Dial M for Murder is chock-full of the suspense, schemes and shots that make a classic Hitchcock, alongside some choices that perhaps the man himself does not recognize as being bizarrely unique.
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Elizabeth Sankey weaves an intricate tale of female persecution and its relation to postpartum depression, soaked with the tears of her own harrowing experience in a psychiatric hospital after her own breakdown. The documentary works as an expose of her institutionalization intercut with iconic witches throughout film and television history and the confessions of other suffering mothers.
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The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou explores why filmmakers are so often drawn to dig cinematic graves – places to revisit the ones we love long after their last curtain call.
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This week in Austin screenings, 7/19-7/25.
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Whereas Cronenberg’s prior works such as Scanners stem from a distrust of the medical establishment, Videodrome – similar to later work eXistenZ – prods anxieties over technological advancements and the way society (literally; disgustingly) integrates with them.
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Fly Me to the Moon knows how to use Channing Tatum’s grace and physical control as a key building block in the construction of NASA Flight Director Cole Davis.
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The short film Make Me a Pizza is on its surface a very silly nod to ‘80s and ‘90s porn, but director Talia Shea Levin and producer Kara Grace Miller approached the preparation and filming of these comedic scenes seriously and methodically.
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As far as directorial debuts go, Eve’s Bayou is in a league of its own.
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Despite its titular (and occasionally apt) shallowness, Tolga Karaçelik’s entry at Tribeca is a great ride that manages to find moments of poignancy.
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This week in Austin screenings, 7/12-7/18.
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The circumstances of Annie Baker’s debut film, Janet Planet, are specific: the film centers on Lacy, an 11 year old girl, and her mother Janet, as they while away the summer of 1991 in the woods of Massachusetts.
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From stories of awkward college students to investigations into supernatural conspiracy, here are five overlooked films from 2020 that should be on everyone’s watchlist.
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Taking advantage of this period of artistic semi-freedom, director Karen Shakhnazarov made Zerograd in 1988, a Kafkaesque satire of life under authoritarian rule that draws attention to the surreal nature of a government actively attempting to resuscitate what was already on its way out.
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A movie is a catharsis, a chance for Jeremy O. Harris to say, “This is what you were supposed to learn. Hear it from me. I am the authority on my work.”
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This week in Austin screenings, 7/5 - 7/11.
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Bigelow takes what could be a standard cop drama with a Gen X edge (these bank robbers are SURFERS, DUDE!) and turns it on its head, zeroing in past the cliches and expected beats to create a sultry, desire-driven thriller.
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Ti West and Mia Goth’s MaXXXine takes us to a lovely replication of ‘80s Los Angeles, but there’s not much substance behind the sets and star power.
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A Quiet Place: Day One poses the question: What if you eschewed a family-driven survival story in favor of a plot with stakes no higher than that of a video game side quest?
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Embracing global cinema has the ability to cross cultural and cinematic barriers: how the filmmaker uses action and visual storytelling as a universal language, how the filmmaker connects their personal story to broader themes, and how the filmmaker embraces the absurdity of the world around us. In Tsui Hark’s Wicked City (1992), we have one of global cinema’s finest and oddest examples.
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This week in Austin screenings, 6/28-7/4.
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