sxsw cheat sheet

Five things to know about the SXSW Film lineup beyond Whedon and Jump Street

Joss Whedon's Cabin In The Woods
Kevin MacDonald’s MARLEY is straight-up Oscar bait about a musical legend thatboth your parents and your frat-boy stepbrother can get all psyched about.
WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines.
Andrew Garrison’s Trash Dance, about Allison Orr’s Trash Project dance piece.
Photo by Jessica Pages

The SXSW Film lineup is now online. The lineup features a lot of what you’d expect from SXSW Film: Music documentaries are well-represented, the big narrative feature debuts have “cult favorite” written all over them, there’s a lot of Texas on screen, and there’s a political consciousness to a lot of the bill.

We’ve touched on some of the marquee names — world premiere of 21 Jump Street, y’all! — but there’s a lot more to the festival to explore. Here are five things worth knowing about the SXSW Film lineup this year.

1. The music documentaries are for both casual fans and mega-obsessive nerds

A film like Academy Award winner Kevin MacDonald’s MARLEY (bonus fact: apparently he’s the second cousin of SNL alum Norm MacDonald! Who knew?) is straight-up Oscar bait about a musical legend that both your parents and your frat-boy stepbrother can get all psyched about. Don Letts’ Rock And Roll Exposed: The Photography Of Bob Gruen — about the photographer who took pictures of the reggae icon, among many others — is probably a more niche-focused film.

That’s one of the cooler things about SXSW film: In all of its genres, it caters to both film dabblers and film obsessives, which ain’t easy. Documentaries about the Bad Brains and Big Star fit somewhere in between those two poles, as do about a dozen others (we didn’t count), which means if you’re trying to whet your appetite for music before SXSW Music kicks off, the Film festival offers a lot of opportunity.

2. That spectrum is in place for the big premieres, too

People who just want a head-start on the multiplex crowds when it comes to crowd-pleasing fare like the 21 Jump Street remake with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum can check out the world premiere of that one. Folks who like their mainstream, guaranteed-to-open-wide movies to carry some nerd cred, meanwhile, can check out Cabin In The Woods, the forthcoming Joss Whedon project that isn’t The Avengers.

Whedon nerds — of whom there are many, possibly even writing this very article right now — have been waiting for Cabin In The Woods since the long-shelved film was first announced, and being able to say “I saw it first” for something that had been languishing without a release date since its completion in May 2009 is special. Place William Friedkin’s Killer Joe (with Matthew McConaughey and Emile Hirsch) and Broken Lizard’s The Babymaker wherever you see fit between them.

3. Texas, y’all

While not as explicitly dedicated to promoting its home state as, say, the Austin Film Festival, SXSW Film definitely reps Texas, and the lineup of local, locally-produced, and Texas-themed films is pretty awesome. Bob Byington’s Austin-made Somebody Up There Likes Me – starring Ron Swanson himself, Nick Offerman, and featuring appearances from Austin bands like Bob Schneider and Quiet Company – debuts at SXSW.

So does Andrew Garrison’s Trash Dance, about Allison Orr’s (frankly remarkable) Trash Project dance piece; The Imposter, a documentary about a kidnapped teenager from San Antonio that was a huge hit at Sundance, makes an appearance; and America’s Parking Lot, about the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington, shows up as well.

Plus, Big Easy Express, the documentary about the Mumford And Sons/Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes tour that rolled through Austin and Marfa last April, makes its world premiere, as well. Lots and lots of Texas here, you guys.

4. Sundance favorites pop up here, but they don’t overwhelm the bill

Being a major film festival that comes less than six weeks after Sundance gives SXSW some expectations. We’ve just heard an awful lot about movies that we haven’t had the chance to see yet, and we’re pretty psyched about some of them. But there are more films worth seeing at festivals than just those that hit the big one in Utah, and SXSW smartly avoids too much overlap.

The Paul Simon/apartheid documentary Under African Skies, about the recording of the seminal Graceland album, plays, as does the previously-mentioned The Imposter and a handful of others – but SXSW does a fine job of retaining its own identity even as the festival grows bigger.

5. There is probably something geared toward your very specific niche interest that will be worth seeing

Do you have a passion for both superheroes and feminist history? Do not sleep on WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines.

Devote a lot of time to thinking about what life is like for journeyman NFL players once their brief careers peter out? Check out the narrative feature debut of longtime music video director Matthew A. Cherry, The Last Fall, about that very thing.

