Blake DeLong in Thank You A Lot debuts at this week’s SXSW film festival: courtesy SXSW
If my Twitter feed is to be trusted, I am the only person I know who is not in Austin at SXSW this week. OK that’s a bit of an exaggeration — as is my headline — but you get the idea.
Morning News entertainment critic Chris Vogner is there and he points out by way of a Monday afternoon blog post that Lake Highlands is remarkably well-represented at this year’s film festival.
“In one of those geographical festival programming quirks, the ’90s era of Lake Highlands High School is represented in triplicate at this year’s SXSW Film Festival,” he writes.
Huh. So it is.
1. Blake DeLong, formerly known on this website as Justin Bieber and Ozzy Osborne’s co-star in a Super Bowl commercial, stars in a dramatic feature about a burned-out musician called Thank You A Lot . Keep up with the ’98 LHHS grad and watch clips from the movie on his blog.
2. John Magary, class of ’96, directed a dark comedy about sibling rivalry called The Mend, which reportedly is one of the film festival’s most highly anticipated debuts.
3. Completing the trifecta is actor Scoot McNairy, who graduated alongside aforementioned Magary and who is featured in the Episodic category contender Halt and Catch Fire, an upcoming AMC series. And circa Mad Men and Breaking Bad, starring in an AMC Series is basically a ticket to hardcore fame.
Scoot McNairy (left), a ’96 LHHS grad, acts in two SXSW debuts
Interesting side note: Halt is set in Dallas but was shot in Atlanta, reportedly because “Texas doesn’t compete on the state tax incentive level” when it comes to filming. McNairy tells Vogner that Atlantic looks like Oak Cliff. So there’s that. McNairy also has a role in a feature film called Frank , with Maggie Gyllenhaal and 12 Years A Slave bad guy Michael Fassbender.
Consider all the aforementioned along with our latest list of celebrities who graduated from LHHS and you might find yourself feeling pretty proud of our little old neighborhood high school.
