The Next Party
SXSW Film Kicks Off With a Political Slate
By Marc Savlov, Fri., Feb. 8, 2002
Around this time last year, America was collectively scratching its puzzled head and wondering if the rightful president was the one in office. That air of often confused and just as often volatile debate is reflected in several South by Southwest films this year, including Alexandra Pelosi's Journeys With George, which goes behind the scenes of George W. Bush's presidential campaign and explores the candidate's fractious but necessary relationship with the press, and vice versa. The Last Party 2000 -- from filmmaking husband-and-wife team Donovan Leitch and Rebecca Chaiklin -- is a sequel (of sorts) to the couple's 1993 film The Last Party, which chronicled the absurd side of the previous year's Democratic National Convention. This time out they focus (with help from Philip Seymour Hoffman) on the battle between Bush and Gore with equally humorous and alarming results. See How They Run, from documentarian Emily Morse, focuses on San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's travails when an openly gay city supervisor stages his own write-in campaign against the conservative mayor.
But wait, there's more! Confirmed SXSW venues include the Arbor 8 Theatre (10000 Research), the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown (409 Colorado), the Hideout Theatre and Coffehouse (617 Congress), the Millennium Youth Entertainment Complex (1156 Hargrave), the Austin Convention Center (500 E. Cesar Chavez St.), and the Paramount Theatre (713 Congress). Other films slated to appear include Ethan Hawke's directorial debut Chelsea Walls, wartime drama Master of the Game, and Mike Binder's (of HBO's The Mind of the Married Man) Brit-out-of-water comedy The Search for John Gissing -- all highly recommended, though not particularly political, keepers. Also confirmed are legend (and SXSW panelist) Peter Bogdanovich's first feature film in nine years, The Cat's Meow; Tatum O'Neal comeback vehicle The Scoundrel's Wife; and Sandra Goldbacher's Me Without You, starring Dawson's Creek-er Michelle Williams. Now if we could just get our hands on Dubya's bachelor party tape ...
Journeys With George will screen Friday, March 8, at the Paramount Theatre, kicking off the nine-day SXSW Film Conference and Festival.
