Make your own holiday memories this year at our Home for the Holidays film series, beginning December 22nd. Get tickets.
It’s finally the holiday season again and to celebrate, we wanted to share with you some candid moments from days long past. It’s comforting to remember that even the biggest stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age occasionally took off the makeup, drank some egg nog, built a snowman, and went skating on the local frozen-over lake. Here are 11 festive photos of Hollywood icons:
Swashbuckler Errol Flynn building a cowboy snowman.
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall decorating a tree with their son, Stephen. (Catch the dynamite couple in THE BIG SLEEP, screening in December at AFS)
Grace Kelly skiing with her son Albert.
Rita Hayworth putting the finishing touches on a tree.Boris Karloff and Ginger Rogers at a Christmas party.
Louise Brooks poses next to her desktop winter tree.
Sophia Loren gets lost in the tinsel.
Hedy Lamarr with her children.
Greta Garbo stuns even with a Santa hat on.
Anna May Wong opens gifts under a Christmas tree in Hollywood.Audrey Hepburn meets Santa Clause.
Make your own holiday memories this year at our Home for the Holidays film series, beginning December 22nd. Get tickets.
VOX LUX, A 21st Century Portrait, begins in 1999 when teenage Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) survives a violent tragedy. After singing at a memorial service, Celeste transforms into a burgeoning pop star with the help of her songwriter sister (Stacy Martin) and talent manager (Jude Law). Celeste’s meteoric rise to fame dovetails with a personal and national loss of innocence, consequently elevating the young powerhouse to a new kind of celebrity: American icon, secular deity, global superstar. By 2017, adult Celeste (Natalie Portman) is mounting a comeback after a scandalous incident almost derailed her career.
Here’s what critics are saying:
“Natalie Portman’s greatest performance to date.” – Cinemalogue
“Starring a ferocious Natalie Portman as a pop diva in freefall, Brady Corbet’s sophomore feature is a bold, often brilliant trip through the celebrity spin cycle.” – Guy Lodge, Variety
“A film with this much style, ambition and potency shouldn’t be dismissed with lazy, empty words like ‘pretentious.’ It should be celebrated as prophecy.” – Andrew Lapin, NPR
“Portman is in a really interesting zone here, fearless in a way that feels reckless. She’s really out there on the edge, where she belongs…There’s not an uninteresting moment in the whole thing.” – Sheila O’Malley, RogerEbert.com
Back by popular demand, we’re showing several of the key films of the film noir genre starting November 23rd. While the genre can be defined by many themes, we examined the films in our upcoming series and have examples of what really makes the film noir. See our video below to see a few examples of what makes a film noir what it is. After watching that, get your tickets to join us for all four of the films included in this series. Get your tickets here.
After a decade of exile to Europe following CITIZEN KANE, Orson Welles returned to Hollywood. He was initially signed on just to act in the film that became TOUCH OF EVIL, but at the behest of Charlton Heston, Universal let Welles direct as well. The result wasn’t just a high water mark for the noir genre, but a film that pushed the medium forward with touches like an all-in three-minute long-take tracking shot right at its opening. Welles took the pulpy source material–a border-town crime thriller–and transformed it with his Shakespearian grandeur and technical virtuosity.
After CITIZEN KANE, Hollywood executives never made the same “mistake” of granting Welles final cut again–and his version of the film was cut down for its theatrical release. Luckily, AFS has been sent Universal’s “Reconstructed Version” of the film, which adheres to Welles’ original vision. On 35mm.
The opening moments of NIGHT AND THE CITY display a man out of breath, and the pace of the film never lets that feeling go. All the weight of the oppressive noir universe is placed on our small-time con-man protagonist (Richard Widmark) until it finally crushes him. The entire film hinges on Widmark’s performance, which is a tiptoed dance from exasperation to smarmy subterfuge, and back again. Call it a fall from something (grace is too generous).
