SXSW 2016 Report Card
Documentaries outshone narratives and smaller films eclipsed headliners.
Author: kenmorefield
-
-
Newtown (Snyder, 2016)
It's never the common elements of these stories that get to you--it's the personal, authenticating details.
-
Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America’s Public Universities (Mims, 2016)
In ninety-five minutes, director Steve Mims traces the origins of educational reform, drawing a line from Clayton Christensen's meta-narrative about "disruptive innovation" to battles over the administration of public universities in Texas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, and North Carolina.
-
Midnight Special (Nichols, 2016)
The oddest thing about Nichols's Spielberg mashup is that its strengths and weaknesses are the exact opposite of what you might expect from the creator of Mud and Take Shelter. There are moments of iconic beauty and visual terror, but the writing is plodding and the slow pace eventually makes one realize just how little story there is to unfold. .
-
Fantastic Lies (Zenovich, 2016)
Still, it's hard to overstate just how deeply resentment of Duke runs in North Carolina, how much class, race, and gender divisions made people not just want to believe the accusations were true but assume they must be.
-
Everybody Wants Some!! (Linklater, 2016)
Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!! isn't exactly Men With Guns--it doesn't deliberately push mainstream audiences away--but neither is it the follow up to Boyhood that I was hoping for.
-
The Liberators (Bryant, 2016)
Pop quiz: You find out your father/brother/uncle/neighbor stole a bunch of priceless religious artifacts from an abbey in Nazi Germany. What do you do?
-
Phil’s Camino — Sneak Peek
Phil’s Camino gets its premiere at SXSW this month. From the film’s press release: Directed by filmmaker, pilgrim and author, Annie O’Neil and filmmaker Jessica Lewis, the engaging films tells… Continue reading "Phil’s Camino — Sneak Peek"
-
An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim, 2006) — 10 Years Later
In HBO’s psychotherapy melodrama In Treatment, Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) shares a counselor’s riddle with a patient: “Why doesn’t a cigarette smoker think a cigarette can kill him?”… Continue reading "An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim, 2006) — 10 Years Later"
-
Is Snow White Still Essential?
When was the last time you actually watched Snow White?