plant by members of the New Music Coop. A sonic and visual environment both expansive and microcosmic, Fullman's work will provide an excellent re-calibrating of the ears, body and mind in the days leading up to SXSW. Consider the Long String Instrument "doctor's orders."

Two shows are scheduled, on both Saturday and Sunday nights.

Still from the filmIn the hustle and bustle of SXSW, with the long hours standing in lines and the late night revelry, it’s easy to lose sight of one of the most important aspects of making a great film: the storytelling. No, not the Todd Solondz movie (although good guess—you are a movie nerd!) or that thing you told that door guy to get in to that sold out show. We’re talking about the kind of tale that picks you up out of your chair and transports you into an alternate world where all you care about is seeing what happens next.

A good story can make or break a film. It can look great, sound great, the actors can be perfect, but if there’s not an interesting plot, those are the things you’re noticing, and you’ll never actually care what happens in the end. When director Debra Granik (Down to the Bone) decided to adapt this gritty backwoods novel by Daniel Woodrell, you can bet she knew she had a good story on her hands. But what she did with that novel brings it to life in new ways.

Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) may not look like Dog the Bounty Hunter, but when it comes to tracking down a fugitive from justice, she aims to get her man. Especially when that fugitive is her ne’er-do-well father, and what’s at stake is her home. Now that he’s disappeared, Ree has become the de-facto caretaker for her mentally ill mother and two siblings, and she’ll be damned if she’s going to let them lose their home. The quest for her father is on.

Set in the rough country of the Ozark mountains, this moody drama captures the country life in a way most movies never do. Granik keeps it feeling authentic while never letting you forget just what kind of a world you’ve entered—there are no yokels in overalls, but the rural dread and despair that permeates Ree’s lifestyle (where joining the military would be a welcome respite)—permeates every frame.

Winter’s Bone brought home both the Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance this year, and Lawrence’s performance was hailed as a breakthrough, one of the highlights of the festival. And as everyone knows, a good story and a powerful performance—well, that’s what makes a movie great.

Winter’s Bone plays Sunday, March 14 at 4:15 PM and Wednesday, March 17 at 7:00 PM at the Alamo Lamar 2. For the full schedule, see my.SXSW or B-Side.