SXSW 2021: ‘WITCH HUNT’ Explores a World Where Witches Are Real and Illegal

March 17, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Abigail Cowen, Echo Campbell, Elizabeth Mitchell, Elle Calahan, Gideon Adlon, Horror, SXSW, SXSW 2021, Witch Hunt 1 Comment

America never got past its Salem period in Elle Calahan’s allegorical social horror movie Witch Hunt. The only difference is, in Calahan’s world, witches actually do exist. The United States is a perilous place for those magical few; the practice of witchcraft has been banned and is punishable by death; families of convicted witches are forced into deep-cover and permanent hiding; their only hopes being smuggled south to the Mexican border where freedom from institutionalized prejudice looms. Read More

SXSW 2021: ‘HERE BEFORE’ A Tricky Psychological Thriller That Just Might Awaken the Undead

March 17, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Andrea Riseborough, Here Before, Reviews, Stacey Gregg, SXSW, SXSW 2021 Leave a comment

Andrea Riseborough may be our greatest under-appreciated actress working today. Delivering standout turns in indie favorites like Mandy, Possessor, and Birdman as well as leading Amazon’s excellent crime drama ZeroZeroZero, Riseborough has slowly proven herself a transfixing chameleon presence. A la the great Tilda Swinton, with whom she shares vampiric lily white skin and sharp angular features, Riseborough creeps into the skin of her roles, the real persona rarely peeking through. Read More

SXSW 2021: Floral Horror ‘GAIA’ a Nightmarish Reckoning with Nature

March 17, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Alex van Dyk, Carel Nel, Gaia, Horror, Jaco Bouwer, Monique Rockman, Reviews, SXSW, SXSW 2021 1 Comment

Eco-horror is having a resurgence of late, as are psilocybin mushrooms as a visual language in film. Jaco Bouwer’s formidable woodland creeper Gaia fits snugly into a recent wave of psychedelic folk horror, a subgenre that binds Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Alex Garland’s Annihilation, Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth (a recent Sundance release that would make a pitch perfect double feature with Bouwer’s entry) and even Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Sparked by an increasing awareness of humanity’s abusive relationship with nature, eco-horror pits the survival of man and earth against one another and in the light of a global pandemic, those themes have never been as prescient. Read More

SXSW 2021: ALS Activism Documentary ‘NOT GOING QUIETLY’ a Devastating, Inspirational Call to Arms

March 17, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Ady Barkan, Documentaries, Nicholas Bruckman, Not Going Quietly, Reviews, SXSW, SXSW 2021 Leave a comment

Hope is a hammer, Ady Barkan attempts to say. His tongue, lungs, and the rest of his body devastated by ALS (an incurable degenerative disease that paralyzes and eventually kills its victims), Ady tries again and again but just can’t get the words out to the audience of thousands gathered to hear the American healthcare activist speak. This moment, one of many heartbreaking scenes in Nicholas Bruckman’s not-so-quietly devastating documentary Not Going Quietly, perhaps best encapsulates the ironic paradox of Ady’s emergent and often viral voice: the more his body fails him, the less he is physically able to move and speak, the more he has to say and the more people gather to listen to him. Read More

SXSW 2021: Racial Dystopia Roosts in Brazilian Social Thriller ‘EXECUTIVE ORDER’

March 16, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Adriana Esteves, Executive Order, Lázaro Ramos, lfred Enouch, Seu Jorge, SXSW, SXSW 2021 1 Comment

In present-ish day Brazil, the fight for reparations for citizens of African descent reaches a violent impasse. Lawyer Antônio (Alfred Enouch) wants his government to impose equitable laws to atone for the nation’s past sins, chief amongst them slavery, but the fascistic government opts instead to offer a one-way ticket way “back to Africa” as a kind of mocking fuck you to the idea of reparations. Confusion, outrage, and mockery follows but the high-melanized (the term “black” has fallen out of politically-correct vogue) population have no idea how bad things will soon get when the government imposes an executive order that will instead force any citizen with a hint of melanin out of Brazil and back to Africa. Read More

SXSW 2021: ‘THE END OF US’ a Pandemic Breakup Movie With Just Enough Heart

March 16, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Ali Vingiano, Ben Coleman, Henry Loevner, Steve Kanter, SXSW, SXSW 2021, The End Of Us Leave a comment

Timing is a fickle thing and often means a world of difference. Timing divides those who murder the stock market and those that are steamrolled by it. It’s the difference between perfectly scrambled eggs and inedible burnt yellow mush. And in the case of recently broken-up Nick (Ben Coleman) and Leah (Ali Vingiano), bad timing means that you have to quarantine with your ex during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order in The End of Us. Read More

The SXSW 2021 Movies Already on Our Radar

February 12, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Lists Tagged Alien On Stage, Gaia, Here Before, I’m Fine (Thanks For Asking), Introducing, Jakob’s Wife, Language Lessons, Ninjababy, Offseason, Selma Blair, Sound of Violence, Swan Song, SXSW, SXSW 2021, The End Of Us, The Fallout, The Oxy Kingpins, The Spine of Night, Witch Hunt, Women is Losers, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror 1 Comment

SXSW has a history of bombast. What was once a modest Austin festival that celebrated the local scene, music, and emerging artists grew into one of the largest and most-attended festivals the world over. As crowd sizes grew so too did the prestige and scale of debuts with massive blockbuster movies like Furious 7 or Ready Player One playing to salivating fans willing to wait hours to see the world premiere. Read More

Talking with Greg Kwedar of ‘TRANSPECOS’

June 7, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Greg Kwedar, Interviews, Seattle International Film Festival 2016, SIFF 2016, SXSW, Talking With..., Transpecos Leave a comment

First-time writer and director Greg Kwedar describes the six-year process of creating Transpecos like a proud, but deservingly exhausted, father. The Texas-set border thriller is as much character study as it is a certifiable nail-biter; a politically-minded meditation with a throbbing pace and tightrope tension. Kwedar’s preternatural ability to blend high drama with explosive pressure cooking won him and his film the Audience Award for Narrative Competition at this year’s SXSW Film Festival and, arguably more importantly, near universal praise. Read More

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘ANOTHER EVIL’

March 12, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Another Evil, Carson D. Mell, Dan Bakkedahl, Dax Flame, Jennifer Irwin, Mark Proksch, Reviews, Steve Missis, SXSW, SXSW 2016 Leave a comment

Anyone who ever found themselves wishing for a cross section between The Cable Guy and The Exorcism, rejoice in thy ancient cursed tongues. Carson D. Mell’s supernaturally awkward brom-dram is a conjoined twin of ghost tale hula-hoops and male acquaintanceship hoopla. A batty genre-defying lark to its close, Another Evil deals with the clumsy delicacies of fledgling friendships weighed against the silly absurdities of cloven hoofs and blessed needles. Read More

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘TEENAGE COCKTAIL’

March 12, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged AJ Bowen, Fabienne Therese, John Carchietta, Nichole Bloom, Pat Healy, Reviews, SXSW, SXSW 2016, Teenage Cocktail 1 Comment

When high school student Annie heads to a new school, she finds herself surrounded by hostile faces. And needle-in-the-haystack Jules. The two attractive outsiders immediately strike up a kinship and a secret flame broils, leading them down forbidden passageways of mutual lust and peddled cajolery. Read More