Interviews: June 2013
Interview, Part 1: Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij, "The East"In writer/director Zal Batmanglij’s political thriller The East, Brit Marling stars as Sarah, a private intelligence operative who infiltrates an anarchist group that targets major corporations it believes has not been punished for violating the public trust. The group known as The East is led by Alexander Skarsgard’s charismatic Benji. Ellen Page plays Benji’s trusted second-in-command, Izzy. With the help of other members of The East, Benji and Izzy plan “jams,” The East’s jargon for the attacks the group carries out. The longer Sarah remains undercover, the closer she gets to Benji and the more comes to understand and appreciate The East’s agenda. Director Zal Batmanglij wrote The East with star Brit Marling. It is their follow-up to last year’s Sound of My Voice, which starred Marling as a mysterious cult leader. The East opens tomorrow in Austin after premiering locally at this year’s SXSW Film Festival. I was among several members of the media to sit down with The East writer/director Zal Batmanglij and star/co-writer Brit Marling the day after the political thriller closed the SXSW Film Festival.
Aired: June 13, 2013
Web site: http://www.theeastmovie.com/
- Interview: Alexander Skarsgard, "The East"
In writer/director Zal Batmanglij’s political thriller The East, Brit Marling stars as Sarah, a private intelligence operative who infiltrates an anarchist group that targets major corporations it believes has not been punished for violating the public trust. The group known as The East is led by Alexander Skarsgard’s charismatic Benji. Ellen Page plays Benji’s trusted second-in-command, Izzy. With the help of other members of The East, Benji and Izzy plan “jams,” The East’s jargon for the attacks the group carries out. The longer Sarah remains undercover, the closer she gets to Benji and the more comes to understand and appreciate The East’s agenda. Director Zal Batmanglij wrote The East with star Brit Marling. It is their follow-up to last year’s Sound of My Voice, which starred Marling as a mysterious cult leader. The East opens tomorrow in Austin after premiering locally at this year’s SXSW Film Festival. I was among several members of the media to sit down with The East costar Alexander Skarsgard after the political thriller closed the SXSW Film Festival.
Aired: June 13, 2013
Web site: http://www.theeastmovie.com/
- Interview, Part 1: Jimmy Stewart, "Sound & Cinema" Summer Series
The online blog has teamed up with the Alamo Drafthouse to present the new summer series “Sound & Cinema: Music and Movies on the Lawn” at at the Long Center City Terrace. The series features a film screening followed by a musical tribute performance. “Sound & Cinema” kicked off last week with a screening of Labyrinth and a performance by the David Bowie tribute band Super Creeps. It will continue 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 19 with a screening of Smokey and the Bandit and a performance by Whiskey Shivers that will feature songs from the road. Do512 president and co-founder Jimmy Stewart discusses the summer series.
Aired: June 13, 2013
Web sites: http://do512.com/soundandcinema and https://www.facebook.com/AustinSoundAndCinema
- Interview, Part 1: Ron Deutsch, Chef Du Cinema
Ron Deustch knows Austin is a city that enjoys the combined experience of eating dinner and watching a movie. As the founder of Chef Du Cinema, Deustch wants fellow film lovers to do more than just go out and order food while catching the latest blockbuster or a repertory screening. Through his Chef Du Cinema classes at the Central Market North, Deustch instructs his students to prepare film-themed mouth-watering four-course meals that are then eating during that evening’s screening of the film in question. Deustch’s next class will be held 6:30 p.m. Saturday June 8 at the Central Market North. He will prepare a four-course meal that is thematically tied to director Terry Gilliam’s 1981 classic family fantasy epic, Time Bandits.
Aired: June 6, 2013
Web site: http://chef-du-cinema.blogspot.com/
- Interview, Part 1: Lars Nilsen, programmer, Austin Film Society
Lars Nilsen joined the Austin Film Society in February 2013 as a programmer after spending a decade as a programmer with the Alamo Drafthouse. In addition to his programming duties, Nilsen also is involved in the plans to renovate the Marchasa Hall, where the Austin Film Society has expanded its film programs.
Aired: June 6, 2013
Web site: http://www.austinfilm.org/
- Interview, Part 1: Stephen R. Reynolds, writer/director, "The Condition"
Austin director Stephen R. Reynolds' short film The Condition comically chronicles how a writer confronts his literary creations in a bid to overcome his writer's block. The Condition will 5:30 p.m. Saturday, June 8 at the North Door Main Stage.
