Movie Details
| Title: | Also Starring Austin | |
| Director: | Mike Blizzard | |
| Year: | 2018 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 2 | |
| Last Seen: | 05.10.25 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 05.10.25 | Internet | I'm alive! As per usual these days, video games, youtube, and tv are taking up my free time, but I ran across this doc on youtube so left the tab open for a week until I found a good time to watch it. Which was now! This falls into a kind of micro-niche of docs about movies made in a certain town. I remember watching one about LA way back in my Alamo days, and I think someone made one about Vancouver, but this held special attention for me because it's the town I live in and probably a movie I would've wanted to make in an alternate dimension where I was a driven filmmaker rather than whatever I actually am. It follows a pretty standard format, showing snippets of films made here starting at the beginning and leading toward 2018 when the movie was made. I was already familiar with most of them but did learn a lot too and I came away with a handful added to my to-watch list. I also think they interviewed most everyone they needed to... with a bed of austin bands as well. And of course it ends with some comments about how it sucks now, which is also appropriately austin. For me my favorite part was somewhere near the end of the first act when they intercut different movies together as transitions, so like the arab prince (or whoever he is) from the Rock the Casbah video shows up in the previous film, and the dystopian punk-gang members from Future-Kill hear Frances McDormand from Blood Simple call out. Pretty fun. |
| 08.13.22 | Internet | I, once again, sat down to watch the movie I intended to watch last night then got completely distracted when I found this doc on youtube. It's kind of like a companion piece to that doc about all the movies filmed in LA except for the list of Austin-shot films is much shorter so it seems more exhaustive. There were one or two that I hadn't realized shot here (like Courage Under Fire and the second Texas Chainsaw Massacre) but also a ton of independent movies I'd never heard of. It's not like I'm keeping close tabs on the Zellner brothers and Andrew Bujalski though so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. In any case, this was decent. My favorite moment is when they intercut Future Kill with Blood Simple. I still remember the VHS cover of Future Kill but never actually saw it. This movie goes out of its way to say it sucks but part of me wants to track down a copy and watch it. For the most part though, it doesn't say a whole lot (similar to LA Plays Itself), but really what is there to say other than "hey look, these movies were shot here!" so it's satisfying but trivial at the same time. Fun for me since I live here and like movies, but I doubt it's so fun for anyone else. |
