South By Southwest 2002




		Summer 2002 Volume 1 • Issue 4 Write Between the Lines is an exploration and articulation of the obvious and the obscure. A cavalcade of creation and commentary designed to amuse and bemuse.


	Ain't That America?



	by Katharine E. Monahan Huntley The Hollywood dream machine. Its omnipresence drills an image of an idealized Americana into the world’s consciousness. The glamorous great escape. Then, there’s the documentarian, often obsessed, dedicated to depicting certain truths that are often obscure. The SXSW Film Conference and Festival 2002 showcased a remarkable number of slices of reel life that delineate the American way and waywardness. The following is a brief overview of a few—starting with the world premiere of Journeys with George. George W. Bush, that is.
	Journeys with George Both filmmaker and subject are political progeny. Daughter of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, house minority whip (D-CA), Alexandra Pelosi, a (then) producer for NBC news, was a member of the traveling press corps for George W. during his 2000 presidential campaign.
	The intrepid journalist sported deep purple-framed glasses to distract, and a handheld camcorder to document. High jinks with the unwitting and incurious George ensue. What he believes to be a game of trivial pursuit, Pelosi reveals as a rather frightening look at America’s clown prince—a man as full of baloney as the campaign trail’s lunch staple. Edited and co-directed with Aaron Lubarsky, Journeys with George is a bright red flag for all who blindly bow down before the red, white, and blue.

			OT: Our Town “Some days [I believe] I won’t rise above it. Other days . . . “Fuck, I’m gonna be the President.” Words that epitomize defiance in the face of despair—living in a ghetto wasteland, trying to figure out: “Where do I belong?”
	Welcome to OT: Our Town, a documentary by Scott Hamilton Kennedy, that points the camera at the kids of Dominguez High in “straight outta Compton” California, as they endeavor to put on a production of "Our Town" at a school that has not presented a play in twenty years. Catherine Borek and Karen Green are the idealists that make the Thornton Wilder American classic meaningful to a handful of students who believe unless they have a basketball jones—they can count themselves as worthless. Hamilton structures his documentary to present the drama behind the scenes—as potent as the one the somewhat reluctant, and often recalcitrant, thespians dazzle all the world with from the stage of an urban high school cafeteria.

	The Last Party 2000 Philip Seymour Hoffman voices my thoughts exactly: “I’ve always had an aversion to politics.” In The Last Party 2000, directed by Donavon Leitch and Rebecca Chaiklin, the disingenuous actor poses a question that crosses all party lines: “What does it mean to live in a democracy?” What he discovers is (surprise!) not all are created equal and life is survival of the politic. Our best hope, obviously, is to join forces with Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, and Ralph Nader to rage against the machine. Mai’s America Marlo Poras turns the mirror on the ugly American in Mai’s America (Documentary Feature Audience Award). Mai is an irrepressible Vietnamese exchange student who is unfortunate enough to be at first placed with white trash “house parents.” They are uneducated, unemployed, and lazy—yet canny enough to know how to work the system. Mai’s sojourn begins with her belief: “America is all the movies I grew up with.” Her senior high school year is populated with people that certainly could have come right from Central Casting—transvestites, psychics, church-going Baptists. Mai’s issues of unpopularity and the prom are a favorite Hollywood teen movie plotline (addressed as well in Charlie Adler’s in-girl/out-girl narrative short No Prom for Cindy). Poras introduces serious concerns such as: Who actually watches out for these foreign exchange students—but ultimately keeps the documentary a personal story. Smart and her sense of humor intact, Mai has returned to Hanoi. During the Q and A with the filmmaker, an audience member asked about the current state of Mai. Poras relayed Mai’s response: “Tell them I’m doing well . . . I’m totally popular. And then quote Alanis Morissette: ‘Isn’t it ironic?’” Tribute “We’ve been all trying to make it, doing originals for a long time . . . it’s tough, ya know? . . . We do a tribute thing . . . people relate to it . . . it’s a guaranteed sellout.”— Escape artist, Stu Simone, a tribute to Journey Tribute exposes the many flaws of living out the rock ‘n’ roll fantasy. The larger than part-time life you live is not your own (whether you’re the musician or the “superfan”),
	yet you are not immune to the “personality quirks,” meltdowns, falling outs, et cetera that beset a band worthy of worship. But as long as the legend of Tim "Ripper" Owens, the tribute rocker turned Judas Priest metal god lives on, boys will pick up their air guitars and mock rock on. Directed by Kris Curry and Rich Fox, Tribute compels—but at 89 minutes it is too long and too static. Where exactly in this tribute to tribute bands is the visual rock star, executive producer Steven Soderbergh?

			Spellbound Spellbound (Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature), directed by Jeff Blitz, documents the all-American tradition of the spelling bee and beyond. Beyond the confines of the classroom and way beyond the vocabulary of the audience. Or at least mine. Definitely supercalifragilisticexpialidocious—(a Mary Poppins’ fave and example of syllabication utility).

	Screenwriting Panel Robert Wilonsky, pop culture editor of The Dallas Observer moderated The Art of Screenwriting panel. Panelists David Goyer, Dark City, ZigZag; Roman Coppola, CQ; and Tim McCanlies, The Iron Giant; represented commerce, art, and experience, respectively. Screenwriters are a chatty lot, and watching the ranconteuring match—quite fun. Highlight: Delivering Mr. McCanlies a verbal thank-you note for The Iron Giant, a timeless story that makes you believe, if not in the myth of America as a superpower, then perhaps the universal myth of superheroes . . .