March
10
SXSW Screens Bruno Footage, Debuts Raimi's Drag Me to Hell
After its success debuting at SXSW such Judd Apatow projects as Forgetting Sarah Marshall last year and Knocked Up the year before, Universal Pics is taking advantage of the hip SXSW demo --and the fest's pre-summer time-frame--to promo two more flicks. The studio will screen the first-ever footage from Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen's follow-up to Borat, on 3/15 at 11 PM followed at midnight by Sam Raimi's full-length horror title Drag Me to Hell.
Unusually, however, Universal joined the current Twitter mania and announced Bruno's SXSW footage unveiling via Twitter:
SXSW/Fantastic Festers: First-ever look at BRÜNO footage! Sunday night 11 pm at Alamo Drafthouse Lamar. No badge needed, free admission!
Yes folks, this is the new modern press release, otherwise known as instant viral marketing. Uni PR exec Michael Moses has me on his Twitter feed; since he made this announcement, and others have tweeted a link to him, and then others have seen me on his list of followers, my Twitter followers have skyrocketed. (They have been steadily climbing ever since David Pogue wrote about Twitter in his NYT Circuits column; I wrote a response; I posted my Twitter name akstanwyck; and I figured out how to automatically tweet new blog entries.)
"We're big believers in SXSW as an ignition switch for the right movie," says Moses, who sees Austin, Texas as "a unique city where the counter-culture crosses the mainstream, new media mixes with traditional, and the arts thrive." Attendees at the fest are "a young, movie-loving audience fluent in instant media," he says, "discriminating without being snobbish, [who] can radiate genuine buzz from between the coasts."
Here's one SXSW preview; here's another. Here's The New Yorker's David Denby--a tad late in the day--expounding on the indie movement that has emerged from SXSW: Mumblecore. I'm seeing Joe Swanberg's Alexander the Last tonight.
For those of you who are bewildered by the recent Twitter explosion, David Bloom explains it all to you. And Austin American-Statesman Internet editor Robert Quigley uses Twitter to drive traffic.
Here's the Drag Me to hell trailer:
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I'm so pleased that Variety is still hosting your blog - always so informed.
Posted by: Linda Nelson | March 10, 2009 at 04:35 PM
Twitter is unreal. I can immediately post links to my stories about movies and there is no more waiting for my readers.
I am at http://twitter.com/doubledown44
Posted by: Sean | March 10, 2009 at 04:35 PM
I just saw Bruno has a twitter to - http://www.twitter.com/BrunoMovie
Posted by: Brian | March 11, 2009 at 11:12 AM
Just a heads up - the SXSW showing of Bruno will not be the first ever. I was at a screening last night (amazing, by the way)!
Posted by: Kevin | March 11, 2009 at 11:33 AM
I just read a convincing diss by young Peter Debruge of Alexander the Last, for which he'll take a drubbing, not the least of which for his use of the condemned *M* word (small M), thrice. My suspect antenna got tingly when Jeff Wells raved about it.
Posted by: T. Holly | March 11, 2009 at 05:34 PM
Thanks for the link love! There are definitely some hidden gems at SXSW this year that I hope end up with a distribution contract - most notably "Best Worst Movie" and "Make-Out with Violence" which I mentioned in my preview.
I'm still working through screeners, but I'll be updating all the time in the next few days to try to generate some buzz on the good stuff.
Haven't tried to get my blog posts to automatically post on Twitter...I might try that soon.
Posted by: Matthew Lucas | March 11, 2009 at 11:01 PM