SXSW - day 1

Okay, so after a huge air-travel tie-up Saturday into Sunday (Atlanta's Ramada Plaza is pretty nice and has a really good Mexican restaurant which serves THE BIGGEST margaritas I have ever seen and the waitresses were pretty cute too), we made finally made it to Austin. Brendan's parents met us at the airport and brought us back to their house, where I promptly proceeded to take a nap.

Then we got started with the movies and all. Yesterday (Sunday), we saw "

Mutual Appreciation

," ""

Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt

" and "

Reeker

." We also tried to see "

The Fearless Freaks

."

I'll start with the one we didn't see. We couldn't get in to see "The Fearless Freaks" - a movie centered around the Flaming Lips - because the movie filled up before they let in people without passes. We knew this was going to happen a few times. We just didn't think it was going to happen so early. But it did and we'll get over it.

"Mutual Appreciation" was a cute, quirky little movie. I found the core cast endearing and the script - while a bit heavy on "intellectual" dialogue - was good and paced well with the film. In black and white and with a minimal cast, it is kind of a band-oriented "Clerks" (or at least that's what Brendan's father alluded to when we talked about the movie afterward) with a little relationship (or at least friendship) drama thrown in.

"Be Here to Love Me" told the story of country singer Townes Van Zandt. Now, either I'm starting to like country more (Kasey Chambers, etc.) or I am just calling something country that is more folk-y. Let's call it alt-ish country. Anyway, I'm a Townes fan now and you can bet I'll be picking up some of his stuff when I get home.

"Reeker" was a horror movie. For those of you who know me, you know I'm not a horror fan. This one starred Devon Gummersall (Brian from "My So-Called Life") and had some funny moments. I got into an argument about the purity of horror films after this one. My view is that all horror movies (or at least the majority) start out being true horror movies and most of the comedy is unintentional (some obviously isn't and this movie had several examples) and when it is it's meant to be but when it isn't it detracts from the actual horror of the movie. This one didn't mean for all the things we (and the audience in general) found funny to be funny. And that somehow made it less horror-y. At least to me.

That's day one. More later. Keep it real fellas (and ladies, cuz I know you're out there).