Tim Disney’s American Violet, opening in limited release today, is a well-acted but heavy-handed message movie that could have used a subtler approach.

We risk losing our doctored press badges and sneak behind enemy lines to get an early look at a film
playing at SXSW – Anvil! The Story of Anvil.

The latest film from director Ramin Bahrani is the powerful, deeply moving story of an unexpected friendship.

SXSW may be over but that won’t stop us from giving you coverage with some great interviews. This time we talk with Josephine Decker, co-writer and director of the music video Where Are You Going, Elena?

Ross (Shane Taylor) wakes up early one day to see his parents off on their road trip through Europe. Alistair (Benjamin Whitrow) and Valerie (Eileen Nicholas) are heading to Germany for some unknown reason, but when the trip faces cancellation, Ross agrees to chauffeur his parents through Europe.

Three words that should bring a smile to the face of even the saddest person. But despite having the best title ever, can Lesbian Vampire Killers really live up to its promises?

Desperation, a dominatrix and detachment in relationships. Zach Clark brings them all in Modern Love is Automatic, one of the best films of SXSW.

Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) is a teenage girl reuniting with her father to join him on a trek from Honduras to a dream life in the United States. Willy (Edgar Flores) is a member of Mara Salvatrucha, a ruthless Mexico City gang trying to escape.

In a very real sense, this movie is the first of its kind. The first boots-on-the-ground Iraq War film. It immediately places the audience in the dusty streets of Baghdad and refuses to let anyone leave until the end.

So far as SXSW we’ve got to watch some incredible films, a few crappy ones, and we’ve gotten to speak with some talented filmmakers about the process behind their projects. This would certainly be one of the incredible ones.

There are very few relationships that offer such great potential for humor and discovery like a sibling rivalry, John Bryant understands this and offers a hilarious road-trip story in The Overbrook Brothers, a film screening at SXSW.

Part one in our one part series with director Ondi Timenor examines the world of the internet, the proliferation of technology, and the way our lives are being changed as we continue to live more and more in public.

Wavy Gravy is the proto-typical hippie. He was a peace-loving, humanitarian warning people about the bad acid before the term was even invented. And here at SXSW, we had a chance to sit down and talk with the man, the myth and the red nose.

The Troll 2 cult phenomenon is seemingly unexplainable. That didn’t stop Michael Paul Stephenson from directing a fascinating documentary, Best Worst Movie, about the transformation of the film from a movie mess to must see territory. We had the chance to talk to Stephenson, an incredibly gracious filmmaker, at SXSW about the chance to exorcise the goblins from his life.

Does penis violence make you queasy? And I don’t mean violence committed by penises, but violence committed against them. Punches, drill bits spinning Candiru-style up the urethra, or tri-hooked fishing lures pierced through a guy’s dongle then yanked… if so, then you just may want to skip the new Australian film, The Horseman.

“I have the feeling that if I died in the middle of the night they’d just roll me out and roll the next one in,” says Abner Meecham (Hal Holbrook) in That Evening Sun. “And nobody would even notice.”

One of our favorite films from this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival was undoubtedly Sebastian Gutierrez’s Women in Trouble. Therefore we’ve scored two clips from two of our favorite scenes and we’d like to share them with you.

As you know, we are here in Austin covering the 2009 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival. And as part of that, we thought it appropriate to bring you up to speed on which movies were bringing home some hardware at last night’s SXSW Film Awards ceremony.

Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister Jones have made their presence known at SXSW in a large way. Now they talk to us about working through relationship issues on-screen in Breaking Upwards.

MINE: Taken By Katrina is a story about the pets who lived in the path of Hurricane Katrina, but it’s also about the owners who chose (or were forced) to evacuate without them and the families who eventually adopted them into their homes.