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Alan Tudyk and Taylor Labine in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil Winner, SXSW Midnighters Audience Award Eli Craig’s feature debut, which showed in perfectly appropriate midnight screenings at SXSW, is a fairly low-budget hillbilly slasher comedy packed with almost gentle send-ups of horror clichés. I loved it a little bit. Maybe more than a little bit. Perhaps you want to know a little more than that. Continue reading
Matt McCormick’s first feature-length film is a pensive character piece with a perfectly Portland heart — something that’s easy to say and harder to explain. Some Days Are Better Than Others is a three-pronged, subtle narrative about disconnection, loneliness and slow, quiet change; the SXSW film booklet says it “asks why the good times slip by so fast while the hard times always seem so sticky.” Continue reading
I was on my way somewhere else when I stopped short in front of a bar on Red River. There was something awfully familiar about the sound issuing from the doors, though it seemed unnatural to hear such a song in daylight. It was music for midnights, at the very earliest. But I had to know. So I stepped inside, and lo and behold, it was indeed Eugene’s own macabre psychobilly punks The Sawyer Family. Continue reading
The word Micmacs, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie) explained before the screening of his new film, is slang for “shenanigans,” a word which sounded impossibly playful in Jeunet’s thick French accent. “Impossibly playful” is also one way to describe the film, which is as sweet and joyful and imperfect a revenge fantasy you might hope to see. Continue reading
I honestly thought I’d be blogging every day from SXSW. That’s the most laughable idea I’ve had in ages. Since Friday, I’ve been in Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest, which is hard to sum up in just one sentence: It’s a long-running music, film and nerd festival (the nerd track is loosely called “Interactive”) at which many of the things I write about overlap and converge (what a goddamn buzz word that is). I’m here to see bands, learn about Austin’s music scene, watch movies, go to panels and, well, write about them all. Continue reading
Yes, you could go see Alice in Wonderland this weekend. (I certainly plan to.) But you could also do something a little different and hop over to DIVA for one of the screenings of this year’s Oscar-nominated short films. Pick animated only, live-action only or go all-out and watch both — though if you have to pick, for my money, the animated set is the way to go. Continue reading
More former Eugeneans turned Los Angelenos are doing nifty things. This time, it’s the women of Warpaint, who debuted a new video yesterday. Continue reading
It’s not every began-in-Eugene-but-moved-to-the-big-city (in this case, L.A.) band that comes back to town for a month of Sunday shows. The Parson Red Heads have done residencies at a few L.A. venues; next month, they’re settling in three cities at once, playing Mondays in Portland, Thursdays in Seattle and Sundays here, at Sam Bond’s. Continue reading
Canadian singer-songwriter Serena Ryder opens for Howie Day at the WOW Hall on Jan. 15. With any luck, she’ll play her gorgeous, plaintive cover of Band of Horses’ “The Funeral,” which you can listen to on her MySpace page. Or you could just watch the live version: Continue reading
As promised in print, here are the mix CD track listings from The Procrastinator’s Gift Guide — with links for listening. Many of the links go to YouTube “videos” with audio only; some go to Stereogum and other places where you can stream or download songs; some, when the individual song wasn’t available, go to MySpace pages; some go to live performances or official videos. If you find a broken link or have a better one for us, please let me know! Continue reading