Sicario: A Difficult Film About a Difficult Topic
The lighting is harsh, the landscape is ugly, the body count is high and the performances are outstanding, even if the characters are difficult to like. Sicaro is an ugly film full of ugly...
Category: film
Hanks: Fantastic Fest offers quick trip to other side of world
By Anna Hanks – Special to the American-Statesman Posted: 1:59 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015 When I was a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, my childhood friend Brian Hollis had...
Fever Dream of Fantastic Debates
Last night I had what must have been a fever dream, because there’s really no way that I was at a boxing match at Randy Palmer’s South Austin Gym, where Guillermo del Toro, Elijah...
Dark Whimsy at Fantastic Fest 2015
Some years at Fantastic Fest the lineup is all about torture porn, or science fiction, or damsel-in-distress films. This year Fantastic Fest is all about dark whimsy, and I couldn’t be more excited about...
Fantastic Fest Yearbook
Last year at Fantastic Fest, I did a small series of portraits that I thought might be like a Fantastic Fest Yearbook, as the festival is sort of like high school. So in the...
Looking Forward To the Closing Night Party at Fantastic Fest
One of the reasons I love Fantastic Fest is that the Closing Night Party is always awesome–although sometimes if you are on deadline you can’t get there! This year the Fantastic Fest closing night...
Don’t See Wolf Totem: It’s Terrible!
Every so often you see a film that is so misguided that you wish you could travel back to the meeting where the people who brought you the film decided to go ahead with...
American Ultra: The Spy Stoner Movie
My 76 year-old father loves action movies. The more whiz-bang and improbable they are, the better. It doesn’t even matter if they are serious spy/action movies or a sophisticated wink at the genre....
It’s Robert Redford’s Birthday!
The always fabulous Robert Redford turns 79 today. In addition to his film roles and starting the Sundance Film Festival, we tend to take his enormous intellect and thoughtfulness for granted. If you’ve ever...
Looking Into “The Crystal Ball” Worth It
I’ve had a bad cold this week, so I’ve been trying to entertain myself with films. Stumbling over this 1943 film about a beauty contest entrant who fills in for a flim-flammy fortune...
