This East Sixth Street honky-tonk is a favorite stop for bar-hopping Austinites on the weekend, both for the live country music and whiskey on tap. The biggest attraction is the long bar offering an extensive beer selection and menu of Indian-influenced Texas comfort food (think chicken fried steak smothered in coconut gravy). Update, 3/16: Scott Macaulay talks with Katz for Filmmaker.įor news and tips throughout the day every day, follow ( RSS).This gas station-turned-quirky convenience store, brewpub, restaurant and live music venue is a family-owned operation. Mark Olsen tells the story of the film's making in the Los Angeles Times.įor Filmmaker, David Lowery (who has a pair of terrific trailers here at SXSW this year), Aaron Katz and producers Brendan McFadden and Ben Stambler watch Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown together.Įarlier: James Renovitch's interview with Katz and Lankenau in the Austin Chronicle. "Ultimately, Cold Weather revolves around the relationship that Doug shares with his sister," writes Eric Kohn at indieWIRE, "as she eventually comes to inhabit the role of Watson to his Holmes, turning the chemistry of the original Victorian duo into a metaphor for familial communication." It works in every sense, buzzing along industriously." As usual for Katz, it looks great, but the cutting's faster and the mood lighter Dance Party USA and Quiet City are mood pieces, but this isn't. If Cold Weather is surprisingly well-plotted on the genre tip, it's also a genuinely original comedy, with big laughs in completely unexpected places. "I spent a lot of time thinking 'They should've let that guy direct Cop Out.' This isn't a slam at all: smooth, humane, well-crafted entertainment is harder than it looks. "You could expect a lot of different things from Aaron Katz, but crowd-pleasing proficiency isn't one of them," writes Vadim Rizov at GreenCine Daily. until his ex-girlfriend ( Robyn Rikoon) shows up and touches off some shady business that requires Doug to put his vague detective skills to work." LA Weekly's Karina Longworth: "It's an impressive experiment in genre in more ways than one: a pulp fiction of troublesome dames and distinctly costumed villains, wedded to conversational comedy., while also a subtle exploration of friendship, family, and the behavioral differences between the two." Jay and Mark Duplass's Baghead (2008) is a light-footed hybrid of handheld mumble-comedy and cabin-in-the-woods horror (and fine for what it is Cyrus is far, far better, but hopefully, we'll get to that one soon enough).Ĭold Weather "follows the bumbling adventures of Doug ( Cris Lankenau), a former forensic science major who drops out of school in Chicago, moves in with his sister ( Trieste Kelly Dunn) in Portland, gets a graveyard shift factory job and wastes away his days reading Sherlock Holmes novels and hanging out. Of course, Aaron Katz isn't the first of the American DIY set to experiment with the blend. It's also, as many are noting online and off, the first breakout hit of SXSW 2010. Though it'd seem to make little sense to carry on drawing parallels between that loosely affiliated group of German filmmakers with the just as loosely affiliated group of young American filmmakers bundled a few years ago under the "mumblecore" banner, it's difficult to know when to stop - particularly now that Aaron Katz has presented Cold Weather, a beautifully composed feature that all but traces the seduction of seemingly formless lives (and films) by tried-and-true narrative structures. Just a few weeks ago, I noted that one of the running topics of discussion coming out of the Berlinale is the turn toward - and in the case of Thomas Arslan, the outright embrace of - genre by filmmakers associated with the Berlin School.
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