In the movie biz, January equals festival season, or at least preparing movies to be screened at them. SXSW (pronounced “South by Southwest”) in Austin, Texas revealed part of their film lineup on Monday, and it will include a premiere of Seth Rogan’s new comedy Observe and Report.
Report is the story of a mall security guard (played by Rogen himself) who has an overinflated sense of himself. When a serial flasher strikes, he attempts to rise to the occasion to bring the perp to justice, at any cost, and one step ahead of the real police detective (Ray Liotta) who’s been assigned to the case.
(This, of course, is nothing like the other mall cop movie starring Kevin James that’s out this weekend, Paul Blart: Mall Cop—which incidentally started filming the same weekend as Rogen’s movie did. That one looks more like a parody of Die Hard and will not be on my viewing schedule.)
Other documentary films that are on the SXSW slate include:
Objectified: Director Gary Hustwit (Helvetica) takes a look at the creative process of several industrial designers.
New World Order: Directors Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer (Darkon) go underground with conspiracy theorists and the anti-globalist movement.
Winnebago Man: If you’ve ever wondered what happens to YouTube stars after their 15 minutes of fame are up, wonder no more. Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer goes in search of one of them, a Winnebago spokesperson whose obscenity-filled outtakes became a hit sensation. Check out one such vid here (obviously, NSFW due to the cursing).
For more details about the films, updated schedules, and everything else SXSW will have to offer in 2009, you can visit the homepage here.