Never in all my years of reading blogerati coverage about South by Southwest have I seen actual pictures and/or video of Austin places and happenings and pseudo-landmarks. Well, Hollywood Elsewhere is here with a Canon Elph SD1400, and that shit stops tonight. But what is Austin on Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 10:27 pm? I don’t know. I’m just at some bar on Sixth Street, nursing brewskis and uploading photos on my Toshiba. It’s dark and loud and noisy and packed with hee-hee 20somethings, like a thousand other bars in cities all over America and Europe and Southeast Asia.

For a New Jersey/New York guy like myself, Texas used to be an exotic place to visit. It used to be about shitkickers and Texas accents and honky tonks and country music and pick-up trucks. The vibe on Austin’s Sixth Street isn’t “Texas” — it’s overflowing with white 21st Century hip-hop homies dancing to the same tunes and rhythms that you’ll find in bars in San Francisco’s Union Street or in some Boston Back Bay bar or on Ninth Avenue in the 40s. The entire under-35 hip social world has become homogenized and corporatized. Nothing is different or dangerous. Or so it goes on Sixth Street, at least.

I’ve never been a major worshipper of director MIchael Winner, but I’ve enjoyed and will always respect three of his early ’70s films — The Nightcomers, Death Wish and Scorpio. They’re screening this weekend at Santa Monica’s Aero. Variety‘s Steven Gaydos is handling the q & a with Winner. South by Southwest prevents my attending.

What has Will Smith done since the failure of Seven Pounds? Nothing, which is another way of saying he hid for two years and then boldly reemerged last year by committing to Bad Boys and Men in Black sequels. The man is basically George Lucas, talking a diversionary game about wanting to make non-corporate, content-driven movies while doing nothing except going for the safe “brand” money. I’m saying this because he obviously needs to do something that isn’t about growing his bank account, and one good way to do this would be to play Senator Barack Obama in Jay Roach and Danny Strong‘s Game Change.

If I hadn’t been working yesterday on my usual rundown of stimulating articles (including two reviews) and running around trying to get one of those Medeco bolt-lock keys copied (forget it) and trying to return that Sony Bluray player before leaving for Austin, I might have posted a South by Southwest preview article similar to the one by Movieline‘s Jen Yamato.

Like everyone else I agree that Jodie Foster‘s The Beaver, Duncan Jones‘ Source Code (Groundhog Day with a bomb), Greg Mottola‘s repulsive-looking Paul and Billy Bob Thornton‘s Willie Nelson doc top the list. That’s not saying much, is it?

Here’s a good one from the N.Y. Observer’s Mike Taylor, a tech guy: “Abolish South by Southwest!”

http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/abolish-south-southwest?utm_medium=partial-text&utm_campaign=daily-transom&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=DT

I have a sentimental attachment to Burbank (i.e., Bob Hope) airport, and am therefore looking at a Phoenix connection on my way to Austin and South by Southwest. Two laps = six hours, not counting drive-time to and from both airports, or roughly a seven-and-a-half to eight-hour journey. That’s almost what it takes to fly to New York. If I’d flown out of LAX I’d have a one-way flight that would’ve shaved two or three hours. Brilliant.

Jonathan Leibesman‘s Battle Los Angeles (Sony, 3.11) is the work of a moderately talented, second-rate whore with really fast hands. I didn’t mind it that much as I watched (“It’s all right, it’s tolerable,” I told Jett on the phone), but it’s been plummeting in my head ever since. Impressions of decent to pretty-good films tend to maintain initial levels, and very-good to excellent films always gain.

It’s a panoramic, heebie-jeebie, fast-break battle flick about a massive alien attack upon the world and particularly Los Angeles that’s happening because it looks cool and will sell a lotta tickets — an attack for no reason that anyone can figure except for something to do with H20 — an attack that’s massive, overwhelming, coordinated…”look at’ em!”

H.G. Wells‘ The War of the Worlds was inspired by England’s waging of the Boer War (i.e., British troops were the Martians) and the ultimate inability of foreign troops to maintain dominance over nativist elements despite their military superiority. So if you’re looking for a Battle LA metaphor we’re the aliens, the turf is Iraq/Afghanistan and water is oil. But do guys like Leibesman even think, much less care, about real-world echoes, and am I giving him way too much credit by suggesting there may be one here?

