Austin-based cinema-eatery Alamo Drafthouse is giving genre films their due via a new programming series designed to bring the best in genre to cinephile audiences nationwide. Spawning directly out of Fantastic Fest, Fantastic Fest Presents delivers the fest’s favorite films to Alamo Drafthouse audiences around the country with Fantastic Fest extras such as bonus content, …
Conflict is the basis of drama, and there are few dramatic conflicts as powerful as the exploration of class. Everyone alive feels that conflict – the societal obligations for those who are not well off to rise above their status, while those who are already well off strive to keep their positions while, consciously or …
Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is an engine of perfect entertainment. From the opening moments, we are swept into the story and characters, and it feels completely confident and effortless. It’s old fashioned in all the best ways, but also has modern sensibilities and themes that give the film weight and substance. The murder mystery, as a …
Robert Eggers’ The Witch (or The VVitch if you prefer) is a polarizing film. Now that we have a little distance from it, and now that we’ve seen something of the trends happening in the horror genre since then, that film is a moment in independent film – that there are stories to be told in …
Eddie Murphy is back. The best Eddie Murphy movies are those where it feels like he has something to prove. It’s been a few years since we’ve had a completely engaged Eddie. His strongest films have always been those when Eddie has a little glint in his eye, right before he lays his cards on …
These days, science fiction films aren’t necessarily about the ideas, but the spectacle. Many have several hundred million-dollar budgets, gigantic CGI moments, and actors who work against green screens all day playing pretend on a wide scale. And while those films done right are perfectly enjoyable, it feels like something has been lost. Great character …
I have been obsessed with Alien since I was nine years old, and my parents refused to take me to a movie theater to see it. For Christmas that year, they bought me a book full of shots from the film, and I closely examined every single frame I could, from the facehugger sequence to the …
H. P. Lovecraft is a notoriously difficult author to adapt to film. There have been a thousand riffs off his work over the years, with varying degrees of success, but to directly bring his work to the screen can be problematic at best. Back when authors were paid for every word, during the era of …
Young Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) is a good little Nazi. He worships Adolf Hitler – so much so that he imagines Adolf (Taika Waititi) giving him advice during times of difficulty. In Germany, during the waning days of World War II, Jojo and his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) try to manage an existence together, …
Fantastic Fest will be honoring the career of Japanese maestro Takashi Miike with a lifetime achievement award and a special screening of The Happiness of the Katakuris. With over 100 films under his belt, Takashi Miike’s work has been regularly featured as part of the festival. Netflix will also hold the US premiere of the much-lauded …
Fantastic Fest has announced its second wave of programming (see the first wave here), led by a closing night screening of writer-director Rian Johnson’s anticipated new Lionsgate and MRC mystery Knives Out. A tribute to the work of Agatha Christie, Knives Out stars Daniel Craig as debonair Detective Benoit Blanc, sent to investigate the death of …
Fantastic Fest 2019 announced today that the Taika Waititi’s anti-hate satire Jojo Rabbit will premiere at the festival as the opening film. In Jojo Rabbit, a lonely young boy growing up in World War II Germany finds his world-view turned upside down when he discovers his single mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in their attic. …