Aired: June 6, 2013
Web site: http://bdunes.com/
- Interview, Part 1: John Lee Hancock, director, "The Rookie" and "The Blind Side"
Texas-born director John Lee Hancock has made a name for himself with two fact-based sports films that sought to inspire. The Rookie chronicled how, at age 35, Texas high-school teacher and baseball coach Jim Morris beat the odds in 1999 to become a relief pitcher for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Blind Side recounted Michael Oher’s uphill climb to overcome his humble beginnings to make it as a college and professional football player with the help of the African-American young man’s white adoptive parents, Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy. The Blind Side received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and earned then-Austinite Sandra Bullock an Oscar for her performance as the no-nonsense but kindhearted Leigh Anne Tuohy. Hancock also directed the 2004 version of The Alamo, which was partially shot in Austin and starred Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston, Billy Bob Thorton as Davy Crockett, Jason Patric as James Bowie, and Patrick Wilson as William Barret Travis. Hancock is currently putting the finishing touches to Saving Mr. Banks, which opens on Dec. 20 and stars Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers. He also is planning to direct Highwaymen, a thriller about the Texas Rangers (played by Liam Neeson and Woody Harrelson) who were responsible for hunting down Bonnie & Clyde. The Austin Film Festival will screen The Rookie as part of its Made in Texas Family Series at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 1 at the Texas Spirit Theatre at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. Hancock will participate in a post-screening Q&A.
Aired: May 30, 2013
Web site: http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/
- Interview, Part 1: Caitlin McFarland & Emily Gipson, ATX Television Festival
The second annual ATX Television Festival will be held June 6-9 at various venues, including the Alamo Ritz and the Stateside at the Paramount. The festival will include panels on Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, and Veronica Mars and screenings of American Dreams, Boy Meets World, Falling Skies, Hell on Wheels, Once Upon a Time, Royal Pains, and Scandal with many cast members and creators in attendances. Guests and panelists include Perception’s Rachael Leigh Cook and Scott Wolf, New Girl’s Lamorne Morris, Hell on Wheels’ Anson Mount, Boy Meets World’s Ben Savage, Low Winter Sun’s Mark Strong, and Parenthood’s Mae Whitman, as well as TV producers and creators Dan Harmon, Bill Lawrence, and Rob Thomas. There also will be a community screening of Friday Night Lights at the Hotel San Jose Parking Lot at 6 p.m. June 7 and a Hasbro Studio’s Saturday Morning Cartoon Breakfast at 8:30 a.m. June 8 at the Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental Hotel Ballroom.
Aired: May 30, 2013
Web site: http://www.atxfestival.com/
- Interview: Richard Linklater & Ethan Hawke, "Before Midnight"
Picking up nine years after Before Sunset, Before Midnight finds Jesse and Celine still contemplating their future together, this time in Greece while on a family vacation with their two young twin daughters. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy returns as the lovers whose relationship Austin director Richard Linklater (left) has examined over the course of three films since 1995. Before Midnight received its Austin premiere on May 23, hosted by the Linklater-founded Austin Film Society, in advance of earning a whopping $246,914 at just five theaters during its opening weekend. What’s New host Tracey Shultz attended the premiere and spoke with director Richard Linklater and the Austin-born Ethan Hawke about Before Midnight. Director Richard Rodrigeuz also attended the premiere and provide an update on the upcoming Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
Aired: May 30, 2013
Web site: http://www.sonyclassics.com/beforemidnight/
- Interview, Part 1: Graham Reynolds, composer, "Before Midnight"
Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds’ collaborations with Richard Linklater date back to 2006’s A Scanner Darkly, which Cinema Retro magazine named the named Best Soundtrack of the Decade. He also composed the score for Linklater’s Bernie and Before Midnight. The third film in Linklater’s Before trilogy premieres 7 p.m. May 23 at the Violet Crown Cinema, with Linklater and stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in attendance, and will open May 24 in Austin theaters. Reynolds also provided the score for Linklater’s new Hulu TV series, Up to Speed. Reynolds has also worked on many shorts and features, including Gretchen, I’ll Come Running, Holy Hell, 5-Time Champion, Far Marfa, and the upcoming Paul Rudd comedy Almost Christmas. He’s also featured in the Trash Dance, director Andrew Garrison’s documentary about the choreographed performance by Forklift Danceworks and City of Austin sanitation workers. In addition to being a member of Austin’s jazz-based Golden Arm Trio, Reynolds founded the Golden Hornet Project and has worked with the Austin Symphony Orchestra. He also composed the music for The Intergalactic Nemesis.