The film would be the last produced in the United States by the film’s director, Jules Dassin. He had made several notable noirs in the states, including BRUTE FORCE and THE NAKED CITY, but was a victim of Hollywood blacklisting during the red scare. After NIGHT AND THE CITY he relocated to Europe.
In its heyday, the carnival was seen as one of the lowest forms of entertainment, making it a perfect setting for a noir film and its inhabitants. In NIGHTMARE ALLEY, we follow the rise and fall of “The Great Stanton,” a performer surrounded by characteristically icy women as accomplices. The film was a 20th Century Fox production, directed by frequent-Bette-Davis-collaborator Edmund Goulding. 20th Century Fox poured money into the gorgeously grotesque production (an uncommon occurrence for a noir film), hired over 100 real carnies and even built a real working carnival on a backlot. Star Tyrone Power recalled NIGHTMARE ALLEY as his personal favorite performance of his. On 35mm.
An important facet of the noir is confusion. Many noir films’ plots are intentionally disorienting to both the protagonist and the audience. Howard Hawks’s THE BIG SLEEP is no exception, and often what sticks with us isn’t the plot (which stays hazy), but instead the characters, the snark, the chemistry–especially in the case of a film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Based on a novel by Raymond Chandler, THE BIG SLEEP stuck narrative gold by placing its setting in Los Angeles, which takes on a mythic character all its own with endless dark bungalows and decaying nightspots.
MONROVIA, INDIANA opens at AFS Cinema on Friday, November 16th. Tickets go on sale Monday, November 12. Get tickets.
Since the opening of the AFS Cinema, we’ve been fortunate to show every new (and restored) Frederick Wiseman film. Wiseman is one of our greatest living filmmakers and at 88, he continues to turn out new films each year. This year’s film, MONROVIA, INDIANA, observes the daily life of a small midwestern town through Wiseman’s lens. And, in true Wiseman fashion, we have the chance to get a pretty global view of the town. From small talk in the mornings at the local donut shop to city council meetings to city fairs, we get an opportunity to see what makes the town tick. This is yet another fascinating observational documentary in Wiseman’s oeuvre and we look forward to the next.
In a Q&A after a screening of MONROVIA, INDIANA at New York Film Festival, Wiseman answered a few questions from the audience about production and his process.
Here’s what critics are saying:
“…an immersive wonder, thanks to Wiseman’s masterful ability to assemble images that lead from one painterly visual to the next. ” – Eric Kohn, IndieWire
“Wiseman is the last person who’d call his films ‘objective,’ because they’re not. It’s more that their point of view is multi-faceted, sophisticated, connoting a perspective that’s deeply felt but not on-the-nose obvious…His portrait of Monrovia reveals emptiness that’s subtle and unforced but becomes devastating.” – Glenn Kenny, Rogerebert.com
“Few filmmakers can turn a mundane town council meeting about a library bench into a meditation on patriotism and civic responsibility the way Wiseman can.” – Entertainment Weekly
“In the wake of the 2016 election, traveling to Monrovia is hardly an idle or random decision, and the unavoidable political implications of MONROVIA, INDIANA give its observations an undeniable urgency.” – A.O. Scott, N.Y. Times
BURNING opens Friday, November 9th at AFS Cinema. Get tickets.
Passions reach a fever pitch in Lee Chang-Dong’s new thriller, BURNING. After a brief tryst with a former classmate, Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) is entrusted to watch his short-time lover’s cat while she takes a trip to Africa. To his frustration, she returns with someone new: upper-class playboy Ben (Steve Yuen of “The Walking Dead”). As jealousy deepens within the love triangle, the situation only grows murkier as Ben lets his new friends in on a dark secret. Based on a short story by Haruki Murakami.
