Sunday was a pretty lazy day, so I pretty much just prepped myself for the big double feature of the evening –- The Promotion followed by Run Fatboy Run.

The lines were long, stretching all the way around the block, and fortunately for me I knew the press rep covering the event. She let us locals slide in and get good seats before the mob set in to pack the theater. First up was The Promotion. Sean William Scott was in the house for the film, but I never actually got the chance to so much as glimpse him. After a lengthy wait (the price you pay for getting in early) the film rolled up and I found myself sorely disappointed.

A good friend of mine reviewed this calling it “Office Space in a grocery store.” Quite the contrary, this film is everything that Office Space isn’t. Unlike its predecessor, which was about finding yourself while struggling against corporate culture, this is about the sad story of how two men try to destroy each other while buying into it instead. Starring Sean William Scott and John C. Reilly, it is the tale of two men vying for a manager position at a new grocery store. Trouble is, they’re both equally qualified for the job. What follows is a series of uncomfortable events and a childish back and forth that wants desperately to be Rushmore-like in quality, but falls fairly short of that goal. Much like the writer-director’s previous effort, The Weather Man, this film seems to linger on the banality of life rather than its joys, leaving you with more of a “life sucks” vibe rather than wanting to celebrate it. A well made but depressing film that took me back to the very worst parts of my life working retail, I don’t even want to so much as be reminded of this film again. Grade: C.

I quickly escaped the theater and right outside ran into a good friend of mine, editor Frank Reynolds. He’s a longtime festival buddy who I bonded with years ago over drinks at the Driskill when we discovered that I had reviewed an undistributed indie that he’d worked on and been particularly proud of. Since then he’s edited such films as In the Bedroom and Cape of Good Hope. We caught up and he told me about a few of his upcoming projects and shared his excitement for the upcoming The Alphabet Killer (starring Eliza Dushku and Carey Elwes), which he worked on. He got me pretty excited about it, as he’s always been very candid with me about which films that he's edited are turkeys and which ones are solid.

So we carried on like that until the next film was introduced. They began with the usual “Welcome to SXSW, hope you’re enjoying it,” yada, yada... until they introduced the film’s director. David Schwimmer. Instead of David Schwimmer walking out, it was Ross from Friends. He gave that goofy giggle and coyly pushed back his hair and the audience went nuts. “I love you Ross,” called a woman from the balcony. He gave a goofy smile and talked about how excited he was to direct. They rolled the film, which was fantastic and then David Schwimmer came out. No longer Ross, he was confident, clearly thrilled that the film had played well and the audience had stayed in its seats fro the Q&A.

And he gave a great Q&A, talking about how the film went from being set in New York to its acquisition by a British company and how they rebuilt it to be made in London. He was very candid about the first-time mistakes he made, detailing how he’d not set aside enough money to get the music he wanted and how lucky he was to get the great soundtrack he had. All in all he proved himself to be quite adept at his new craft and was personable enough to seem like someone I couldn’t wait to see behind the camera again. My only disappointment was that his writers Michael Ian Black and Simon Pegg (who is also the star of the film), both Austin festival regulars, weren’t there to back him up.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

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C. Robert Cargill - - - Email Me

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