2010 SXSW Film Festival Features, ‘Cyrus,’ ‘McGruber,’ ‘The Runaways,’ ‘Trash Humpers,’ ‘Get Low,’ Soderbergh & Gondry Docs, ‘Leaves Of Grass’ & More

The 2010 SXSW Film Festival line-up has been revealed and, as is often the case, the festival is a bit of a retread of Sundance 2009 pictures, plus other films hitting around that time. But we’re ok with that. Oftentimes, SXSW Film weeds out the chafe from Sundance, plus it’s in the much more climate friendly city of Austin. Hell, we’re hopefully even going to come down for some of it (and should have at least one reporter on the ground, knock on wood). The festival runs March 12 -20.

The big films, the headliners if you will, are Jay and Mark Duplass’ Sundance hit, “Cyrus” starring John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, Catherine Keener, and Matt Walsh, as well as the TIFF ’09 hit, “Get Low” directed by Aaron Schneider about a mysterious, 1930s Tennessee hermit who plans his own rollicking funeral party… while still alive. It stars Robert Duvall and Bill Murray.

Matthew Vaughn’s “Kick-Ass,” a project that nerds have been freaking out over for months now will also be at the festival. It stars Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong, Chloë Grace Moretz and Nicolas Cage. SXSW 10 also boasts the world premiere of “MacGruber” directed by SNL’er Jorma Taccone and starring Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Phillippe, Powers Boothe, Maya Rudolph and Val Kilmer.

Also appearing is TIFF 2009 film, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Micmacs / Micmacs à tire-larigot” which stars French comedian Dany Boon, and is another whimsical Jeunet, this time set against the storm clouds of warring arms dealers (we saw it at TIFF, enjoyed it, but also found it rather familiar). Sundance hit, “The Runaways” starring Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Scout Taylor-Compton, Michael Shannon, Alia Shawkat and Tatum O’Neal in the story of the legendary all-girl ’70s punk band is also scheduled to play.

A picture we barely know anything about called, “Mr. Nice” will also be there. It’s got a great cast including, Rhys Ifans, Chloë Sevigny, David Thewlis, Luis Tosar, Crispin Glover, Omad Djalili and is about the true story of Howard Marks. He was apparently, “Britain’s most wanted man. He spent seven years in America’s toughest penitentiary. You’ll like him,” is what the press release offers. It’s directed by Bernard Rose who helmed, “Candyman,” and “Immortal Beloved” so it’s possible this could be pretty interesting. Another Sundance hit, the big prize winner, “Winter’s Bone,” by director Debra Granik will be in attendance as well.

Other highlights include: Harmony Korine’s strange, hilarious and fucked-up, backwoods experiment, “Trash Humpers” (which should be on your must-see 2010 list; go see this so it can find distribution), Tim Blake Nelson’s strange and multi-layered pot comedy, “Leaves of Grass,” starring Edward Norton, Keri Russell, Tim Blake Nelson, Melanie Lynskey, Richard Dreyfuss (which is apparently now coming to DVD April 2). We saw it at TIFF ’09 and kind of loved it (it really took us by surprise), Michel Gondry’s documentary about his aunt, “The Thorn in the Heart,” Steven Soderbergh’s monologue-driven documentary about the late Spalding Gray, “And Everything Is Going Fine,” as well as Alexandre O. Philippe’s “The People vs. George Lucas,” (we spoke to Philippe about his doc last year when the trailer hit) and Shane Meadows’ “Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee.”

Films already announced include, “Cold Weather” and “Elektra Luxx” — the sequel to “Women In Trouble” still starring Carla Gugino, plus Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Timothy Olyphant, Malin Akerman and Adrianne Palicki — and documentaries “Lemmy,” (yes, about the Motorhead frontman), James Franco’s “Saturday Night” documenting what is takes to get one full episode of “Saturday Night Live” off the ground, and “The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights.”

We could probably just cut and paste the press release, but dunno, that’s weak sauce. We’ll post to SXSW tomorrow when their full press-release is up. A lot to look forward to though, and surely there will be more announcements too (please, “The Killer Inside Me”). Hopefully The Playlist EIC will be there, again, knock on wood, 2010 is killing me not so softly. Update: Here’s the entire SXSW line-up, btw. -Terrance Wedin