Here’s what critics are saying:
“A slow dramatic simmer that intensifies gradually over two-and-a-half perfectly measured hours, until it reaches a shocking and powerful crescendo.” – A.A. Dowd, The A.V. Club
“a movie that makes you reconsider all the other times you called movies haunting because this one gets under your skin in completely unexpected ways.” – Brian Tallerico, Rogerebert.com
“Intelligence and subtle storytelling smarts are in evidence throughout BURNING, which gratifyingly pays off the viewer’s investment of time.” – Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter
LIZ AND THE BLUE BIRD opens Friday, November 2nd, at AFS Cinema. Get tickets.
Naoko Yamada’s new film LIZ AND THE BLUE BIRD is a delicate coming of age story, chronicling the friendship of two high school band members as they near the end of their time together in school. The musicians decide to take on a piece titled Liz and the Blue Bird, a fairy tale about love and freedom that parallels their own lives. Aside from some fantastic watercolored visualizations of the fable, LIZ AND THE BLUE BIRD stays mostly grounded in reality. The film tells its story in reactions and small expressions rather than through the opulence and hyper-reality that anime is typically known for. It’s in this vein that the film has drawn comparisons to numerous art house films.
In a thoughtful video essay, Matthew Li has noted several of the filmmakers that LIZ AND THE BLUE BIRD director Naoko Yamada is potentially drawing from in her work. He references how seemingly innocuous events can become significant through the subjectivity of following a specific character, as exemplified by the work of Sofia Coppola. He references Yamada’s attention to specific foley of everyday locations, reminiscent of the work of Yasujirō Ozu. He also mentions how Yamada’s films often replicate the look of long focal-length lenses, echoing the similarly striking tableaus of Sergei Parajanov’s classic film, THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES.
Check out the essay below:
Here’s what critics are saying about LIZ AND THE BLUE BIRD:
“Through a mix of visual storytelling, aural storytelling, metaphor, and symbolism, LIZ AND THE BLUE BIRD delivers an emotional tale about friendship, dreams, and the final days of childhood.” – Richard Eisenbeis, Anime News Network
“…carries an air of hushed melancholy that makes it a unique emotional drama. It’s one of the most structurally complex films about the necessity of communication for healthy relationships.” – Natasha H., IGN
“Yamada, the film’s director, is in top form again here. Beautiful, fluid animation is practically a given from Kyoto Animation, but Yamada in particular is a master in the study of human observation.” – Matt Schley, The Japan Times
ON HER SHOULDERS opens Friday, November 2nd at AFS Cinema. Get tickets.
Twenty-three-year-old Yazidi activist Nadia Murad’s life is a dizzying array of exhausting undertakings—from giving testimony before the U.N. to visiting refugee camps to soul-bearing media interviews and one-on-one meetings with top government officials. With deep compassion and a formal precision and elegance that matches Nadia’s calm and steely demeanor, filmmaker Alexandria Bombach follows this strong-willed young woman, who survived the 2014 genocide of the Yazidis in Northern Iraq and escaped the hands of ISIS to become a relentless beacon of hope for her people, even when at times she longs to lay aside this monumental burden and simply have an ordinary life. (Oscilloscope)
Here’s what critics are saying:
“Alexandria Bombach’s direction and editing are exceptional; she captures images that are both subtle and formidable.” – Ken Jaworowski, The New York Times
“The film is carried by Murad’s face: composed more often than seems possible, opaque to the weariness and harsher emotions that may stir behind it, an effective tool for forcing the world to confront what she believes it has done too little to stop.” – John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
“One of the most important things about Nadia Murad is she’s a compelling screen presence…The film’s heroine holds our attention, no matter the mode. She’s so limpid and self-possessed that you often understand the essence of what she’s saying before it’s been filtered through her translator.” – David Ehrlich, IndieWire
HAUSU screens at AFS Cinema in 35mm through October 31st. Get tickets.