I say this because style-wise Battle LA is some kind of War of the Worlds meets Black Hawk Down meets District 9 ghoulash, and without a single fresh element or character turn or rooting element that doesn’t feel like it was cooked up by a roomful of soulless, heavily caffeinated 30something screenwriters, and is therefore choked with cliches about brave sweaty guys up against really tough odds that you can see coming a mile off.

And as the trailers have made clear (and as you expected all along) it’s pure shaky-cam and hypercut, shaky-cam and hypercut, shaky-cam and hypercut. And I’m saying again that this timeworn, dog-eared system for depicting breathless mayhem has been done to death and is ready for retirement after so much usage — it’s a trap, a shipping crate, a coffin. Wow…those scatter-cut computer screen images look like they were generated by 1993 home-security video equipment! Like something Paul Greengrass or Ridley Scott thought was cool 10 or 12 years ago.

The avant garde thing would have been to shoot Battle LA like Stanley Kubrick shot Full Metal Jacket — careful and smooth and measured and comprehensible. But I doubt if Leibesman has the character for that. He was hired to do the old hyper-pants pissy-pants, and that’s what he does.

The aliens are okay — I’ll give Leibesman that. Nice and greasy and slithery with Gold’s Gym physiques (i.e., big shoulders). But having them emit those old duk-duk District 9 bug-talk sounds is rote and unimaginative in the same way that James Arness‘s bald-headed invader howled like some kind of cat in Christian Nyby‘s The Thing (’51). Making aliens sound like insects or animals reduces them to standard-issue goblins.

I loved that Leibesman starts everything off with grunts on a chopper and the battle about to get heavy — roughly the one-third mark — in order to assure the ADD crowd that “the intense stuff is coming, guys….don’t worry…but you need to know that you’re going to have to chill for about 15 or 16 minutes to allow some generic character seeds to be planted…okay, bros?…and for us to put some really pointless title cards with the names and ranks of certain characters and some title cards about where this or that is happened….as if the ADDs could give a damn.

This movie is fast and thoughtless and mundane while pretending to be out-of-control. It’s a B movie for B-level brains. And yet I didn’t hate it. I just sat there and said to myself, “Yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah….okay, yup, uhm-hmm….seen it, been there, got it….know that one, that one…oh, Jesus, the kid is crying… here comes the old Richard Barthelmess ‘not this time!’ bit out of Only Angels Have Wings….know all of this stuff….got it, got it….got it, got it, got it.”

Morning-after note: I thought about the water-is-oil H.G. Wellsian metaphor last night as I drove down to meet some friends around 9:15 pm, just after my hurried posting. So I inserted it this morning.

I spoke today with The Princess of Montpensier director-cowriter Bertrand Tavernier at a luncheon thrown on his behalf (and also on behalf of Potiche costars Catherine Deneuve and Judith Godreche) at the Beverly Hills home of the French Consul General. It was my first talent-publicists-and-journalists mixer since arriving in LA a couple of weeks ago, and a pleasant one at that. Thanks to Fredel Pogodin for the invite.

Director Bertrand Tavernier at home of French Consul on Camden Drive in Beverly Hills — Wednesday, 3.9, 1:05 pm.

(l. to r.) Variety‘s Steven Gaydos, TheWrap‘s Sharon Waxman, director Bertrand Tavernier.

It was also good to chat with Princess costar Gaspard Ulliel, who’s only four and five years older, respectively, than my sons Jett and Dylan. I didn’t dare say anything to Deneuve as she can be withering (and because I haven’t seen Potiche). I also spoke with Variety‘s Steven Gaydos, TheWrap‘s Sharon Waxman and Hollywood Reporter‘s Merle Ginsberg.

