The New Alamo Guides are in! The New Alamo Guides are in! It’s like getting the Sears Christmas catalouge six times a year and every page is Star Wars figures. But … first things first. SXSW has blown through town like a cheap whore who would do anything to get your parking spot. Anything! It was fun, but I’m glad it’s over. After working 60 odd hours I’m not sure what I saw, didn’t see, dreamt, or drank.

I do recall seeing the new Beastie Boys movie. It was, as the first word of the title indicates, Awesome. Hornblower has taken the footage shot from some 60 cameras and spun it into a mosiac of digital imagery that will crunch the very seat you sit in. Mix Master Mike on the 1’s and 2’s, is nothing short of breathtaking. He takes mad phat beats and shakes the dust off of Beastie classics. Get ready to rediscover the Boys and ride around town on your lowrider bicycle. My advice to the viewer is to not sit in the front row, unless there is a Q&A after the movie. Kid Fresh, MCA, and Michael Diamond where on hand to answer questions after the movie. There may have been a few questions about the production, but mostly it was pointless knob-slobbing that the Boys asked the people to phrase as a question.

Michael Rooker wore a wrestling mask to the Premiere of Slither. In the opinion of this humble blogger, it fell a little short. It needed to be a bit more Tromeo and Juliet and a little less From Beyond. But then again, where do you get to see horror and comedy and gore all in one stop? If you haven’t seen it already, peep the Hills Have Eyes remake. I don’t know how it got an R rating. It is a gritty little piece of movie making that made me jump on more than one occasion.

Next up was Live Free or Die, with my old classmate Paul Schneider. I wanted to find something bad to say about his performance after he dissed me at the theater, but what can I say? He was really good. All of the characters and performances in Live Free were great, but the movie lacked an original, or even interesting, plot. Not that it matters. I’m sure after it makes the festival circuit and wins prizes it will be direct to home video.

The dirt still won’t come off from my first celebrity ass-kiss of the year. I was caught like a deer in the headlights when I saw Patton Oswalt in the lobby of the theater last Monday night. I instantly, without thought, yelled “I love you! You’re fucking hilarious!” Patton jumped back. “I mean, I love your stand-up…” Anyhow, the comedians of comedy show made me cry. Patton’s new bit about Circ de Soleile is something else. Touring with Patton was up and coming Aziz Ansari. This kid is going places. And, as per his request of the crowd, I type the following:

Aziz Ansari is a fucking bad ass!

2nd celebrity ass kiss … in blog form.

Grindhouse is in production now–and I’m still looking to hold the piss bucket on set so I can watch Rodriquez and Tarantino direct. Apparently they blew up some cars a few days ago. I wanna blow up some cars … Anyhow, Tarantino will be hosting a best of QT fest at the end of April. One week of films from QT’s collection. Wish I could time travel and be there now. As for other Alamo events, April and May bring 35mm prints of the Shaw Brothers’ Kung Fu movies including Dirty Ho and Five Deadly Venoms. Terror Thursdays has Motel Hell, Demons 2, and Fulci’s Zombie. And a new series, widescreen classics, brings 2001, Lawerence of Arabia, and others back to the big screen.

God, my head is going to explode! Must get to work. Hope to see you downtown tonight cause we’re playing Autopsy. And tomorrow is Street Trash. And Friday is Flashdance. Wait … I wasn’t supposed to type that. I was supposed to just be excited in my head about seeing Jennifer Beals dump water on herself. I’ve said too much.

I was scanning the interwebthingy today and noticed over at Cool Hunting that they have a little article about QuickFlick World and QuickFlicks, two web-based filmmaking collectives. QuickFlick World seems to be a loose-knit international organization, while Quick Flicks is a New York based group. Quick Flicks’ motto is: “Our Mission: One Month. One Film. No Excuses.” This sounds like 301 Films old motto, something we could never actually live up to. Too many excuses, I guess.

Quick Flicks has an open call out for volunteers and fellow shooters. Anyone with a camera, some basic editing equipment and a month to shoot a film on zero budget is eligible.

QuickFlick World organizes its monthly screenings around a theme which member directors then have a month to work with. The results are submitted to a jury who then decide on a line-up that is presented at a monthly screening party in six different cities.