It’s hard to imagine the making of HAUSU; it might be easier to write it off as having arrived from some distant dimension. Leading up to the ’70s, HAUSU producer Toho Studios was one of the major Japanese movie studios. They had spawned many of Akira Kurosawa’s films (including IKIRU, SEVEN SAMURAI, THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, and HIGH AND LOW) as well as the original GODZILLA. But, by the ’70s, audiences had lost interest in samurai and kaiju genres. The very unusual and visually unique HAUSU surprised the Toho executives, scoring a much larger youth audience than they ever expected.
Okay, Toho Studios released HAUSU. But who made the film?
HAUSU’s director, Nobuhiko Obayashi, was born in 1938 in Onomichi, a city in the Hiroshima prefecture. His first experience with film was at three years old, when he mistook a film projector for a train toy. After innocently cranking the handle, the still images projected on the wall suddenly came to life.
Despite being pressured to become a doctor by his father, Obayashi instead enrolled at Seijo University. There he began experimenting with film. By the 1960’s he was well established in the experimental film scene, was a member of the Japan Filmmaker’s Cooperative, and was screening his work regularly with the Art Theater Guild. Obayashi and his contemporaries in the experimental 8mm format would put on screenings at universities and makeshift venues around Tokyo to get their work seen. At the same time, Obayashi was creating short advertisements independently for small businesses, as a means to support himself and his artistic endeavors. Obayashi would go on to work with Dentsu, Japan’s largest advertising firm, creating over 2000 commercials including this deodorant spot with Charles Bronson.
Hot off his success in the commercial world, studio heads urged Obayashi to develop a concept for a feature film. Rather than write a screenplay on his own, Obayashi took a curious route: he asked his 11-year-old daughter, Chigumi, what she found scary.
She described a fear that her reflection in the mirror might reach out and eat her.
She told him about how after piano practice, her fingers would hurt, as if the piano was chewing on her.
Obayashi bounced ideas off of Chigumi, took her ideas, and came up with the concept of a house devouring its inhabitants. He presented the treatment to Isao Matsuoka, the Vice-President of Toho. Matsuoka didn’t understand the story, but was willing to take a chance on something unique regardless. He soft-greenlit the film and went about searching for a director, which couldn’t have been Obayashi, due to strict house rules regarding how directors were appointed at the time.
While Toho searched for the director, Obayashi took the role of marketing the film into this own hands. He convinced press to mention the film in articles. He convinced Weekly Shonen Magazine to create a HAUSU manga (and eventually a novelization of the screenplay). He made HAUSU bumper stickers and postcards. In November of 1976, there was even a radio adaptation of HAUSU. Impressed by his unending loyalty to the project, Toho would eventually change their mind and hire Obayashi to direct the film.
The rest is history, and HAUSU remains a potent combination of elements. Instead of ditching his past, Obayashi took an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink approach to the film. He tried to involve as many of his friends from the underground as possible in the process, enlisting then-relative-unknowns Godiego for the poppy soundtrack, with his friend Asei Kobayashi producing (and also starring as the watermelon man). Instead of reinventing his style, he synthesized it: he adapted his unique visual and temporal language developed in his experimental years, along with the artifice and condensation of his advertising work. In a proto-post-modern fashion, he played with well-worn Japanese archetypes as a foundation to jump off from stylistically, as Chuck Stevens from Criterion delves into wonderfully. What his native audiences immediately read as tongue-and-cheek only adds to the strangeness of watching the film as an outsider.
Beyond its glitz and silliness, we can read HAUSU in a number of ways. Just as its teenage protagonists are at a turning point between childhood and adulthood, HAUSU exists at many crossroads: between animation and live-action; between horror and comedy. Obayashi’s generation was one living with memories of the atomic bomb, and his daughter’s generation was the first to be lucky enough to come of age without them. He was likely torn: to remind his kin about the horrors of the past, or let her live unburdened by them? It is this central anxiety that the film’s horrors spew from, as the aunt’s husband died in the war, leaving an empty house filled with evils.
Apart from more subjective interpretations, HAUSU will always be perplexing, overwhelming, and a document of a father’s love for his daughter.
