SXSW Blog: Ninjas, Indie Rock Chicks and Packed City Streets

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 13, 2008

I mentioned this before, but the streets of Austin have been revitalized with a new life, a new energy and a completely new and different crowd — the musicians are here and they smell a little different than the interactive folk. I’m not saying it is a bad smell, it is just different.

When we last met I was telling tales of Kristen Bell, the Veronica Mars hottie that posed for a picture with me at a private event yesterday. Since then I have received countless jealous emails, mostly from friends who are angry that I get to do what I do on a daily basis. Well my friends, I am here to push the envelope of jealousy — I had by far the best celebrity sighting moment last night.

Despite the fact that I saw Choke at Sundance, I was convinced by Peter that I had nothing better to do last night than see it, so I went along. There I was sitting, chatting with Ken from First Showing about Rambo (odd, I know), when the guy in front of us turned around and asked us if who we wrote for (because we were obviously bloggers, there were just no two ways about it) Once we got the pleasantries out of the way, he explained that he was at SXSW with the producers of Rambo and that they were making a new movie with them, a remake of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. It took a second, then it clicked — I pointed at him and said, “Wait, that means you are one of the AskaNinja guys!” — guilty! At that point I proceeded to geek-out all over him, quoting the Ask a Ninja review of Pirates 3 and everything. It was the moment of the festival for me. I know… I’m a huge nerd, but whatever — Ask a Ninja fuckin’ rules. In the end, he was a really nice guy — and judging by the little kid glow he had about the Tomatoes remake, I can tell that it could turn out to be awesome.

As for Choke, I’m happy to report that it was even better the second time around — even more intelligent, more irreverent and more absurd. Sam Rockwell is still the man.

This morning I made it out of the house before anyone else was awake, as I had an interview to do with the guys from Second Skin — one of my favorite films of the fest thus far. They were awesome. In fact, I was surprised when they began thanking me for the review I had written. The interview, which probably should have only lasted 15-20 minutes, went on for 45 minutes as we chatted about gaming, society and the art of making a great doc. Look for a full feature from me sometime before the weekend is up.

After the interview I had the pleasure of catching two more movies this afternoon: the absolutely phenomenal artistic sub-culture doc Beautiful Losers and the shocking, engrossing doc Bulletproof Salesman, about a German man who deals armored vehicles in the Middle East. Those full reviews are on the way, as are a few others — assuming no major news hits this evening.

That brings us up to date once again. If you are following me on Twitter (which you should be) then you already know that I am in for the night, partied out, doing some laundry and getting caught up on my reviews — I’ve seen too many awesome movies not to be writing about them all.

As well, we should get an update to our SXSW Flickr Photos, so keep an eye on that. Until tomorrow, you stay classy…