I haven’t watched The Simpsons regularly in years, but I got a couple of text messages alerting me that last night’s episode, which follows Lisa (whose talent President Skinner assesses equates to “as if Ingmar Bergman and Penny Marshall had a baby), as she makes a documentary called Capturing the Simpsons, and then takes the film to Sundance.
Matt Dentler points out that the entire episode is already up on my beloved Hulu, via which it’s now embedded above. It’s full of some pretty great festival-centric jokes. My favorite: Lisa’s film is chosen during a scene in which a character who looks a little something like Geoff Gilmore throws a can of film into what looks suspiciously like the fireplace in the lobby at The Yarrow, AKA Sundance press and industry homebase. Also good: Marge walks into a theater playing a film called Candyland under the assumption that “a great family game is now a great family movie”, only to find junkies on screen getting ready to shoot up. “Oh, I get it,” Marge says. “Every title means the opposite of what it means!”
From my very cold and very snowy perspective here in Grand Rapids, Austin is starting to sound really good. But it always does, right? It’s a great film town, SXSW is a great festival, and March is a great time to head South.
One of the movies in the lineup is Kurt Cobain About a Son, which some of us saw at Denver. It’s a great film, and director A.J. Schnack is a great guy. We were lucky to catch him and Michael Azerrad for a chat about his film and also did a roundtable from Ted’s Montana Grill in Denver where we talk about the film. If you’re heading to SXSW, make sure to catch it.
We’ll dive into the lineup and say more about it here as we get closer to the festival. In the meantime, we’re busy preparing to do the festival’s Spout-sponsored email/webcenter, and dozens of podcast interviews. Rick will also be on a panel “New Dogs, New Tricks: New Media Goes to the Movies,” which is just a great example of what a good fit this festival is for us–the perfect mix of movies and interactive media. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks.
Film lovers lucky enough to live in one of this country’s great film cities, Austin, not only have loads of great theaters to see movies in. They also have a PBS program called “SXSW Presents.” Every Tuesday evening, this program–which is in its third season and is hosted by the SXSW festival producer, Matt Dentler–offers up an out-of-the-way, must-see movie. For free! In the comfort of living rooms all over Austin! Must be nice.
We can’t all be talented enough to jerry-rig our antennas and pull in Austin’s public television signal. Sigh. But luckily the show has started putting its after-film panel discussions online, where we can all listen in. For now, that’s just going to have to do. (Thanks for giving us a clearer taste of the great films we’re missing!)
Check out the schedule of films and find the panel discussions at the program’s site.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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