The Playlist

SXSW Review: Jodie Foster's 'The Beaver' Starring Mel Gibson Can't Quite Hit Its Tonal Sweet Spot

By The Playlist
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March 17, 2011 4:39 AM
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4 Comments

Tonight on the stage of the Paramount theater at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, director/actress Jodie Foster admitted that getting the tenor right for her new film "The Beaver" was the hardest endeavor of her career and it shows. Walking a tonal tightrope of voice -- light comedy, saddening depression, and reflective soul searching -- Jodie Foster's film is not quite a black comedy, a dramedy or a straight-up humanist drama. While an interesting (if not totally successful) exploration of mental illness and trying to escape and then face your inner demons, the film is surprisingly tame, lacking the fiercer bite we were hoping for.

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SXSW Review: 'Kill List' Is A Shocking, Emotionally Resonant & Horrific Ride

By Drew Taylor
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March 16, 2011 10:56 AM
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5 Comments

Few movies have scarred and emotionally terrorized people (including some on the Playlist staff) more than this year's SXSW Film Festival entry "Kill List," the sophomore feature from Ben Wheatley ("Down Terrace"). With its intriguing mixture of kitchen-sink domestic drama, hit man thriller, and creepy mysticism, it's the rare horror film -- which isn't really a "horror film" per se, but includes psychological, emotional and physically horrifying moments -- that doesn't play into any conventions of the genre. Every time you think you've pegged it neatly into one of the aforementioned genres, it'll swing around and surprise you again, and the film concludes with an unexpected wallop that packs a visceral and psychically emotional punch that will leave you gasping for air and reeling on the floor. "Saw 3D" it's not.

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SXSW Review: We Aren't Buying Morgan Spurlock's 'Greatest Movie Ever Sold'

By Drew Taylor
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March 16, 2011 8:05 AM
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8 Comments

"POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" (yeah, that's actually the full title), Morgan Spurlock's new takedown of product placement in television shows and movies, starts out cleverly enough, with a sharp analysis of all the ways in which major corporations, in their limitless, greedy quest for the almighty dollar, wedge advertising into other aspects of entertainment. Hilarious clips from major motion pictures and television series are shown, including a snapshot of "90210," in which characters earnestly bicker while discussing (and prominently displaying) a can of Dr. Pepper.

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SXSW: Miranda July Says 'The Future' Is Her Version Of A Horror Film

By Oliver Lyttelton
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March 16, 2011 7:39 AM
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4 Comments

And More We Learned About Her New FilmFew working filmmakers are as divisive as Miranda July. Her first film, "Me and You and Everyone We Know" was to some, one of the best films of the last decade, but to others was barely watchable insufferable hipster bait. We're firmly in the former camp, and as such have been keenly anticipating her sophomore feature, "The Future," for some years. Our man at Sundance suggested that great things had again emerged from the polymathic helmer, and we were delighted to discover at SXSW that the wait had been worthwhile; "The Future" is less immediate than its predecessor, but just as rewarding.

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SXSW Exclusive: Greg Mottola Talks The Influence Of Steven Spielberg On 'Paul'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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March 16, 2011 4:06 AM
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0 Comments

Yes, the buzz is now near deafening around "Paul," but not without good reason. The film is already playing like gangbusters in the U.K., home to the film's stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and over the weekend, the film unspooled to an enthusiastic reception at SXSW. In our review, we called the film funny, touching and rewarding, noting an inspiration from the works of Steven Spielberg, and that's no mere coincidence.

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SXSW Review: 'New Jerusalem' A Hypnotic Film Experience About Friendship And Religion

By Christopher Bell
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March 16, 2011 2:30 AM
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0 Comments

Despite a rather large and enthusiastic critical embrace of American neo-neo realism ("Wendy and Lucy," "Goodbye Solo," "Ballast," and a few others), there haven't been many (if any) new players entering the field. By contrast, mumblecore micro-indies are cropping up like corn, with young directors seizing the me-too attitude and grabbing shitty cameras to capture characters in apartments talking about relationships or focusing on their own inadequacies. Some are different, some are great, and like anything, you have to wade through the shit (which still get perplexing amounts of overenthusiastic quotes) in order to find the few artists pushing for something more. The neo-neo's are fewer in numbers but they're generally all worthwhile in some way, using their own brand of minimalism not to film conversations but to start them.

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SXSW Review: 'Conan O'Brien Can't Stop' A Funny & Moving Portrait Of The Late Night Staple

By Drew Taylor
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March 15, 2011 9:25 AM
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3 Comments

The maelstrom of controversy, sensationalized media coverage and generally hurt feelings that broke out during the kerfuffle that surrounded the decision to dethrone Conan O'Brien from his position as the host of "The Tonight Show" after seven months (to replace him with Jay Leno… the man he replaced), was something supercharged and grass-roots out-of-control, eclipsing even the late night battle that had David Letterman angrily leaving NBC for greener pastures at CBS. In other words: it was an even bigger deal than the last time NBC fucked up.

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SXSW: "I Don't Think It's Too Horrific" & More Learned From 'Attack The Block' Director Joe Cornish

By Oliver Lyttelton
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March 15, 2011 7:12 AM
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2 Comments

By all accounts, it's been a remarkably strong SXSW festival so far, with a number of films picking up extremely positive buzz, or adding to the buzz that was already behind them. First and foremost among them was "Attack the Block." We've been looking forward to Joe Cornish's directorial debut ever since we read the script last year, and when the first trailer hit a few weeks back, it looked like our hopes might have been realized. And boy they were: our review from the weekend gave it a big fat A-grade, and called it "the ideal midnight movie."

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SXSW Review: Basketball Doc 'Elevate' Scores

By Drew Taylor
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March 15, 2011 6:36 AM
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1 Comment

In the last few years, documentary films (at least the ones that are seen by everybody outside of HBO subscribers or museum frequenters) have splintered, roughly, into two camps. In one camp are the "issue" films that tackle some kind of grand social or environmental concern (like, say, the diorama-ish "An Inconvenient Truth" or "Inside Job") with a relative amount of objective emotional detachment. Then there are the documentaries that take a more narrative approach to their subjects, which resemble more closely traditional films and ask for a fair amount of emotional investment.

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SXSW Review: Mike Mills 'Beginners' Is A Wonderfully Attuned & Empathetic Look At Love, Life & Grief

By The Playlist
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March 15, 2011 5:23 AM
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1 Comment

Touching, heartfelt, melancholy and suffused with a gentle humanity (pick your soulful cliché), with his sophomore drama, "Beginners," filmmaker Mike Mills demonstrates once more that he's acutely attuned to the bittersweet and funny frequency broadcast from the pain of love and life. Mills' empathy antenna has always been sensitively in harmony with the human condition, as evinced by the overlooked "Thumbsucker," his more recent music videos and the short, "Does Your Soul Have A Cold?" (which almost feels a companion piece here). And in "Beginners" he masterfully demonstrates a generous and thoughtful perspective on emotional suffering, creating a piece that's as formally marvelous as it is sweeping and humanistic.

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