Aired: May 23, 2013
Web site: http://grahamreynolds.com/ and http://www.sonyclassics.com/beforemidnight/
- Interview, Part 1: Greg MacLennan & Tommy Swenson, Alamo's Summer of 1983
In 2012, the Alamo Drafthouse celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Summer of 1982, which many consider to be the greatest summer of movies, by screening many of the best and biggest hits of that popcorn season. This year, the Alamo Drafthouse will again turn back the clock, this time with the Summer of 1983 film series. The retrospective begins 7 p.m. May 30 at the Alamo Ritz with a special 35mm screening of Return of the Jedi. Other films in the series include such box office hits and disappointments as Scarface, Risky Business, Octopussy, WarGames, Jaws 3D, Trading Places, Psycho II, Twilight Zone The Movie, and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. Also, the series will highlight a number of teen sex comedies, horror films and thrillers that have either obtained a cult following or faded into obscurity, such as Joy Sticks, Screwballs, The Keep, The Killing of Satan, Mortuary, A Night to Dismember, Young Warriors, and Vigilante. Alamo Drafthouse programmers Greg MacLennan and Tommy Swenson discuss the Summer of 1983.
Aired: May 23, 2013
Web site: http://drafthouse.com/special_events/1983
- Interview, Part 1: Dennis Quaid, Zac Efron, and Ramin Bahrani, "At Any Price"
Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron star as father and son in director Ramin Bahrani’s drama At Any Price. Quaid plays Henry Whipple, a farmer who is constantly at odds with his youngest son Dean, who is played by Efron. Dean has no interest in the family business. Instead, he wants to pursue his dream to be a NASCAR driver, which his father does not understand. Everything Henry’s worked to achieve comes under threaten following tragic turn of events. At Any Price screened during this year’s SXSW Film Festival and will open May 17 in Austin. Houston native Dennis Quaid, of course, is not a stranger to Austin, having lived and filmed here. He also was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in 2009. High School Musical heartthrob Zac Efron previously starred in Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles, and will next appear in the Austin-shot drama Parkland that’s set on the night of JFK’s assassination. Director Ramin Bahrani is best known for his micro-budgeted dramas Man Push Cart, Chop Shop, and Goodbye Solo. Quaid, Efron, and Bahrani spoke to the media in March before the SXSW screening of At Any Price.
Aired: May 16, 2013
Web site: http://www.sonyclassics.com/atanyprice/
- Interview, Part 1: Stephen Jannise, Paramount Summer Classic Film Series
The Paramount and Stateside Theatres’ annual Summer Classic Film Series kicks off Thursday, May 23 with the double feature Casablanca and Annie Hall. There will be sidebars devoted to Daniel Day-Lewis, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Woody Allen, the Marx Brothers, and directors Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra. On July 25, Kevin Smith will present Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie, a new animated adventure that features the director’s most famous live-action characters. The Summer Classic Film Series is bookended by An Evening with Leonard Maltin on May 24 and An Evening with Robert Osborne on Sept. 6.
Aired: May 16, 2013
Web site: http://www.austintheatre.org/
- Interview, Part 1: David Magee, writer, "Finding Neverland" and "Life of Pi"
Screenwriter David Magee received an Oscar nomination for his 2004 adaptation of the play Finding Neverland, which starred Johnny Depp as “Peter Pan” author J.M. Barrie. He also received an Oscar nomination this year for his adaptation of Life of Pi by novelist Yann Martel. He also wrote the 2008 British period drama Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The Austin Film Festival will a conversation with Magee at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 22 at the Harry Ransom Center, followed by a retrospective screening of the screenwriter’s Finding Neverland at 8 p.m. at the Spirit Theatre at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.
