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FilmCouch #113: Alexander the Last, SXSW via IFC

By Kevin Buist posted 8 months ago

The SXSW Film Festival is over. We didn’t make it to Austin this year, but we still had a festival experience in our very own home (Paul’s mom’s home, actually), thanks the IFC’s Festival Direct. While Joe Swanberg’s latest offering, Alexander the Last, was premeiring in Austin, we were watching it in a Michigan living room. We discuss how setting influences viewing, and the merits of the film.

We also discuss two other SXSW Festival Direct titles, Zift and Three Blind Mice.

Be sure to e-mail your most awkward movie watching moments involving sex scenes and your parents, to filmcouch [at] spout [dot] com.

0:00 - Intro

1:51 - Listener feedback

11:16 - Alexander the Last

30:39 - Zift, Three Blind Mice

filmcouch-113

FilmCouch 113: Play Now | Download

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FilmCouch, Indies, Podcasts, SXSW 2009

Trade Roughage 01/15/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

IFC is expanding their efforts to bring film festival hits to the masses by developing a second video-on-demand label. Called Festival Direct, it will bring international festival favorites directly to cable boxes, skipping the middleman theatrical run afforded films on the IFC FirstTake program. Already on the slate: Ken Loach’s It’s a Free World…, and the Icelandic festival hit Jar City.
Roger Avary’s publicist issued a statement yesterday, apologizing for the screenwriter’s role in the accident that killed a friend and seriously injured his wife. “Words cannot express how sorry he is, and this tragic accident will always haunt him,” the statement read in part. Avary is due to be arraigned on charges of vehicular manslaughter on Friday.
Charlize Theron will star alongside Viggo Mortensen in the upcoming adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Mark Cuban’s 2929 Entertainment is producing the film, for distribution by Weinstein subsidiary Dimension.
Guatemalan Handshake director/Hannah Takes the Stairs co-star Todd Rohal, True/False Film Festival director David Wilson, and IFP’s Amy Dotson are some of the familiar names on the recently-announced Slamdance jury.