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…
A likable hagiography as nuanced as a plaque at the Cooperstown Hall of Fame, Brian Helgeland’s Jackie Robinson bio 42 finds a politic solution to the challenge Quentin Tarantino faced last year with Django Unchained: how to craft a crowd-pleasing multiplex period piece whose villain is, essentially, White People. Helgeland…
Here are the kind of theories that the five interviewees in Rodney Ascher’s Room 237 have come up with about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining: One believes that it’s an allegory about the genocide of Native Americans. Another that it’s instead about the Holocaust. Or that it’s Kubrick’s coded confession that…
A common sentiment recurs through the abundance of eulogies and obituaries penned by film critics in the wake of his death late last week: Roger Ebert was an inspiration. It’s easy enough to be encouraged by another’s success — to regard an esteemed elder colleague with a combination of admiration…
When we enter a small-town gas station, many of us are quick to get in, out and on our way. Others are content to linger, to observe the fleeting interactions and become small-time voyeurs. That location serves as the nucleus of director Yen Tan’s latest film, Pit Stop, which follows…
In mid-90s America, radio waves were clogged with impassioned blockages — most of which wouldn’t hold with time. Meanwhile, a 2,000 mile fence was being built to further separate America from an increasingly tumultuous Mexico, causing a historically unprecedented number of deaths via border crossing. Somebody, turn up the Gin…
If you’ve seen the new issue of the Dallas Observer, you already know that we’ve contracted DIFF Fever. Now, we want to help you catch it. We’re giving away two sets of super fancy passes this afternoon and winning them is easy. Just drop a caption for this picture into…
William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, will be at the Dallas International Film Fest next week for a Q&A after the 40th anniversary screening of a film that profoundly fucked up my adolescence. I know, I know. It fucked up a lot of people. My mom told me that before…
The Place Beyond the Pines opens with a close-up of Ryan Gosling’s chiseled abdomen and heavy breathing on the soundtrack. Then in a single, five-minute tracking shot, we follow Gosling’s character, Luke, across a fairground and into the tent where Luke and two other stunt motorcycle performers ride their bikes…
By Mad Men’s fifth season, Betty Draper had walked out of our lives, and a much plumper Betty Francis had waddled in. The audience response to this swollen version of a once-slender character: a collective cringe. Suddenly Betty became a joke. In no time, a parody of Ram Jam’s “Black…
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. Philip Roth: Unmasked Available…
You, the Dallas film lover, don’t apologize for your passion. Even now, as spring’s overly cheerful birds sing of weather reprieve, you smile and flash your laminate, effectively telling them to shove it. It’s DIFF time, and that means 11 fake sick days of movies, galas and possible celebrity sightings…
Because you weren’t daunted enough, DIFF has added a few more selections to this year’s line-up. (Pro tip: Look for our survival guides, must-see recommends and a Matthew McConaughey paper doll in the next issue of the Observer, which is a film festival sponsor.) You’ve got eight new feature add-ons…
