Cinematical

City of Ember was the surprise closing-night film at Fantastic Fest, but I found out about the surprise a little early (which is always fun). I was able to see the film earlier in the week so I could interview director Gil Kenan, who showed up in Austin with surprise guest (to me, too!) Bill Murray for the closing-night festivities. Kenan has directed a pair of entertaining and visually stunning family-friendly features, the Oscar-nominated animated film Monster House and now the City of Ember adaptation, which opens in theaters on Friday. Not only that, but Kenan landed both of these projects right after he graduated from UCLA, where his short film The Lark won him a lot of attention. We talked about what he's done to make City of Ember as beautiful a film as it is, and how he found such compelling lead actors. He's currently linked to a new Robert Zemeckis production, Airman, and we took a minute to discuss that too. Check it out after the jump.

It's football season, which means it's also the season for at least one heartwarming and inspiring movie about the sport. This year the film comes from Universal -- The Express, a biopic of Ernie "The Elmira Express" Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman trophy, back in 1963. However, the movie divides its time between Davis and his coach at Syracuse University, Ben Schwartzwalder, and shows the ways in which the two characters changed one another (for the better, natch).

The movie opens during the notorious Cotton Bowl game of 1960, when Davis (Rob Brown) was a running back on the Syracuse University team that played The University of Texas, which had not yet allowed black varsity team members. It's a rough game, but Davis is handling himself until all hell breaks loose ... and then we flash back to Davis's childhood in the 1940s and see how he learned to handle nasty racist situations even at an early age. He's stubborn and he's speedy, and eventually decides to use those assets to strive for his goal of playing professional football. His idol, Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown, advises Davis to play for his alma mater Syracuse because Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) is such an excellent head coach. But Davis encounters difficulties in the ways Schwartzwalder handles the black team members. The coach's primary goal is to avoid "trouble," so they're warned away from the white female students, and worse yet, at certain Southern games they're not allowed to score touchdowns. The real action culminates when the film returns to the Cotton Bowl game in Dallas.

One of the most gorgeous-looking films I've seen this year is City of Ember, the Fox/Walden adaptation of Jeanne Duprau's young-adult fantasy novel about a post-apocalyptic underground city. Although the story is aimed at younger audiences, it's still enjoyable for grown-ups. The movie should be viewed on as large a screen as you can find, giving you the sense that you're this close to the fascinating and decaying city where the story is set.

The movie's prologue lays out the premise clearly. In the future, something goes haywire that causes the end of the world, but fortunately top U.S. scientists have created an underground city to keep a portion of mankind safe. The inhabitants will not be told about the Earth's past, so they won't be traumatized and will assume that their underground city is the only civilization. A box with instructions for returning to the Earth's surface will open in 200 years, which should be time enough for the Earth to be inhabitable again. However, over the course of time the box becomes lost, and after more than two centuries have passed, the city is starting to run out of resources and is falling apart.

You might recall that I bought a Roku player a few months ago to make it easier for me to watch high-quality versions of Netflix's Watch Instantly offerings. My biggest complaint about Roku and Watch Instantly was that the selection was pretty slim -- mostly we've used it to watch old TV shows, and even then I suspect we watch more TV on Hulu.com. Watch Instantly has a great selection of low-budget independent features and documentaries, and even some short films, but if you want Hollywood blockbusters you're better off with the DVDs.

Fortunately, the Watch Instantly pickings are starting to improve. Netflix has just partnered with Starz Entertainment to offer more than 1,000 movies that Starz has licensed for its own video-on-demand services. Starz already has deals with Disney and Sony, so these movies include a lot of (relatively) newer Hollywood big-budget films, like Ratatouille, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, No Country for Old Men, and Superbad. These still aren't as recent as the films you can get mailed to you on DVD from Netflix (or rent at your local video store), but it's a significant improvement over the previous Watch Instantly offerings for recent mainstream movies. In addition, Netflix also signed deals last month with the Disney Channel and CBS to add some of their TV shows to the Watch Instantly lineup, like Hannah Montana and CSI. Those aren't movie-related deals, but I got excited because I can now watch the Disney TV show in which a cousin of mine plays an amusingly bad-tempered chef.