Once every few years, a new voice in independent film emerges, leaving a lasting impression that we’ll see for years. That voice is now here and it’s Jim Cummings with his debut feature, THUNDER ROAD. The film originally began as a short that premiered at Sundance in 2016. After its great success on the festival circuit, Cummings and the team returned to make a feature-length film here in Austin, TX that would go on to wow audiences at the 2018 SXSW, winning the Grand Jury award. Opening this Friday at AFS Cinema, we thought we’d let our Lead Film Programmer Lars Nilsen and the critics tell you why it’s such a great breakthrough film. Plus, scroll down below to see a Q&A from our Art House Theater Day screening of the film with producer Matt Miller, actress Kendal Farr, and actor Macon Blair.
AFS Lead Film Programmer Lars Nilsen says:
“You’re probably seeing the photos and blurbs for this movie going around and thinking (presuming even a mild interest): what’s up with this movie about a mustache cop and why do I care and… is it safe to ignore this, because I have a whole bunch of stuff going on in my life? And then the trailer is not that great at selling the film, so what do we have here anyway?
Well, it‘s a great film. It’s one that we’ll be looking back at in 20 years as a classic. By then, Writer/Director/Star Jim Cummings will probably be a household name. My only comparison, and its an imperfect one, is the way Danny McBride and Jody Hill landed on the scene fully formed in THE FOOT FIST WAY.
But THUNDER ROAD is much better than THE FOOT FIST WAY. It’s not only a demonstration of promise, it’s a full realization of an new aesthetic of humor that goes beyond cringe, beyond slapstick, and beyond Adult-Swimmy anti-comedy, into a kind of humor that works because it connects with our best selves – a la Capra.
This is a film that would be worth watching just as a virtuoso high wire act. Lots of people write-direct-star, but how many do it at THIS LEVEL? I mean Albert Brooks level here, Jerry Lewis level.
Everything Cummings brings to the screen is original, there’s none of that echo-chamber feeling that I sometimes get from new comedies. Every joke, every bit, came to Cummings from observing himself and others – particularly loved ones. This is the work of a filmmaker who can live and love without irony. That’s a bold choice nowadays, and this is a bold, bold movie.
It’s not going to make or break me or the film if you don’t go check it out, but if you know me, just know that I love it and I recommend it highly.”
Here’s what critics are saying:
“Jim Cummings, who also wrote and directed the film, has delivered a remarkable tragicomic performance in the lead.” – A.A. Dowd, The A.V. Club
“A weird and moving feature adaptation driven by Cummings’ transfixingly vulnerable performance, the movie not only justifies returning to the source: Shockingly, it does so without even using the device that seemed key to the short’s success.” – John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
“Through a combination of caricature and psychological portrait, subtle touches and howls of impotent, uniformed rage, his film offers a memorable depiction of a man ill-equipped to deal with or direct his feelings—probably not all that different from the rest of us.” – Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The A.V. Club
Filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke is one of the many subjects in HALF THE PICTURE, screening this Sunday, October 14 at AFS Cinema. Don’t miss this special screening, including a pre-film mixer and post-screening panel. Get tickets.
In order to make your work meaningful, you need to align it with who you really are – your true nature – and an important part of that is recognizing who you once were.Catherine Hardwicke understands this and, through her depictions of teen angst in films such as THIRTEEN and TWILIGHT, she has created a universe that has connected with a wide audience of filmgoers searching for spiritual epiphanies in our chaotic world.Unlike the sensationalistic work of someone like Larry Clark, Hardwicke’s vision is a tender one – showing both the happy and the hidden – twin pillars in the confusing time that is adolescence.
