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A Place For Film @ SXSW Day 4 Impressions

By Andy Hunsucker

Posted March 17, 2013

Ellen Page and Alexandar Skarsgaard in The East

Day 4



This was the last day of the festival, and we scheduled a full day.

Jason and I split up for our first two movies, and then saw the last two movies together.

I started off with Drinking Buddies, the new Joe Swanberg film. Joe visited the Cinema last semester, and I was excited to see his new film. This was a departure for Joe as he was using established actors. In the past, he's always used people he knew personally. I was very impressed with the film. It starred Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson as best friends who work at a brewery. We meet their significant others (Ron Livingston and Anna Kendrick), and when they spend a weekend together in a cabin, the relationships begin to be questioned.

I don't love all Joe Swanberg films, but when he connects, it's really something special. This film is engaging and hilarious, but what I was most impressed with was the acting. Olivia Wilde shows a vulnerability here that I haven't seen from her before. Â My favorite film of the festival,, and one you should check out.

I then hit Rewind This!, a documentary about VHS tapes. It covers the technology, and how it changed how people thought about movies. I found the documentary very interesting and well-made, but I felt it could have discussed more about how to preserve some of the strange relics of the VHS era in a world where VHS will no longer exist.

Jason and I met up again for Good Ol Freda, a documentary about the Beatles secretary. I'm a big fan of the Beatles, so I thought this would be right up my alley, but the film felt a little lacking. I did enjoy it, but it seemed like a side story when I wanted to hear more about the main plot.

Our final film of the night was The East, the new film from the creative team behind Sound of my Voice and Another Earth. This film was a political thriller focusing on corporate terrorism. It involves a young woman from a private security agency going undercover into a homegrown terrorist organization called The East. The comparison to Zero Dark Thirty will be made by many, but this film works on a much different level than ZDT. I found it to be tense and complex. It stars Ellen Page, Alexandar Skarsgaard and Brit Marling (the co-writer). This was the closing night event, so the stars and director were in attendance to answer questions after the film.

It was a very exhausting day and I failed to schedule a proper break, so it was even longer for me, but we got through it, and we will be heading back tomorrow.

Thanks for following along with us, and listen in for a full review episode over the next couple of weeks.

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