Flakes and the future of films set in New Orleans

I saw the movie Flakes at SXSW this week. I was hoping for something good from Michael Lehmann, who directed Heathers back in the late 1980s. Then I found out that the movie was set (and probably shot) in New Orleans, and you couldn’t keep me away. Unfortunately, I was disappointed on several levels, especially as someone who grew up in the greater New Orleans area.
Flakes is a romantic comedy set around a “cereal bar” — like a coffeehouse, but serving bowls of cereal and milk. A rundown cereal bar on the edge of the Quarter is owned by Willie (Christopher Lloyd) and run by Neal (Aaron Stanford). However, Neal’s girlfriend Pussy Katz (Zooey Deschanel) wants Neal to take a week off and finish that great album he’s been working on, so he can send out the CD and sell it and become a successful musician and help fulfill their lifelong dream of living in a trailer.
Wait a second. Here is a movie set in New Orleans and someone has a lifelong dream of living in a trailer? Considering all the people who have lost their homes and are living in FEMA trailers, and the people who are actually about to be evicted from even those trailers and live who-knows-where, this seems to be in dubious taste.

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the week before SXSW

I ought to post here more often, I know. In the meantime, it’s the week before SXSW Film Festival starts and I thought that I’d like to help all the film geeks coming to Austin. So I posted to Slackerwood:
A handy guide to SXSW Film Fest venues
Feel free to post comments to Slackerwood or email me if you think of ways to improve that entry — I want it to be as good as it can. Also, feel free to forward the URL. I’m hoping the info in the entry will be helpful. I’m working on a schedule to attend part of AFI Dallas at the end of this month, and I know shamefully little about Dallas movie theaters for someone who lives less than four hours away. I would love to see someone write a similar piece for AFI Dallas, or really, any film festival. Out-of-towners often need all the help they can get, especially if they’re the type of people who spend a lot of time sitting in dark rooms staring at screens.