By Monday, we were more than halfway through Fantastic Fest. On the one hand, festgoers who were just there for the weekend had departed, thinning the crowds slightly. On the other hand, some of us realized that there were still tons of movies to see and only a limited time, so we had better try to get into as many films as we could. I know some people who managed to see 5 or 6 films a day. I'm not one of them -- too wimpy.

One movie I saw and liked on Monday was Santos, a superhero film from Chile. When director Nicolas Lopez took the stage before the movie, I recognized him as one of the judges from Thursday night's Air Sex Championships. He was a wonderfully unpredictable judge and turned out to be a charming speaker during the intro and later during the Q&A for his film (as shown in the photo after the jump). Santos is about a comic-book artist who doesn't realize he has the same superpowers as one of the characters he writes about -- and at various points in his life, he's called upon to use those powers. It's very funny, but if you get the chance to see it, bear in mind that many of the gags are not at all family-friendly. Santos was produced by Elizabeth Avellan of Austin's Troublemaker Studios (which produces Robert Rodriguez's films) -- no U.S. distribution deals as of yet, but I hope that changes.

I have a special place in my heart for Fantastic Fest because it was the first film festival I attended and covered professionally, for Cinematical back in 2005, the year the fest started. The 2005 fest was a long weekend of genre films, attended by a small enough crowd that you felt you knew everyone there by the time it was over. Since then, Fantastic Fest has expanded to nine days, added all kinds of crazy parties and events, become notorious for "secret screenings" that premiered films such as Southland Tales and There Will Be Blood, and introduced filmgoers to any number of international science-fiction, horror, animated, and other "fantastic" films.

In its fourth year, Fantastic Fest has grown so large and popular that its opening-night festivities moved from the genre festival's traditional Austin venue, the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, over to the Paramount, a hundred-year-old theater in the middle of downtown that seats about 1200 people. The theater was packed for the opening-night film, the U.S. premiere of Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and writer-director Kevin Smith was also on hand.

The venue may have been the Paramount, but the minute the lights went down and a vintage trailer for Thunder Cops appeared onscreen, it felt like Fantastic Fest. Festival co-founder Tim League appeared onstage in a bright kimono, with a giant gong next to him, and announced, "With a stroke of this gong, I am about to declare this festival ... awesome!" Kevin Smith then introduced his film with a long and bizarre story about how he recently broke a toilet, then confessed that this had nothing to do with the film, he just wanted to tell the story.

Where else would you expect to see the world premiere of a comedy in which Matthew McConaughey is shirtless for the entire film? It had to be Austin. Instead of the traditional red carpet, the stars of Surfer, Dude strolled down a green carpet in 90-plus-degree weather last night, as part of a benefit screening for Austin Film Society. McConaughey (who kept his shirt on the entire time, sadly) was joined by a half-dozen of his co-stars, including Woody Harrelson, as well as director/co-writer S.R. Bindler. Bindler's previous film, the documentary Hands on a Hardbody, played at the Dobie in Austin for more than a year back in the late 1990s. Even McConaughey's parents were on the green carpet, although I don't think they appear in the R-rated comedy. The only disappointment was that Willie Nelson, who also has a role in Surfer, Dude, wasn't around.

After the jump, I've included a photo of Surfer, Dude actresses Alexie Gilmore and K.D. Aubert from last night's premiere. Out and About, the Austin American-Statesman's social/entertainment blog, has posted more photos from the green-carpet event as well as a short and light-hearted review. Surfer, Dude is opening on Friday in limited release -- including Austin -- and then will hit more cities on September 12. The film's distributor is Anchor Bay, primarily a DVD distribution company, but in the past year or so the company's started giving its movies a small theatrical release before the DVD rollout.

