“It was 1991. I fly into L.A. I take a cab to Compton. On the phone, Richard [Williams] said, ‘The only thing I guarantee you, you won’t get shot,'” says tennis coach Rick Macci. “I thought he was kidding.” Macci was meeting with Williams and his two young daughters, Venus…
The only thing we English teachers hate more than Sparknotes is a high quality, mostly faithful movie version of a book. Why would a student slog through Pride and Prejudice when she can drool over Colin Firth in the excellent BBC miniseries? And shh! Don’t tell the eighth graders about…
Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher are professional data sifters. You could also say they watch crap for a living. In fact, let’s say that instead. The pair harvests and compiles snippets from salvaged VHS tapes for their Found Footage Festival, then screens the stuff publicly. It results in analog peculiarity…
Over at film website Twitch, the first bumper for the second annual Oak Cliff Film Festival was released today. Texas Theatre’s Jason Reimer directed the nearly three-minute video, which features a time-traveling Confederate solider planting an OCFF flag by the Trinity River, which naturally leads into a paintball fight. (You…
Horror fans, this is your weekend to check out Texas Frightmare Weekend, which has been dubbed “the Southwest’s premier horror convention.” And with the kind of lineup they have this year, even non-horror fans might find something worth braving. Here are our picks for the panels and films you won’t…
Where has Robert Downey Jr. gone? There’s no doubt he’s the star of Iron Man 3; he sprints through the picture like a neurotic panther. And yet he’s absent, detached in a Zen-like way from the whole affair. The nakedness that defines his best performances — in any role, up…
Rampaging through the otherwise arid desert-scape of contemporary Italian cinema, Matteo Garrone doesn’t want for ambition or walnuts — he may be the premier chronicler of Berlusconi-era Italian culture, and its most muscular satirist. (That is, when Italian society isn’t busy outpacing satire altogether.) His follow-up to 2008’s Gomorrah, Reality…
Stephanie Zacharek is the new chief film critic at the Village Voice. Alan Scherstuhl is the Voice’s film editor. Sometimes they gab about how the review-sausage gets made. To: Stephanie Zacharek From: Alan Scherstuhl Hi, Stephanie, welcome again to the Voice! Like you, I found myself worn out by Iron…
Every week, we find you five movies for you to check out over the coming week or weekend, from the latest wide release to weird local screenings to timely classics you can watch on your couch. Did we miss something? Let readers know in the comments. Iron Man 3 Wide…
Last week, Manhunt, a new documentary, opened the 43rd annual USA Film Festival at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas. Like Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, it chronicles the CIA’s search for Osama bin Laden. But where Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal condensed characters and dramatized history, Manhunt director Greg…
Every week, we find you five movies for you to check out over the coming week or weekend, from the latest wide release to weird local screenings to timely classics you can watch on your couch. Did we miss something? Let readers know in the comments. Mud Opens Friday at…
Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) believes life has cheated him. Doesn’t America promise riches and luxury to people who deserve it? He’s worked hard to build his body into a hulking knot of muscles; success should follow. But Lugo — the lead in Michael Bay’s neon-noir ode to Miami, muscle tone…
Has anyone ever been so perfectly cast as Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused? Sculpted entirely of charisma and cheekbones yet still seedier than a stash of gym-locker pot, McConaughey’s radiant stoner exemplified high school promise gone bad. He looked like the little man on top of trophies, just horny,…
You don’t have to go far if you want to see Terrence Malick’s new movie, To the Wonder, this weekend. You don’t have to go anywhere, in fact. Though the movie, starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams, opens at the Dallas Angelika on Friday, you can already watch it in…
Dallas moviegoers this weekend will finally get their chance to see Upstream Color, the sophomore film from DFW-bred filmmaker Shane Carruth, whose first film, a time-travel movie called Primer, won the top prize at Sundance nine years ago. The movie, which is roughly about mind control, opens in Dallas on…
The camera establishes a tent in the middle of a field. We’re in the country, we assume, far away from any metropolis. Then, with a cut to the interior of the tent, we see two cots. A young woman lies on one, a small pig on the other. A mysterious…
After working a packed auditorium into a frenzy at last September’s premiere of Lords of Salem at the Toronto International Film Festival, Rob Zombie anxiously took his seat and watched his audience watch his film, his first independently financed feature. It’s also the first film he’s made following a messy…
There’s a thin line between what’s truly mysterious and what’s totally bogus. A movie that leaves you feeling unclear about what’s happening isn’t necessarily mysterious — it may just be inept. In other words, the problem may be it, not you. Shane Carruth’s second feature, Upstream Color, a dystopian romance…
Every week, we find you five movies for you to check out over the coming week or weekend, from the latest wide release to weird local screenings to timely classics you can watch on your couch. Did we miss something? Let readers know in the comments. Sunset Boulevard Screens Thursday,…
Dallas’ wealthiest made a Downton Abbey parody to thank the sponsors of Saturday’s decadent Art Ball. Because I realize you’ll shut it off after 2 minutes, let me spoil the ending: Epic werewolf attack. Now, I’d like to point out the obvious stage chemistry between Maxwell Anderson/Papa Bear Rawlings and…
Things have been quiet on the USA Film Festival’s website, which begins its 43rd installment next week on April 24. Just as we were starting to forget worry, the press announcement arrived in our inboxes. It seems we’ll get a blend of old and new in this run, which crams…
After a week of the Dallas International Film Festival, I believe I’ve now cried four different times, and not just because the DIFF Lounge was closing. This year’s round of Texas films seem to have more emotional weight. After seeing Sean Gallagher’s bittersweet but uneven Good Night, Yen Tan’s heart-stringer…
