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Screen gems
By LEVI AGEE SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
This article was published March 19, 2010 at 2:02 a.m.
LITTLE ROCK — A host of Arkansas-related events happened during the first weekend of the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.
Little Rock-born director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) confirmed that his next project would be The Sitter with Jonah Hill, instead of a rumored remake of Dario Argenta’s 1977 Italian horror classic Suspiria.
Green said during a festival panel Saturday that if he were to take on Suspiria he would “make it more my way than Dario Argento’s way. And not to be disrespectful of that movie; I think it’s great. But I wouldn’t try to be stylistically derivative of someone else. And at the same time, I don’t look at a movie and need all my fingerprints all over it.”
Another Arkansan, Clark Duke of Glenwood, had a feature role in the SXSW opening-night film Kick-Ass as Marty, the comic-bookloving best friend of “superhero” Dave (aka Kick-Ass). Duke, who got his start in films by basicallybeing Juno star Michael Cera’s best friend, was also in the 2008 teen comedy Sex Drive and stars in the forthcoming Hot Tub Time Machine with John Cusack, expected to be released March 26.
Finally, Roland Honeycutt’s film Dwight David Honeycutt for Conway School Board also premiered at SXSW as part of the festival’s midnight shorts program. The five-minute film, which plays more like an evidence tape for an insanity trial than a candidate’s campaign ad, has amassed more than 100,000 views on sites like FunnyorDie.com and Youtube.com.
(You can watch the clip - which might be offensive to some and should not be considered safe for viewing at work - here: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=lMRWNNBYAc8.)
Honeycutt’s synopsis on the SXSW Web site explains: “My uncle got a little drunk and decided he wanted to run for school board. He regretted the idea (and the footage) the next day, but I took everything we shot and made this movie. People like it enough to where he’s decided hemight really run now.”
The short has also been accepted into the Nashville Film Festival and the LA Comedy Shorts Festival in April.
Writer, director and producer for theater, television and film Del Shores is coming to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Little Rock at 6:30 p.m. May 1 to perform his one-man show Del Shores: My Sordid Life for the Weekend Theater’s annual Gala and Silent Auction. Aside from his many plays, Shores, born in Winters, Texas, also adapted his show for the screen and directed the 2000 film Sordid Lives starring Olivia Newton-John, Beau Bridges and Delta Burke. There is a suggested minimum donation of $50 per person, and tickets can be ordered online at weekend theater.org.
Dogpatch, USA, a film by TV news photographer Matt Rowe and Dixie Kline, will premiere next week at the Ozark Foothills Film Festival in Batesville.
Dogpatch, USA was a theme park between Harrison and Jasper that was inspired by the Al Capp comic strip “Li’l Abner.” It operated from 1968 to 1993. The 30-minute documentary examines how the park thrived off the media’s infatuation with “hillbilly” culture and how the stereotype may have hurt the state’s image over time.
“Mostly I want audiences to be left like many of the participants we interviewed were,” Rowe said. “Somewhat sad it was gone, somewhat embarrassed it existed and somewhatentertained by how miserably it failed.”
The film screens at 6 p.m. March 26 as part of the Arkansas Documentary Showcase. Director Kline is expected to attend the screening. Go to www.ozarkfoothillsfilmfest. org for ticketing and scheduling information.
Levi Agee is a programmer for the Little Rock Film Festival, and the founder and host of Cameras on the Radio. E-mail him at:
MovieStyle, Pages 37 on 03/19/2010
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