Chicago filmmaker Michael Glover Smith, (awarded the Gene Siskel Film Center’s Star Filmmaker Award in 2017), has written and directed four feature films since 2015. The film “Relative” was screened at Wrigleyville’s new Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Chicago on May 22nd for what may possibly be the last theatrical showing. … [Read More]
Evil Dead Rise held its premiere at the SXSW 2023 Film Festival. The first film of the trilogy, The Evil Dead, as well as its 2013 remake, were so horrifically gory that they were actually banned in various countries including Finland, Ukraine, and Singapore. That should have been my first … [Read More]
Donald Glover (“Atlanta”) along with Janine Nabers, is the creative force behind a new series called “Swarm.” The series is set in Houston, until it takes our heroine on the road to a variety of cities, seemingly summoning memories of real-life fan-obsessed happenings in those cities. (The cities are represented … [Read More]
Talk To Me was the talk of the town at SXSW 2023. Danny and Michael Philippou worked as crew on 2014’s great Australian horror film “The Babadook.” This year they are directing a horror film, starring Sophie Wilde and Miranda Otto. It premiered at SXSW and is being distributed by … [Read More]
The documentary about the life and career of 91-year-old William Shatner, “You Can Call Me Bill,” written and directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, screened at SXSW in Austin, Texas on March 16. The documentary was financed by Legion, which is fan-owned. The donors’ names appear in the credits at the … [Read More]
Slip made a major appearance at this years’ SXSW festival in Austin Texas. Zoe Lister-Jones, a frequent participant at SXSW, has written, directed, and stars in this television series (Roku Originals). Slip takes our heroine and places her in several relationships, usually after a steamy sex scene, each one more … [Read More]
Tetris, the film helmed by Scottish director Jon S. Baird and starring Australian actor Taron Egerton (“Kingsmen: The Secret Service”), screened on March 15th at SXSW, telling a complicated story of how the Russian game Tetris became a worldwide sensation. Henk Rogers, the Dutch-born American who secured the rights to … [Read More]
Director James Adolphus, who helmed the documentary “Being Mary Tyler Moore,” was asked about his exposure to Mary Tyler Moore before he undertook to make this extraordinarily intimate 2- hour film about her life. He admitted that he had never watched any of her shows, that she was more of … [Read More]
“Lucky Hank” is Bob Odenkirk, in his first television outing since leaving “Better Call Saul.” The premier episode of the AMC+ series premiered at SXSW on March 12th (Oscar day), showing once, and only once, at the Stateside Theater in Austin. The series owes much to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book … [Read More]
The cast of Love & Death descended onto the SXSW stage to premiere their new HBO MAX series. Onstage with his castmates, Jesse Plemons (“Breaking Bad“) was a shadow of his former self, showing off a remarkable weight loss since he filmed the series. Co-stars in this drama about the … [Read More]
“Caterpillar” was a fascinating documentary at SXSW about a new YouTube fad, changing one’s eye color, which is done, surgically, in India. It sounded very dicey, and, as it turns out, it is. Endlessly struggling to feel seen, David becomes infatuated with a mysterious company’s promise to transform people’s lives … [Read More]
To Leslie was shot in 19 days, but, come 2023 Oscar time, its star, Andrea Riseborough, has earned an Oscar nomination, even if the movie only earned $27,000 worldwide. When I saw it at SXSW in 2022, I was impressed by the entire cast, but the lead performance was so … [Read More]