Care deeply about [insert whatever you care deeply about here]? There is probably something for you to get SO PSYCHED about that you tweet to the director of that film about it in all caps, just like that. It should be a pretty great festival this year.

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Not too late to get a badge by visiting the SXSW website. You can also get a Film Pass for $80, or $10 individual tickets at the larger venues, subject to capacity.

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Belles of the Ballroom

9 Austin bar and venue experts take over popular Old Austin space near UT

29th Street Ballroom/Facebook

Changes are coming at the 29th Street Ballroom, but the goal is to preserve what already makes it special.

The evolution continues at the 29th Street Ballroom, the music venue formerly attached to Spider House Café. It's no secret, Resound Presents CEO and co-founder Graham Williams says, that he and a large team of other industry pros are taking over the space; but now they're ready to talk about what comes next for the venue and adjoining bar.

Although Spider House Café closed in 2020, the Ballroom stayed open, and has continued serving University of Texas students and anyone else who wants to see a show outside of the ordinary: punk shows, burlesque revues, fundraisers, and more. It'll stay open through most of the renovations, scheduled through January of 2025, and is expected to hold a grand opening in March.

Now Resound — one of Austin's top live music organizers, which was itself born from the ashes of another Austin institution — is lending two of its co-founders to managing the space going forward: Williams and Ian Orth. They're joining seven other team members from venues around town, many of them overlapping: Amy Mullins, Brian Tweedy, Jason McNeely, John Yaklin, and Shannon LeBoeuf of Hotel Vegas, Chess Club, Kinda Tropical, Tweedy’s, and Yellow Jacket Social Club, in varying capacities; and Brian Buscemi and Mike Sanchez of the Little Darlin’.

Williams emphasizes that although things will be changing at the Ballroom, the goal isn't to change anything people already love.

"Over the next few months as we kind of ease into the spring, we're using this downtime to revitalize things, decorate, revamp some of the stuff in the venue and the bar, and just kind of get things moving in the right direction," Williams says, "taking what's already popular about the venue and just adding to it, really."

Bar updates
The biggest shift will be turning the bar from an accessory to live shows into its own entity that's open even when there's nothing else going on. Amy Mullins, best known as a co-owner of Yellow Jacket Social Club, is overseeing that transition. She's never operated a venue that is primarily focused on music, and has been enjoying learning more about how to do it; she even worked the door recently when a staff member called out sick.

Mullins echoes Williams in assuring that the change is more about logistics than tone. It'll still feel like Old Austin, but she does express a hope to run more than the "typical venue bar," handing out simple drinks as quickly as possible. She's working on a new menu that includes wine, beer, craft cocktails, and non-alcoholic options like tea, kombucha, or mocktails. Regardless of what's on the schedule on any given night, Mullins says the menu will stay the same.

"There's no drink too complicated for us to make, however busy we are," she says.

Food options
Another goal for the team will be making sure the space works when there's not someone onstage to crowd around. They'll expand the front and side patios and create a food truck food court that features the same trucks that are there now, plus one newcomer. All in all, that includes Yalla Burger & Wings, Gyro Center, Li’l Nonna’s Vegan Pizzeria, Guppy’s Indian Fried Chicken, Waylon J’s BBQ, and Ay Chihuahua Tacos.

The expanded patio will connect to Tweedy's Bar next door, which also has its own food trucks. The idea is to create a space to hang out after shows that feels fit for the purpose. It's possible to stick around after events now, but the layout does create a vague feeling of loitering.

Artist and fan-friendly tweaks
On the entertainment side, Williams says some of the renovations include putting in a new sound system, redoing the green room, updating the facade, and repainting signs. Since the winter is a slower time for live music, they'll be taking advantage of the extra time to work on things before packing the calendar with more events than before. Resound will handle most of the bookings in live music, comedy, and DJ sets, welcoming both national and local talent.

Whatever the details end up being, this team has proved to Austinites that they know how to run venues worth visiting. And since they're all friends and business partners on multiple levels, it sounds like having this many cooks in the kitchen just isn't an issue.

"Some of us have been roommates and known each other since we were young," says Williams. "It's a good mix of people who are all very like minded, so a lot is being brought to the table per decision. So yeah, it's it's really exciting. Sometimes that's not the case. .... But with this project, it's a lot of really great, creative people that are good at what they do [and] they trust each other."

bars live music concerts comedy