As a wedding present, Kris and Joe Swanberg received, among other gifts, an ice-cream maker. Almost immediately, Kris found herself experimenting with recipes—whiskey with bread pudding, hot chocolate with roasted marshmallows, coffee and doughnut and gingersnap cookie, four flavors a season. She sells them now by the pint at a local grocery store. During the day Kris heads to work as a substitute teacher, and though she loves teaching and is pursuing her graduate work in higher education, it’s a transitional occupation that she says is rather worthless and unfulfilling.

Joe, meanwhile, constantly developing ideas for a seemingly endless list of to-make films, struggles with all those mundanities that thwart his creative productivity. “Doing my laundry or washing my dishes, all of these tasks are cutting into time that I could use to be making work,” he says. “If I could employ a labor force to dress me in the morning, do all these tasks, drive me places, and if I could have people simultaneously scouting locations for several different projects and setting up the paperwork with SAG, then I’d have the energy within me to make six or seven features a year, I’m sure. Now, I’m just physically incapable of it.” The statement, made during an initial interview, is all the more humorously appropriate considering that Kris answers the phone for the second of the two lengthy conversations saying, “Oh, I’ll get Joe; he’s just folding socks.”

In many ways, as most couples do, Kris and Joe see and think in very different manners. While Kris tends not to debate film, or even at times actively note it, Joe delves into every nook and cranny of a cinematic trend or debate. While she’s articulate although softer spoken, he’s passionately, loudly declarative. While she finds comfort in realism, he finds himself moving into a greater period of experimentation. Yet for all of these differences, and perhaps because of them, the Swanbergs have weathered ten years together of both romantic ramblings and professional collaborations. This is only just the briefest of glimpses at the Swanbergs as a couple.

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As SXSW 2009 approaches we’ll be asking filmmakers to spill the superficial details about their films, to tell us all the deep personal details of what makes them tick, and –– new this year! –– reveal who they had to sleep with, in the incestuous conspiracy-minded secret society that is the wider SXSW community, in order to get their film programmed at the festival.

Disclosure time! David Lowery wrote a few reviews for us last year at SXSW. This year, he will not be writing for us, but he will be at the Festival representing his first feature, St. Nick. Workshopped last summer at the IFP Filmmaker Lab, the Emerging Visions entry follows “the adventures of a brother & sister trying to survive, all on their own, out on the plains of Texas.” David answers to The 5 Questions We’re Asking Everyone involve taking inspiration from Ernest Goes to Camp and praise for SXSW spontaneity. There’s more info on St. Nick’s website, and at David Lowery’s blog.

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Shotgun Stories, the impressively accomplished feature debut of writer/director Jeff Nichols, has a few obvious affinities with the directorial work of its producer, David Gordon Green. Beyond the fact that both filmmakers have a demonstrated interest in the personal tragedies of working class families in the small-town South, much of the commonality lies in the aesthetic sense that Green has been fairly accused of adopting from Terrence Malick. But if Shotgun’s courting of visual pleasure via deliberate pacing and a certain transluscent golden glow fail to reinvent the wheel, at least credit Nichols with picking the seconds that suit the material. A lyrical story of feuding familial factions in Southern Arkansas, Shotgun gets off to a slow, quirk-leavened start, but as a seemingly minor character morphs from grating comic relief to major catalyst for action, the film gains weight and eventually snowballs into an undeniably affecting moral tragedy.

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BUTTERKNIFE 7: Complicated Mazes

After the jump, you’ll find the final episode of Joe Swanberg’s webseries Butterknife, starring Mary Bronstein, Ronnie Bronstein and Craig Zobel (Great World of Sound). Above, you’ll find the penultimate episode, which premiered on butterknife.spout.com last week, but in the haze of SXSW, failed to make it to the blog. Also after the jump, you’ll find a full episode guide, with a bit of where-are-they-now info on Butterknife’s illustrious stars and guest stars. To comment on the episodes, check out the Butterknife discussion page at Spout.com.

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BUTTERKNIFE 6: Bedroom Bully

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This episode of Butterknife co-stars Barlow Jacobs, co-writer and star of one of my favorite festival films of 2007, Low and Behold. Barlow also appears in New Orleans Mon Amour, one of the films I’m most looking forward to at SXSW. You can go to Spout.com’s Butterknife page for more info on the series, to watch future episodes, to talk about the show, and to sign up for email updates.

Previous episodes:

Plastic Hassle (with Kentucker Audley)
Sicilian Style (with Tony Baker and Frank V. Ross)
Key Witness (with Michael Tully)
Bongo Board (with Sean Prince Williams)
Laugh Attack (with Barlow Jacobs)

BUTTERKNIFE promo: Best Trip Ever

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It’s time to present the second in our exclusive series of shorts, produced by members of the cast and crew of Joe Swanberg’s Butterknife. The short embedded above is called Best Trip Ever, and it’s the brainchild of Barlow Jacobs, the writer/star of Low and Behold. Barlow appears in the short (that’s him on the right) as his character from Butterknife. Watch, enjoy, and check back next Monday for the next short.

Previous Butterknife Shorts:

Michael Tully

And now, for your weekly Butterknife update. Joe Swanberg and friends are off shooting new episodes this week, but Joe sent along some stills to tide us over. Above, you’ll surely recognize the one and only Ronnie Bronstein; after the jump, you’ll find stills featuring guest stars Barlow Jacobs (writer/star of what was probably my favorite film at Sundance 2007, Low and Behold), and Michael Tully (director of Cocaine Angel and Silver Jew). Tomorrow, we’ll continue our  interview series with a conversation between Joe and Ronnie. And as always, you can and should check out the Butterknife page on Spout.

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• New indie production/distribution company Elephant Eye is teaming with Palm Pictures to produce Craig Zobel’s follow-up to the Gotham-lauded Great World of Sound. Zobel co-wrote Turkey in the Straw with Barlow Jacobs, who wrote and starred in one of my favorite underseen films of the year, Low and Behold. The Hollywood Reporter says the project is expected to have a higher budget than Sound and to “include more A-list stars.”
• Following in the illustrious footsteps of Clint Eastwood and, um, Ben Affleck, Martin Scorsese’s next project will be based on a Dennis Lehane novel–this time, it’s Shutter Island. Scorsese will once again direct lil’ buddy Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead.
• Sidney Lumet will receive a Career Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association at their annual awards gala in January.
• Marc Graser reports on how the Southern California wildfires are impacting Hollywood life. You’ll take some comfort in knowing that although flames threatened to shut down productions in Santa Clarita and half of Los Angeles’ luxury hotels are booked full of Malibu refugees, “Paris Hilton’s home just steps away up the beach was unaffected.”