SXSW Blog: Geek Movies, Kristen Bell and Other Diversions

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 12, 2008

I’d be lying if I said that we’ve been getting tons of emails from readers asking where our SXSW Blog has been the past few days, but that doesn’t change the fact that someone is, in fact, interested in reading about our shenanigans. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, then you can see that it has been a busy week — well, I guess that depends on your definition of “busy”.

Today being Wednesday, it is time for the Music Festival here at South by Southwest. While I am sad to see our friends from the Interactive Fest go, especially our good friend Muhammad Saleem, I believe that the arrival of the musical side of SXSW has breathed new life into the entire event. The Film Festival keeps on kicking, all the way to the end of the week, even though the Film Awards were given out last night — it’s back assword I know, but that is how SXSW rolls. Needless to say, we are here until the absolute end of the festival on Saturday. There is no reason why we should miss out on the chance to kick it in a great house and see more great films.

Speaking of great films — we have certainly seen a few gems thus far. We’ve got a bunch more reviews coming in the next day or so, but if you’d like to see write-ups on some of the best of SXSW so far, check out my review of The Promotion starring Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly or Brian’s review of Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet. I also loved the film Nerdcore Rising, which chronicles the first national tour of MC Frontalot, the nerdy rapper who is taking over the world. Keep an eye on our SXSW homepage for more reviews over the next few days as we attempt to get ourselves caught up.

Why would we need to get caught up? Simply, we’ve fallen prey to all the wonderful diversions that Austin has to offer during SXSW week. It seems like every night brings a new party, a new round of fun and more drunken shenanigans. Monday night we had an opportunity to attend the highly secretive and uber-exclusive Ain’t It Cool News Forgetting Sarah Marshall cocktail hour. There we hung out with the usual crowd of online movie blogger-elite (Scott Weinberg and Erik Davis from Cinematical, Harry and Quint from AICN, Pete and Mel from Slashfilm, Alex and Ken from FirstShowing.net and many others.) We also got the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the cast, including Jason Segel, Kristen Bell and Russell Brand. Kristen Bell was a sweetheart, Russell Brand was outrageous and Jason Segel was really laid back and cool. Director Nick Stoller actual stopped and talked with us for a few minutes as well — he was a great guy. Overall, it was an awesome experience.

Since then it has been back to work — more films and more reviewing to do. In fact, I will leave this a bit short and get back to writing up some of the awesome films that I have seen before. Keep an eye on my Twitter stream for on-the-go updates from Austin and be sure to check out our Flickr Photostream for more pictures like the ones above. Until tomorrow, you stay classy, world wide web.

Click Here to Visit Our SXSW Homepage!

Read more articles by Neil Miller