My most striking reaction while watching the crisply-packaged incredible true story of that time when an army of Reddit-affiliated retail traders rallied to cause seemingly worthless GameStop stock price to rocket to the moon was that all of this happened just a little over a year ago. I suppose that time flows differently in a pandemic. The burst of trading pitting little internet “apes” against over-leveraged hedge funds captivated the media somewhere between the insurrection on the Capitol and the rollout of the first vaccines, before hot vax summer and the revenge of the omicron. So, something like a million years ago, yet a remarkably quick turnaround to get some of the key players on film and telling their stories of how amateur stock trading during a shutdown transformed their lives.
X marks the spot for classy adult horror
and in extremely capable hands. The camera surveys the scene with deliberation: first the silent sirens of police cars, gradually bringing us closer, with each movement exposing another level of gore and revealing the scale of the unspecified terror. First a blood-soaked corpse covered in a sheet, a spattered wall, more bodies slumped against the wall, the sheriff and his deputies making their way into the house, descending into an ominous basement, and witnessing a horrifying scene that we’ll have to wait about a hundred more minutes to see for ourselves.
SXSW 2022: Under the Influence
A great way to feel ancient is to watch a very thorough documentary about someone who is incredibly famous whose existence you were nevertheless unaware. In this case, it was Casey Neistat’s account of the the rise and fall and rise of an incredibly popular YouTube personality called David Dobrik. Having himself achieved a high degree of notoriety through his own marathon presence on the social networking service, Neistat’s familiarity with the platform, fame, and Dobrik himself ideally positioned Neistat to get an insider’s view of a young star’s stratospheric ascent. When he began filming interviews with him in 2018, neither had any idea what was yet to come.
SXSW 2022: I Love My Dad
“The following actually happened. My dad asked me to tell you it didn’t.” These are the first words that we see as James Morosini opens his autobiographical film. It’s one that he writes, directs, and has cast himself in the lead role, and as the story unfurls in ever-excruciating waves of cringe-inducing parental behavior, audiences will likely cling to this disclaimer in escalating disbelief about the veracity of these claims. As I squirmed through the hour and a half, I frequently found myself wondering about the therapeutic value of a thirty-year-old portraying himself at age seventeen to relive a terrible chapter in his own life. For his sake, I also hoped that the opening lines were themselves untrue.
SXSW 2022: 32 Sounds
It can be a cruel smack in the face or a gentle reminder not to take these wonderful bodies of ours for granted. 32 Sounds brings that into sharp focus tantalizing and teasing every aspect of the most wonderful of senses: hearing.
SXSW 2022: Linoleum
Lingering in his subconscious, he does his best to deal with a partner ready to check out completely, a job that’s going nowhere and kids that love him but may not like him all that much. That delicate balance is on the brink as a satellite crashes in the back yard of his suburban home throwing their world out of wack and giving them all some much needed perspective. Time starts to stretch and bend as the story takes an unexpected turn that crushes your heart and gives you hope all at the same time.
SXSW 2022 goes hybrid
Just as the world is starting to open back up (for what… the fifth time now?) Josh, Jenn and Morgen are “headed” to SXSW but only as far as their living room. This year the film festival is both in person and at a distance. Luckily for us there are a ton of options to take advantage of virtually so we can avoid those skyrocketing airline tickets and gas prices.
Gotham City is in Bad Decline in The Batman
With his take on Batman, Robert Pattinson is much darker in the role than we’ve previously seen. If you thought Christian Bale’s performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman was too silly in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, I have just the movie for you. With the possible exception of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker movie, this is the darkest Batman or Batman-adjacent movie I’ve seen.
Roundtable: Best of February 2022
If you’re not already caught up on “awards fare”, the first couple months of the new year can be a prestige buffet. But it can also feel like a dumping ground before the “real” spring season of “actually good” movies picks up. Although it can be a wasteland, surely there are some gems to be found? So as we bid farewell to Dumpuary … a SunBreak Survey: what’s the best thing you saw in the last month?
Foo Fighters Go to Hell (sort of) in Studio 666
In an era where artists like Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake engineer their crossover film success with algebraic levels of calculation, there’s something almost endearing about a big rock band farting out a schlocky horror comedy as their first fictional feature. So the scrappy contrarian in me was rooting hard for Studio 666, the debut narrative showcase for arena-alternative rock band Foo Fighters.