After sharing the many things I enjoyed and admired about The Princess of Montpensier, Tavernier told me that his reps are starting to shop a “films of my life” documentary along the lines of Martin Scorsese‘s A Personal Journey Through American Movies and My Voyage to Italy. Tavernier is, of course, as much of a devoted and super-knowledgable buff as Scorsese, so a doc of this type, which he said would focus on his many influences within the realm of French cinema as well as beyond, would be absolutely priceless and essential to own.

I also enjoyed speaking with him about the realistic battle and sword-fighting scenes in The Princess of Montpensier, and his decision not to use CG or to indulge in hyper-cutting (in fact to keep cutting to a minimum) in order to allow the audience to actually comprehend the geography and choreography…amazing.

I’ve finally seen Bertrand Tavernier‘s The Princess of Montpensier (IFC Films, 4.15 in theatres, 4.20 on demand) after missing it at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. The initial response was not wildly enthusiastic, so I was rather surprised to find that this historical drama of intimacy, set in 16th Century France during the Catholic vs. Huguenot wars, is one of the most intriguing erotic trips I’ve taken in a long while.

Partly because the occasionally undressed lead, Melanie Thierry, performs in a way that feels rather prim and Grace Kelly-ish, an all-but-extinct vibe or romantic brand in films today. But mostly because the movie is mostly about unrequited desire and hardly at all about consummation. It’s probably not bawdy or obvious enough for most viewers, but I felt and believed this film without the slightest discomfort, and I never wanted to turn it off or multitask as I watched.

The story is basically about four or five guys who can think of little else but having Thierry, and who spend most of their screen time being told “if only,” “no,” “now now,” “yes but” and so on. I only know that the combination of Thierry, the feeling of sensual restraint or suppression, and the generally realistic and non-movieish atmosphere created by Tavernier and his team (including some excellent hand-to-hand combat and duelling scenes) feels right and believable and on-the-money.

It’s delightful when a film drops you into an exotic time-trip visitation without making this world seem arch or “performed” or overly prettified or set-decorated within an inch of its life. I’ve never thought of Tavernier as a director who excels or even cares about violent action and/or mercury-popping eroticism, but maybe I need to go back to watch some of his films.

I didn’t expect to say this, but I felt as stirred and satisfied and convinced by The Princess of Montpensier as I was by Andrzej Wajda‘s Danton (’83), a superb historical drama about the post-revolutionary “terror.”

To judge by this review of Red Riding Hood, the not-very well known bloggers B. Fatt & Lazy are coarse and sexually frustrated GenX animals — one of the many confirmations of the devolution of film criticism and the human species as a whole. But they know how to write fairly well, and they’re blunt and “funny.” A voice is telling me I shouldn’t flatter them further, but another voice is saying that films like Red Riding Hood (Warner Bros., 3.11) were made for guys like B. Fatt & Lazy to rip into.

This isn’t to say their pan is necessarily correct. It’s hard to accept that Red Riding Hood is compete merd with the generally respected Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Twilight, Lords of Dogtown) having directed. I’m telling myself there has to be more to Red Riding Hood than what these guys have indicated.

Surreptitiously videotaped comments by senior NPR exec Ron Schiller that described Tea Party faithfuls in blunt but — let’s be honest — more-or-less accurate terms has led to his dismissal along with the resignation of NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller (i.e., no relation). The male Schiller was recorded saying that Tea Party-ers are “weirdly evangelical…white, middle America, gun-toting….seriously racist, racist people.”

Gaffes are called gaffes not because they’re untrue, but because they’ve been spoken in the wrong mixed company and deemed impolitic or insensitive.

Tree of Life visual effects supervisor Dan Glass has spoken to Trevor Hogg of Little White Lies and said the following: “I can confirm that there are dinosaurs [in the film].” The guy who actually delivered the beasts was Mike Fink of Frantic Films, although Bryan Hirota of Prime Focus reportedly worked on the dinos for several months before that.

On the way back from this evening’s Battle: Los Angeles screening I stopped by the newstand on Robertson between Wilshire and Olympic. The latest New Yorker plus a pack of Trident, the guy said, would be $8 and change. Something snapped like a twig. “Eight dollars for a magazine and a pack of gum,” I said with a tone of resignation. He laughed. I’m not likely to submit again.