Echotone is an Austin-made documentary about the Austin music scene, described by the filmmakers as a “cultural portrait of the modern American city examined through the lyrics and lens of its creative class.” 

The film opens with its strongest material, blues rock bad boy Joe Lewis of Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears delivering fish and sharing his two cents about being a musician in the Live Music Capital of the World. We get equally entertaining (and occasionally heartbreaking) tales and performances from others among Austin’s indie elite, including The Black Angels, Ghostland Observatory, Belaire, Sunset, Dana Falconberry and The Octopus Project.

Director Nathan Christ and his gang clearly know where to point the business end of a camera/microphone — the visuals and audio are absolutely gorgeous, but the film seems to lack a clear direction.

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POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a documentary (and an attempt at creating the first “docbuster”) about marketing and product placement funded entirely by marketing and product placement. The film follows director Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) as he attempts to make the film by pitching corporations on sponsoring the film all the way through promoting and releasing the movie — the movie the audience is watching. Forget the Scream movies: This is meta.

The Spurlock “brand” will probably forever be tied to Super Size Me. For most people, the horseshoe-mustachioed filmmaker may never be anything more than the slightly goofy guy who ate at McDonald’s for a month. But those who kept up with Spurlock over the past six years know he’s gone on to do interesting work that shows an intelligence and heart that promises many more exciting experiments to come. Most notable of these projects was 30 Days, the wonderful, woefully defunct FX series born from the Super Size Me concept of trying something for a month. (If you’re unfamiliar or never got around to watching it, get on it.)

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I agreed to see HOP for two reasons:
1. My ladyfriend is obsessed with Russell Brand, who voices the film’s CG-bunny lead.
2. I’m a movie masochist.

But what I saw was something unexpected. HOP is on par with the finest computer-animated films out of Pixar. An intelligent kids’ movie? Could it really exist? HOP is a near perfectly crafted film about living up to expectations with an overarching metaphor about American consumerism, thoughtful commentary on the growing gulf between rich and poor, some clever observations about racism, and a small but brilliant nod to Kurosawa—all covered in a colorful candy-coating to make it enjoyable for the kids.

No, I kid. HOP was awful; It didn’t even seem to play well to our mostly kiddo-filled theater.