Can everyone guess where I am right now, and what I'm doing? I'm very thankful that the New Orleans airport has free wireless available while I wait for an airplane crew to show up for my flight, so I can return to sunny Austin. In the meantime, I have a laptop and Internet access and a stack of DVDs to watch. I am prepared. I can watch movies indefinitely if necessary, especially if I can get Hulu or Netflix's Watch Instantly cranked up.

I have a few suggestions for packing / purchasing / (legally) downloading movies to watch on your laptop or other device in an airport or on a plane. Pick at least one or two movies that are old familiar favorites. Sometimes when you're stuck in a terminal with poor food choices, a "comfort movie" can be your very best friend. In addition, I find it difficult to listen clearly to movies on an airplane or even in a noisy terminal (you don't want the sound too loud, so you can hear updates on your flight's delay), so it's best to pick something where you already know what's going on and don't need to catch every last nuance of dialogue. Big goofy action films and physical comedies have an advantage over talkier films where you have to pay attention.

In compiling this list of specific recommendations, I tried to avoid the overwhelmingly obvious choices for watching movies in airports -- personally, I don't want to watch disaster films at times like this, or even spoofs of disaster films like that timeless comedy Airplane. The Terminal and Snakes on a Plane also a little too close for comfort. I thought instead of lighter fare, with scenes that emphasized the fantasy world of airline travel, good or bad, and the magic of escapism. Next time, I'm tucking a few of these in my laptop bag myself.

Last year I saw Gracie, a movie about a teenage girl who wants to play high-school soccer in the late 1970s, when the game was considered a males-only sport in America, and faces a lot of opposition from her school. I finished my review with the line, "If it were football, would we be agreeing more with Gracie's opponents?" The Longshots gives us the opportunity to consider that question. Can we sympathize with, and cheer on, a girl who wants to succeed as a quarterback in an all-boys' football league? The answer is yes, because The Longshots focuses on characters and personal relationships and as a result, feels richer and more satisfying than the standard sports-genre film.

The story is simple and except for the girl-quarterback angle, old-fashioned in a Capra-esque way. Jasmine (Keke Palmer) is a middle-school loner and misfit in a small town hit by economic troubles. Her mom Claire (Tasha Smith) has to work longer hours at the diner -- dad ditched town and family several years ago -- and Jasmine is still too young to be left alone after school. So Claire pleads, nags and finally bribes her husband's brother Curtis (Ice Cube), an unemployed ex-football player, to keep an eye on his niece Jasmine. Of course they can't stand each other at first, but eventually Curtis discovers that Jasmine has an excellent throwing arm and teaches her how to be a quarterback. Meanwhile, the town's playground football team is languishing, and one thing they're missing is a decent quarterback, sooo ...

We're well into August, and here in Austin it's hot and dry and the last thing most of us are thinking about is anything going on next March. But over at SXSW, they're ignoring the dog days of summer and preparing like crazy for next year's interactive, music, and (of course) film festival / conference. The 2009 South By Southwest Film Festival is scheduled for March 13-21, as you can see from the new site for next year's festivities, and you can start submitting your films now for consideration. You've got until December to get your short or feature film to the festival if you're dreaming of seeing your name in lights (or at least your film's title) at the Paramount next year.

A few films are already scheduled to be screened at the 2009 fest: the SXSWclick winners, which were recently announced. The Grand Jury award for the short-film contest went to Peter and Ben, by Pinny Grylls, which also won in the documentary shorts category. Little Pumpkin, directed by Tiffany Bartok, took home the Popularity Contest award. You can watch these films and the winning shorts from all categories on the SXSWclick site. In fact, you can watch all the finalists online if you like. So if you want to pretend it's March in Austin, crank up the air conditioning a bit, sit back in a comfy chair with a beer or milkshake (in tribute to Alamo Drafthouse, a favorite SXSW venue), and enjoy the SXSWclick shorts. Then hike a mile back to your car with Scott Weinberg or Will Goss next to you, scarfing down hot wings from a Sixth Street bar and speculating on how many screeners they can watch that night before they pass out from exhaustion. (Okay, maybe you do have to wait for March for that last experience.)