I stood in the dining room of Melody, my friend, fellow cineaste, and gracious host for my SXSW 2024 adventure. She had asked me the day before how the fest was going. I had issued a boilerplate response about how it was tiring, as fests always are, but that I was having a good time. Later I realized that she was probably asking about the quality of the fest; how good were this year’s crop of movies?
As we chatted the next day, I admitted that the movies I had seen this year weren’t quite as good as what I had seen at last year’s South By. Upon further reflection, I don’t think that sentiment is entirely the fault of the movies or the SXSW programmers. There were a few other factors at play that made me feel this way.
1. SXSW 2024 was up against the banner movie year of 2023.
It’s a fool’s errand to make comparisons with 2023, one of the strongest years for cinema in recent memory. At South By 2023, I saw Bottoms and BlackBerry (both in my top ten of the year) as well as If You Were the Last, which landed in my top twenty-five. It’s also where I saw the bonkers Australian horror movie Talk to Me. After all that, the year then provided Asteroid City, Barbenheimer, and Killers of the Flower Moon, not to mention about a dozen other incredible titles. Some years at a fest are bound to be stronger than others through no fault of the fest itself.
2. I was writing for an outlet other than my own website, so what I saw wasn’t entirely up to me.
Dance with the one that brung ya, as the saying goes. I’ve been incredibly fortunate for the previous five film festivals I’ve covered in that I was the sole arbiter of everything I saw and wrote about for each one. I got into SXSW 2023 because I was gifted a pass by a friend.
This year I was fortunate in a different way.
A gifted pass wasn’t an option this year, and I certainly couldn’t afford to pay for a pass on my own. The only way I was getting in was with press credentials. My site doesn’t have enough traffic for me to have gotten in on my own, so I needed to partner with a more established outlet in order to score a press pass. Through one of the film critics organizations I’m a member of, I was connected with the good people at The Cosmic Circus, which sponsored my press application.
Because of that, I was given a list of preferred films for me to see and cover for the site. I had no issue with any of the films I was asked to see – in fact, one of my favorites of the fest, Grand Theft Hamlet, was on the list – but it did feel different because the decision wasn’t completely up to me. This fest felt more like a job, which gave me an appreciation for keeping it pure.
Anyone over the age of 30 scoffs at Ethan Hawke’s idealistic characters from the early to mid ‘90s, in films like Reality Bites and Before Sunrise, but there’s something to be said for keeping commerce out of a passion project. As the incurable romantic Lloyd Dobler – I’m now swapping out Hawke for John Cusack – once said, “I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career…” (You know the rest.)
You can find everything I wrote for The Cosmic Circus here. The fact that they wanted me to see a lot of the headliner, highly anticipated titles playing at the fest made me set a hard-and-fast rule for film festivals going forward, because…
3. I spent A LOT of time in lines this year, y’all.
My brand-new hard-and-fast rule for future fests is to never spend more time in line waiting to see a movie than the actual length of the movie itself. I got into Doug Liman’s remake of Road House, the opening film of South By 2024, by the hair on my chinny chin chin, after waiting in line for about fifty minutes. I crashed and burned on the next two attempts at getting into the buzziest screenings.
I waited in line to see Dev Patel’s feature directorial debut, Monkey Man, for 2.5 hours, only to be turned away with about 30 or 40 other people ahead of me in line and hundreds behind me.
For the Ryan Gosling action movie The Fall Guy, I got in line three hours early. I was in an even worse position in line than I was for Monkey Man. The way the line wrapped around the block meant that I could hear the screams as Ryan Gosling arrived at the theater, and I could see the commotion happening down the street, but I was shut out of seeing the movie. The theater for the screenings of both Monkey Man and The Fall Guy, The Paramount, seats eleven hundred.
Because of the timing of the SXSW shuttles, I arrived too late to see another movie, Omni Loop. I was told as I walked up that the venue had already reached capacity. Luckily – or unluckily, considering I didn’t enjoy Omni Loop when I eventually saw it – I got into a second screening for it the next day.
So, I decided to bail completely on seeing Alex Garland’s Civil War after calculating that I would need to be in line four hours before the screening was scheduled to start to have a shot at getting in to see it. That is a depressing way to spend a film festival. Plus, all of the movies mentioned above, save Omni Loop, either are now, or soon will be, available at the nearest local multiplex. Part of the magic of a film festival is seeing the smaller titles that might never even make it to a proper theatrical release.
It’s a bummer to rave about movies to your friends that they might never be able to see, but being surprised and delighted by unknown gems is intoxicating. Eschewing the most anticipated titles for quiet screenings with 15 or 20 other people, where there’s a chance to discover something really special, will be de rigueur for me going forward.
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There was one other disappointing aspect of SXSW 2024, involving the sponsors of the fest. Two of the sponsors, the U.S. Army and Collins Aerospace, a subsidiary of RTX, the defense contractor formerly known as Raytheon, came under fire for their role in the ongoing death and destruction in Gaza.
Dozens of bands set to perform at South By cancelled their shows to express their distain at weapons manufacturers and a branch of the U.S. military sponsoring what is supposed to be a celebration of art, creativity, and the human spirit. (You can read about the band boycott here.)
I only heard about the boycott because Scottish post-rock band Mogwai (one of my favorite bands) went on with their performance, but not before making a statement about the horrifying violence in Gaza, and to call for an immediate cease fire. I’m sure RTX didn’t appreciate that, considering how much money they make from selling weapons of war that kill people.
I missed the Mogwai show, but I was in attendance for the screening of a documentary about the band, Mogwai: If the Stars Had a Sound. Two Mogwai members were present for the post-screening Q&A, and an audience member asked them to comment on the situation.
As you can see in the article I linked to above, because my governor, Greg Abbott, is ever so anxious to be a willing and cooperative lapdog for the fascist Donald Trump by jockeying to be his pick for Vice President, he tweeted a snide troll to those who canceled their shows. “Bye. Don’t come back,” he wrote. Mr. Abbott, you reactionary troglodyte, I live in Texas. I’m not going anywhere, and as long as I draw breath, I’ll oppose the hateful, backward way you run this great state I call home.
SXSW then had to release a statement distancing themselves from Abbott, but at the same time showing love to their sponsors. You know, since keeping the money spigot flowing is all that matters in our society. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” as someone far smarter than me once wrote.
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I’ll close by returning my focus to what makes this the best of times: the art, creativity, and resilience of the human spirit that film festivals capture. I saw 14 films – and a few TV shows! – over seven days of SXSW 2024. Keep an eye out for the limited series Ren Faire, which should be coming to HBO Max (I still can’t bring myself to call it, simply, Max) in the summer.
The Truth vs. Alex Jones (also forthcoming from HBO) and Movie Pass, Movie Crash are both worthwhile documentaries. The National Geographic doc Fly, about base jumping, is exhilarating and heartbreaking. The doc We Can Be Heroes and the time travel feature The Greatest Hits are both heartwarming and fun.
DIFF (the Dallas International Film Festival) 2024 is right around the literally figurative corner, and I’m (almost) ready to do it all again.
As always, thanks for reading. Movies are neat.
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PS: While in Austin for the fest, I attended an Oscar party hosted by my friend Susan. The experience of stopping down to watch the Oscars in the middle of a film festival was one I’ll cherish.