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by Steve Dollar



Everyone talks about the cheap beer, the country barbecue, the crazy parties and, sweet Jesus, the blessed transmedia synergy. But there"s one sure thing you will discover at South by Southwest, early and often, particularly if your advertised "downtown" motel turns out to be hell-and-gone up the Interstate. It is this: Austin"s cab drivers are even wackier than the notoriously storied hacks in Las Vegas. One afternoon, sozzled after a dozen cans of ice-cold Pearl Beer, waiting for a lift back downtown from Fantastic Fest impresario Tim League"s big-ass crawfish boil, I was greeted by a sight unusual even for Our Nation"s Weirdness Capital. Thumping down the street was a bright yellow mini-bus-like contraption dubbed The Land Yacht. Turns out the beast was a karaoke cab! Lady Gaga gaga"d from a pair of video monitors that the driver worked from a dashboard computer screen. As we rolled into town from the hillside League Compound, the hirsute and histrionic Brad Delp of Boston-may he rest in peace-materialized as guitars squealed in power anthem ecstasy, reminding me that it"s "more than a feeling."

True. The very best moments marking the film component of this year"s SXSW had everything to do with emotion, the real, raw, rag-and-bone shop of the heart stuff, transfigured through the prism of cinematic art (or mayhem). And I"m not just talking about the pyrotechnic heartbreak of Bellflower.