Friday at SXSW wasnt really aything to write home about for me- I saw Sisters at Alamo South Lamar, and sadly, I hated it. It just seemed disjointed at the end, and had gratuitous violence with no redeeming value towards the story. The great Stephen Rea was wasted in this movie, and that’s saying something.
After that it was later than I thought (all the movies so far have gotten out like, 20 minutes later than I thought they would) so I missed The Lookout, but I heard it was really great. I ended up going to the BlogHer Meetup at Freddie’s on S. 1st instead, which was a wise choice- SO much fun. I went home happy.

Today started bright and early, got a great parking spot and hit it hard for my 10am panel. It was mostly panels today but I did see The Ten at the Paramount, which lived up to all the hilarious hype I’d heard and was followed by a Q & A with the director and some other people and OH MY GOD PAUL RUDD.

PAUL RUDD!!!!!!

That was great.
I went outside and back in line to see the next feature- UTFI and Burnt Orange Productions’ Elvis and Anabelle.
UT should be very proud of this movie. I actually stopped thinking about it, I enjoyed it so much. Max Minghella and Blake Lively were wonderful, but Joe Mantegna really stole the show. It’s a charming, sweet movie that has a couple heavyhanded moments but on the whole, I really, really liked it. I want it on dvd. I hope I can get it someday.

After the movie I realized, AGAIN, that it ran late and I had a party to be early to. I got a pedicab to take me to the club- I’d forgotten how much I love pedicabs; the motion surrounding you, the noise and the air. I was talking(yelling) to my cabbie about the movie when this other guy in a pedicab yells at me to ask how I liked it, and told me he was from Goldcrest, one of the film’s financiers. I told him I really loved it, but it’s not like I could go into much detail yelling across the street. Safe to say UT’s experiment in film education should be considered a great success.

I got to that party, stayed awhile, then caught up with my friend Laurie for dinner at Zax, which is quickly becoming a favorite for their accommodating waitstaff and delicious food (I basically asked my waitress for a mountain of polenta with my scallops, and lo, there was a giant portion. Delicious). We spent dinner playing with Twitter, which you should check out. Then we went to the AMODA Laptop Battle, and here we are. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a long day to end :o)