Hitchcock, Rain and "Super High"

Torrential rains wracked Austin today, sending many festivalgoers scurrying for cover in movie screenings or at the SXSW Interactive Conference. At the very least, the wet weather persuaded a lot of people here to reluctantly accept free plastic rain ponchos being handed out by Zappos.com emissaries who savvily anticipated the rainfall as a branding opportunity.

Temporarily gone with the rain are thousands of black birds who blot out the sky, swooping and bombing in unison from tree to light post to telephone wire around dusk in Texas' capital city. For some inexplicable reason, these starlings and grackles travel in hordes. A bunch of them came at your humble correspondent the other evening, casting a pall of Hitchcockian fear over him that wasn't soon shaken.

Austinites will tell you this aggressive bird behavior comes about in part because of the competition with legions of local bats - both are looking to eat 10,000 pounds of insects every day.

And now another potentially contentious battle -- over intellectual property, not bugs -- has threatened to rear its head at the festival.

Angeleno stand-up comedian Doug Benson readily admits he "totally ripped off" the idea for his pro-pot docu-comedy "Super High Me" (screening in competition here) from Morgan Spurlock's fast food indicting documentary "Super Size Me." Whereas Spurlock filmed his physical and mental dissolution as a result of eating McDonald's food three meals a day for a month, Benson filmed his gleeful overindulgence in marijuana over a similar month-long span.

Now Benson seems kind of touchy about it.

For his part, Spurlock has been seen making the festival rounds with his new film, "Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?" He's kept mostly mum about his views on the rival "Super" movie and pledged not to file suit for infringement.

So what has got Benson - who ranked as High Times magazine's No. 2 pro-pot comic in 2006 and in person emanates a louche, stoney vibe - looking over his shoulder?

"The scuttlebutt is that he thought it was this funny idea but that he hadn't seen it," Benson said at a party following "Super High Me's" SXSW premiere. "But that's off the air. I mean, what's he going to do? What is there to get mad about?"

"This is such not juicy scuttlebutt," interjected "Super High" director Michael Blieden.

"Does all scuttlebutt have to be juicy?" Benson asked.

"Let's turn it into a feud," the film's producer Alex Campbell said quietly.

Outside, a couple of movie industry hipsters warbled through a rendition of Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" on the video game Rock Band.

But Benson had a better idea. "For my next movie, I'm going to call it 'Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden With My Weed?'"

Everyone laughed.

--Chris Lee