Hardwicke, a University of Texas at Austin alum, started her film career working as a production designer with many directors, including Richard Linklater. In 2003, Catherine Hardwicke would make the transition into being a full-time director with her debut film, THIRTEEN. This past June, AFS hosted a 15th anniversary screening of THIRTEEN, reuniting Hardwicke and Linklater on stage for an hour-long discussion, where they touched upon Hardwicke’s early career, the making-of THIRTEEN, and the obstacles she encountered navigating the studio system as a woman in Hollywood.
For those unable to attend the THIRTEEN event, Amy Adrion’s new documentary HALF THE PICTURE profiles many of today’s leading women filmmakers—including Ava Duvernay, Jill Soloway, Catherine Hardwicke, and Miranda July—to discuss their early careers, how they transitioned to studio films or television, how they balance having a demanding directing career with family, as well as challenges and joys along the way.Additionally, HALF THE PICTURE includes interviews with experts about gender inequality in Hollywood including the ACLU’s Melissa Goodman, Sundance Institute’s Caroline Libresco, Vanity Fair’s Rebecca Keegan, USC’s Dr. Stacy Smith, and San Diego State University’s Dr. Martha Lauzen. Join us this Sunday, October 14, for a special screening of the film followed by a post-screening panel.
I AM NOT A WITCH opens Friday, October 12th at AFS Cinema. Get tickets here.
In her BAFTA awarding-winning debut feature, Rungano Nyoni crafts a satiric feminist fairy-tale set in present-day Zambia. When 9-year old orphan Shula is accused of witchcraft, she is exiled to a witch camp run by Mr. Banda, a corrupt and inept government official. Tied to the ground by a white ribbon, Shula is told that she will turn into a goat if she tries to escape. As the only child witch, Shula quickly becomes a local star and the adults around her exploit her supposed powers for financial gain. Soon she is forced to make a difficult decision – whether to resign herself to life on the camp, or take a risk for freedom. A hit at over 50 international festivals, I AM NOT A WITCH is a must-see for anyone interested in new African Cinema and contemporary female filmmakers. (Film Movement)
“It’s rare and exhilarating that a new filmmaker arrives on the scene so sure of herself and so willing to take bold, counter-intuitive chances.” – Jessica Kiang, Variety
“[Director Rungano Nyoni’s] preferences for long takes, bright colors, and dynamic wide shots that resemble paintings cement the film as high art for its imagery alone.” – Leah Pickett, Chicago Reader
“Nyoni is clearly confident in her vision and the story she wants to tell, and in her capable hands, the result is spellbinding.” – Katie Rife, The A.V. Club
I AM NOT A WITCH opens Friday, October 12th at AFS Cinema. Get tickets here.
BISBEE ’17 opens Friday, October 5, at AFS Cinema. Director Robert Greene joins us on Saturday, October 6, at 6 PM. Buy Tickets.
In Robert Greene’s newest foray into hybrid documentary filmmaking, he focuses on the small mining town of Bisbee, Arizona, and its troubled history. In 1917, over 1300 striking miners were forcibly deported out of town, loaded onto trains, and left for dead in the New Mexican desert. One hundred years after the incident, Greene documents the town as they attempt to reckon with the dark past by theatrically re-enacting the 1917 incident. Greene’s film blurs reality and fiction in a style that’s now become his very own. AFS recommends this film and here are a few other critics who do, too.
Here’s what critics are saying:
“[a] thematically rich, narratively canny film,” – Mark Jenkins, NPR
“…an adventurous exercise in drama-documentary; what could have seemed arch or awkward is handled with grace and tact,” – Anthony Lane, NYTimes
“Most documentaries seek merely to inform. [Greene’s] always strive to make you interrogate what you’re watching.” – Mike D’Angelo, The A.V. Club
“Bisbee ’17 is [Robert Greene’s] best film to date, not least because it’s his most ambitious.” – Scout Tafoya, MUBI
https://youtu.be/etwjMcdvxx8
BISBEE ’17 opens Friday, October 5th, for a limited engagement at AFS Cinema. The Saturday night screening will have director Robert Greene in attendance.
