Entertainment

SXSW: Blue Saturday

AUSTIN (CBS 11 News) ― CBS11TV.com Web Producer Anna Gonzalez is attending SXSW. She's there covering it as a journalist, but she's also a fan of a lot of the stuff there. These reports are her impressions of what she's seeing.


After seeing two movie premieres, I was left shaking and crying Saturday night.

Both movies just happened to share a similar plot-line. The main characters had broken hearts over fathers who had passed away. Neither could handle being in relationships due to the pain. But in the end, both find someone to help guide them back to life.

But that's not why I chose to see either of the two films.

Through the grieving process, art is created in both films. I was drawn to their use of color and animation, but didn't realize they were an "investigation into emotions," as filmmaker Emily Hubley put it.

Hubley directed "The Toe Tactic." The title refers to a way of dealing with grief. You dig a hole in the earth with your toe and put your pain inside.

The main character's life is interrupted by colorful, shape-shifting dogs. The movie also showcases mini-animated poems narrated by the dogs.

"When your absent from the world, that's when life (the dogs) intervene and help smack you back into it," said Hubley.

Hubley said some of the images used throughout the film have been used before, while others are "new friends." She didn't want the movie to look too polished. Instead, "I wanted it to look like something you could draw," she said.

Actor Kevin Corrigan, who plays a piano teacher, said he personally connected with another central theme of the movie, ritual as healing. And he encouraged the audience to "just make art."

Both Corrigan and Daniel London were at the movie premiere, and both seemed a bit choked up to see the final product on screen.

"It was such a moving experience just to watch it... and knowing you," said London to Hubley after the premiere. "So... thanks."

Through the entire process of making the movie, Hubley said she allowed herself to be guided by her intuition. "It was all mysterious and accidental," she said. "Don't worry if you don't get it all, just feel it all," she told the audience before the movie began.

But I couldn't help myself. I suppressed my tears throughout the movie, which ended in an eruption of emotions.

The case was different for "Rainbow Around the Sun." I allowed a couple tears to fall during various scenes, but by the movie's end... Niagara Falls.

"Rainbow" tells its story as a rock opera. The movie connects with the audience through a vaudevillian entertainer who invites them along on a "musical odyssey of a man finding himself by losing his mind." The music and story-line came from the mind of musician Matthew Alvin Brown.

This is my generation's "Tommy." The quality of the visuals, the depth of the music lyrics and the production value is so high, I didn't think this was an independent film. But not only was it all made in Oklahoma, this is the filmmakers' first major movie project.

Directors Kevin Ely and Beau Leland have worked together before on smaller projects with Brown before, but never on a scale like this.

I really connected with this movie, and I think other people will too. If you haven't gone through a scene similar to the ones in the movie, you know someone else who has.

I asked the filmmakers what they would suggest for other artists looking to make creative connections in cities that aren't the traditional epicenters for artists.

Ely echoed Corrigan's response, "Just do it. Just make art."

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