Larry Ratliff

Conan the O'Brien docs in Austin

I know I wasn't, but where were you?

Sadly, other duties prevent this scribe 'o cinema from attending the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin this year.

I wish I'd been there last night, though.  Conan O'Brien added to the keep-Austin-weird motif when the late night TV talk show host showed up for the screening of "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop," Rodman Flender's documentary focusing on the loss of "The Tonight Show" on NBC and Conan's whistle-stop concert tour last year.

"'I personally have trouble watching it because it's a time in my life that I don't like to go back to,'" O'Brien told the Associated Press on the red carpet," according to a Hollywood Reporter Web post.

He added:  "'I'm happy where I am now. I don't really need to go back to it. But I made a commitment' to director Rodman Flender. (O'Brien has been friends with the helmer since they were Harvard classmates in the 1980s.)"

"'It's a swirly cone of crazy emotions,' he said. 'It was anxious, depressing but also euphoric and exciting. It was not just one emotion; it was a lot of emotion. I was confused but also really excited by new possibilities and I think you see almost every emotion in the movie. You see pretty much everything,'" the Hollywood Reporter post added.

 

The SXSW Film Conference and Festival runs through Saturday (March 19).

(Conan O'Brien photo on the SXSW red carpet courtesy:  indiewire.com.)

A very good reason to be at SXSW film fest

If you missed the South By Southwest opening night premiere of the smart and goofy comedy "I Love You, Man" on Friday night, you probably deprived yourself of a wild movie night.  But that's OK.

Perhaps you also missed out on the sneak preview of wild guy Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" Sunday night as well.  Bummer, I know. 

AP movie writer Christy Lemire, filing online today (Monday), calls Baron Cohen's "Bruno" (due out in July) character "a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion correspondent hoping to make it big in Hollywood."

"Borat" fans should probably be marking their calendars for July 10.

Even if you missed all that, though, there's a very good reason to converge on Austin and SXSW this week.  It's not too late to get to the world premiere of "For the Love of the Movies:  The Story of American Film Criticism."  It unspools tonight (Monday) at 8 at the Alamo Ritz 2 Theater.

Patricia Clarkson narrates the first documentary to dramatize what filmmaker and film critic Gerald Peary (The Boston Phoenix) calls "the rich saga of American movie reviewing."

If you miss the premiere, "For the Love of the Movies" also screens Wednesday at noon (Alamo Ritz 2) and Saturday at 4 p.m. (Alamo Lamar 3).

And that's just one of the reasons to get to Austin this week.  Check out the full SXSW film schedule for a film festival experience like no other and unique to the Lone Star State.