This year’s South by Southwest was an interesting and comfortable tour of Austin for me and the FromHereToAwesome Crew that I was out there with.

There were a lot of documentaries that I enjoyed like Nerdcore Rising, Beautiful Losers and Bananaz - a film about the animated band Gorillaz. It seemed hard to find a narrative feature with a script, which became a little redundant after a while, but I was extremely moved by Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig’s new film Nights and Weekends. I feel like the piece is a departure from the ‘mumble’ of mumblecore and has grown into a more spacious and beautiful realm. It’s honesty and passion left me woozy. Lynn Shelton also turned out an extremely impressive film that is another testament to how scriptless films can work with the right planning and cast chemistry. Starring Sean Nelson of Harvey Danger fame, It’s called My Effortless Brilliance, and it appears to be thus.

There were also some unexpected surprises this year that made Austin show a little more of its character than usual. The after party for fest doc Bi The Way brought us to the Enchanted Forest. Like a tripped-out summer camp on acid, this forest blossomed many curious sights including a giant singing one-bunny-show who calls himself Strange Powers.

All said, the trip to Austin was great and the very end surprised me with a stellar performance by Siman Mobile Disco at the bar we picked to chill at. I love these guys. Video will soon follow.

The Alternative Oscars were a success. It was really refreshing to be at a *party* that paused in the action just in time to see the winners and speech of every Oscar catagory. I think other parties could learn from this indeed. I am also fully convinced that costuming for everything should be the new American pastime!

New York’s Costume Cultural Society is hosting an amazing oscar party, and yours truly will be producing a live stream of it and interviewing people on the red carpet. So don’t make any plans for Oscar Sunday…what else could you possibly have to do?!

Streaming will be provided by Mogulus.com.

We just booked our first screening at the Cleveland International Film Festival For Happy New Year!

The trailer for Happy New Year is finally up and ready.

file from karl j on Vimeo.

I just got back from creating the most Awesome season 3 of Young American Bodies. It was like summer camp all over again, shooting amid piles of out-of-town belongings and couch crashers. We cranked out Ted’s stuff in 3 days while also managing to get out to THROWDOWN some Loveshack in the k-town karaoke restaurant.

New York Magazine seems to be a new fan of the show, giving us some coverage as a great “Hardcore Soap.” Ha! Click here if the nymag link is broken.