Aired: May 16, 2013
Web site: http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/
- Interview, Part 1: The Wofford Denius Longhorn Showcase Student Filmmakers
The University of Texas’ Department of Radio-Television-Film will hold its third annual Wofford Denius Longhorn Showcase at 6 p.m. Saturday, May 11 at KLRU’s Studio 6A. The student film showcase features 12 shorts, including the Student Academy Award Regional Winners The Midwife’s Husband, Vultures of Tibet, and Ol’ Daddy. Vultures of Tibet director Russell O. Bush and The Midwife’s Husband director Déjà Berhardt join Ol’ Daddy director Brian Schwarz (pictured) during this interview.
Aired: May 9, 2013
Web site: http://rtf.utexas.edu/showcase/longhorn-denius-showcase-2013
- Interview, Part 1: Bears Fonte & Ryan Darbonne, the Austin Film Festival
The Austin Film Festival may be five months away but the festival's staff is working on a busy summer. The new AFF Indie Spirit Series continues May 20 with American Milkshake. On May 22, the festival will hold a Conversation with David Magee followed by a retrospective screening of the screenwriter’s film, Finding Neverland. The Made in Texas Series continues with the June 12 of Resurrection: The J.R. Richard Story and on July 10 with Holy Hell. The Made in Texas Family Series this summer features The Rookie on June 1, Holes on July 6, and Secondhand Lions on Aug. 3. In addition, the Austin Film Festival is one of the sponsors of the Austin Youth Film Festival, which will be held 10 a.m. Saturday, May 18 at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz. Program Director Bears Fonte (pictured) joins Film Department Director Ryan Darbonne during this interview.
Aired: May 9, 2013
Web site: http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/
- Interview: Will Martin, writer/director, "Los Angeles Rising"
Writer/director Will Martin last year unveiled Roughrider, an action thriller set in a Gulf of Mexico border town that pitted his teen skateboarder Jack Urban against the drug lord responsible for his sister’s death. Martin is now plotting to return to the role of the Clint Eastwood-esque vigilante nicknamed the Roughrider by his enemies. The Austin native has written with Seth Barton a sequel to Roughrider called Los Angeles Rising, which will find Urban battling crime on the West Coast.
Aired: May 9, 2013
Web site: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/los-angeles-rising
- Interview, Part 1: East Austin Stories UT RTF Student Filmmakers
East Austin Stories is an annual collaboration between East Austinites and student documentary filmmakers at the University of Texas’s Radio Television Film College of Communication. They produce short documentaries that chronicle life in East Austin. Founded by UT Radio Television Film Associate Producer Andrew Garrison, this year’s East Austin Stories entries will premiere May 7 at 7 p.m. at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church’s Parish Hall and at 9:30 p.m. at Kenny Dorham’s Backyard. Sam Houdek directed The Dollhouse, about barber Roosevelt “Bubba” Stewart; Tracie D. Hunter produced Space 12, which is about the church on East 12th Street that serves as an arts and community center; and and Eloise Santa Maria directed an untitled work in progress about Reness Broussard, a man who is trying to put his criminal past between him.
Aired: May 2, 2013
Web site: http://rtf.utexas.edu/eas
- Interview, Part 1: Ekrem Serdar, Experimental Response Cinema
Experimental Response Cinema screens cutting-edge works by local, national and international avant-garde film and video artists. The Austin-based collective continues its current season 7 p.m. May 9 at the University of Texas’ Visual Art Center with "Focus Group: The Screening Room with Jonas Mekas." ERC also will present "Küçük Sinemalar! Experimental Cinema from Turkey" at 7 p.m. May 18 at the AMOA-Arthouse. Filmmaker Ekrem Serdar serves as ERC's co-programmer.
Aired: May 2, 2013
Web site: http://ercatx.org/
- Interview: Carley Marissa, writer/director, "The Space Between Us"
Writer/director Carley Marissa’s short film The Space Between Us will enjoy its world premiere 8:30 p.m. May 5 as part of The Show!’s short film and live sketch comedy event at the Spider House Ballroom. The Space Between Us examines how a life-altering decision by a woman (Marissa) impacts her relationship with her boyfriend (Dane Seth Hurlburt).
Aired: May 2, 2013
Web site: https://www.facebook.com/thespacebetweenusfilm/ and http://theshowaustin.com/
