Where did SXSW go? For some attendees the film festival was over as soon as music began, but not for me. I kept going to movies and interviewing filmmakers. Here are some recaps of more standout films from SXSW, including the Narrative Grand Jury Prize winner, Fort Tilden.
Creep
A more accurate title for this movie would be Asshole. Mark Duplass plays Josef, a man who hires Aaron (writer/director Patrick Brice) to be a videographer to document his final days, as he says he’s dying of cancer. However, the way he behaves is just obnoxious. 90% of the film’s fake scares, and they’re all fake scares, comes from Josef jumping out when Aaron isn’t looking.
Creep is just another typical found footage movie with the aforementioned fake scares, and it’s even cheaper because most of those scares use artificial sound effects. I get it, the filmmakers enhance the found footage conceit, but if the only reason it’s scary is that the sound boomed way louder than it ever would on a real camcorder, or in real life, then you’re cheating.
There may be some attempt at meta commentary on the found footage tropes, but it’s not that deep. Josef just keeps trying to scare Aaron like a little kid desperate for attention, appearing behind Aaron every time he leaves the frame. Josef definitely feels dangerous but he’s just so boring. Sorry, first time feature filmmaker Brice. Maybe this was the influence of experienced producer Jason Blum, but I’ve gotta be honest.
Fort Tilden
I enjoyed Fort Tilden and loved the two stars, though it’s not the best movie I saw at SXSW. It is soooooo SXSW though so I get why it won. It’s this year’s Tiny Furniture. Harper (Bridey Elliott) and Allie (Clare McNulty) are two slacker girls, or whatever the millennials call slacking now. Allie has an important meeting but Harper convinces her to take the day off and meet some guys at Fort Tilden beach to do drugs and get laid.
This is what “2 Broke Girls” should be. Allie and Harper try to have a fun day on the cheap, but their incompetence ends up costing them more. Even though it’s usually their own fault, the actors are fun to watch and it’s nice to see a film that doesn’t have to make them likeable. With first time filmmakers and actors I had never seen before, Fort Tilden reminded me how it feels to discover new talent. I guess it’s been a little while since I’ve been following a number of careers established at previous film festivals.
I didn’t laugh out loud but I enjoyed the ride to Fort Tilden, and especially the occasional background character who points out how Allie and Harper are totally oblivious. The film is confronting at times as the stress forces the roommates to call each other out for their own contributions to their lives’ disasters. I’m not sure they actually learn anything, or that they even should, but at least they’re not rewarded for bad behavior. It’s a true comic misadventure.
May the Best Man Win
I was really encouraged in the beginning of this hidden camera prank movie. Whit(mer Thomas) and Drew (Tarver) have some genuinely clever ideas that are really harmless to the victims. Surely people know that semen has to be refrigerated in a real donation bank. May the Best Man Win quickly devolves into vulgarity and destructive behavior so not only are they pale imitators of Jackass, they’re not even as compelling as Bar Fighter. You ever see that?
They only claim the pranks are real, but the narrative in between real pranks is so blatantly contrived, it becomes a chore to watch. They hire a third pranker, Rosa Salazar, and end up competing to see who dates her. That’s sexist in a fictional film, let alone a “real” one. Don’t worry, it’s so fake and she’s in on it and it’s not like anyone’s really doing her. It’s just a lazy, misguided vehicle for their YouTube channel.
The Mule
Leigh Whannell has done it again. The Mule could have been a one joke movie, but his script makes it an engrossing (emphasis on gross) suspense thriller. Whannell’s Insidious costar Angus Sampson co-writes, co-directs with Tony Mahoney and stars as a reluctant drug mule in 1983 Australia who gets stopped by Australian Federal Police at the airport, and tries to hold it in until they have to release him.
It seems there’s only one element at play, whether Ray (Sampson) can outlast the federal agents or not. The Mule finds quite a bit more detail to mine in the premise, between legal manipulations, Ray’s family and the gangsters waiting for Ray. Whannell plays Gavin, the drug dealer who got Ray involved in the first place and Hugo Weaving is very entertaining as one of the agents.
Like any good thriller, just when you think The Mule has nowhere left to go, it keeps going. You begin to feel Ray’s pain, and it’s more than just acting uncomfortable while clutching his stomach. At first Ray doesn’t seem like a very appealing character. He’s not so much innocent as ignorant about what he’s getting himself into and his bumbling is more frustrating than endearing. The way the story gradually empowers him makes me rethink the entire character journey, and I was on his side by the end.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
