Every year, the Art House Convergence, a national network of community-based, mission-driven cinemas of which the AFS Cinema is proud to call itself a member, distributes a survey to the patrons of all the cinemas in the organization. All the member groups review the results with great interest – as do distributors, archives and others. It really helps set the tone for the kinds of offerings that these theaters are able to share with members. You can read some of the past survey results here.
If you are a patron of the AFS Cinema, we’d love for you to take a few minutes and fill out the survey. In exchange for the time you spend doing this, we will mail you a $3 off coupon in December. More importantly than that, you will be helping to make Art House cinemas more vibrant and responsive to audience wants and needs.
Each screening of the film will be followed by an exclusive 15 minute Q&A video filmed at the Austin Premiere of the film. In order to keep the clip at a manageable duration we had to excise some parts of the video we filmed. Here is an outtake in which Linklater tells AFS Head of Film and Creative Media Holly Herrick about how he came to cast the great Cicely Tyson in a small role in the film.
Starting this Thursday, November 9, the AFS Cinema is proud to present the newest film from Austin Film Society founder and Artistic Director Richard Linklater. Steve Carrell, Laurence Fishburne and Bryan Cranston star as three old military buddies who have lost touch with one another and who are brought together again in middle age by a tragedy. It’s a film of deeply felt moments of fine ensemble acting, and there are unexpected detours into humor along the way.
This is a special week for us because LAST FLAG FLYING is the first new Richard Linklater film to open at the theater he recently established, the AFS Cinema. Each screening will be followed by an exclusive pre-recorded video Q&A with Linklater, filmed at the LAST FLAG FLYING Austin Premiere.
Please come see LAST FLAG FLYING with us at the AFS Cinema, where your ticket dollars support a full range of Austin Film Society artist and community programs. Tickets are on sale now.
But don’t just take our word for it about LAST FLAG FLYING. Here’s what the critics are saying:
On the latest AFS Viewfinders Podcast, AFS Lead Film Programmer Lars Nilsen and AFS Head of Film & Creative Media have a brief discussion about some of the highlights of the upcoming AFS Cinema Calendar. It’s under 30 minutes and we hope it will help you make some of your screening plans for the months ahead.
Here it is. Enjoy. You can also find it on your iTunes podcast app by searching ‘AFS Viewfinders.’
The new doc JANE, opening today 11/2 at the AFS Cinema, traces the life and work of primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall. Largely made up of films shot in the wilds of Africa over 50 years ago, it is both an intellectual and aesthetic delight. Whether you know a little, a lot, or nothing at all about Goodall, the film will fill you with admiration for this remarkable trailblazer. The movie is directed by Brett Morgen (COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK, and THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE) and scored by Philip Glass.
As part of the film’s full run, the cinema will offer a special Science On Screen panel on Sunday, 11/5 with special guests Dr. Anthony Di Fiore and Dr. Rebecca J. Lewis of the University of Texas. Dr. Di Fiore is the Head of the Anthropology Department and Dr. Lewis is Associate Professor in that department. Tickets for all showings are available here.
As many of you know doubtlessly already know, the exhibition programs of the Austin Film Society were wide ranging affairs for the first 30 years or so of the organization’s history, hosting screenings at various venues with the help of a dedicated network of partners.
Earlier this year – with the assistance and good will of an army of donors and supporters – the AFS Cinema was born. A full-time two screen theater presenting the best new releases, restorations, documentaries, community screenings and more, in a venue that also features a social space with excellent food and lots of good things to drink.
It’s been a lot of fun for us, and it’s been great to have a chance to meet tens of thousands of new folks who have also been attracted to this vision of internationally relevant cinema.
And the cherry on top for us after our first 5 months of operation has been today’s Austin Chronicle Best Of Austin issue. Specifically the Critics Picks section, which calls the AFS Cinema, the Best “It’s Not An Art House… It’s An Art Home.”
It’s a bit of an unwieldy award, and will be tough to fit on the marquee, but we’ll do our best.
To quote the Chronicle:
“When AFS Cinema permanently took over the Marchesa Hall & Theatre space earlier this year, we knew it was going to be a struggle to schedule our lives around the influx of repertory films, special guests, new releases, and 4K restorations. But holy hell, guys! Some of us have jobs and family commitments, not to mention the maintaining of personal hygiene. To say that the programming team hit the ground running is an understatement. From series on Bob Fosse, Catherine Deneuve, and world animation to quirky and essential programs like Science on Screen and Richard Linklater’s crowning Eighties appreciation, Jewels of the Wasteland, the beating heart of Austin’s cinephilia is alive and well, and well-dressed, too, in this stylishly re-fabbed venue.”
It probably won’t surprise you that the concept of the “cult” film is not a simple or clear one to outsiders. There are many different cults, with different values and different idols, in the universe of “cult” films. For instance, there has always been a “so-bad-it’s-good” faction, whose members like to ridicule cheapness, and “low” social vulgarities. The early prophets of this faction are people like conservative social commentator Harry Medved, who cowrote the “Golden Turkey Awards” and “The Fifty Worst Films of All Time” books, which helped set the ideological tone for years of sneering, sarcastic ridicule of “bad” films.
There is what we might consider the Danny Peary faction. An excellent writer, Peary lionized a particular kind of “cult”criticism in his multiple volumes of the “Cult Movies” books. Never dismissive, Peary celebrates these films for their unique qualities and their advocacy of outsider voices. Peary is a fan of the subversive and the humanistic and the books are essential reading for anyone interested in what lies just outside the bounds of the canon.
And then there is Michael Weldon. Springing from the same post-war junk pile that birthed the band The Cramps, Weldon’s aesthetic is that of the unapologetic connoisseur of the sublime aspects of trash culture. A fan of “Mad” Magazine, late night televised horror movies and the snotty proto-punk of the ’60s, Weldon soaked up the frantic zeitgeist of his age, formed a Cleveland punk band called Mirrors in the early ’70s. A few years later, in New York, he was a pioneer of the mimeographed zine revolution with his weekly publication “Psychotronic TV,” a sort of alternative TV Guide presenting his recommendations of which films and television episodes to watch, along with other cultural commentary.
The Psychotronic track of “cult” movie appreciation is responsible for many of today’s predominant attitudes about these films. Never snobbish or dismissive, Weldon sees Bela Lugosi and Vampira (to name a couple of obvious examples) as prophets of the trash punk aesthetic. If their films are “bad” they are bad in the sense that the Ramones are “bad.” Bad is better, because the world is bad. This aesthetic coloration appears today in the programming of Weird Wednesday and Terror Tuesday at the Alamo Drafthouse, in the Fantastic Fest idea of programming, and in the selection of cultish titles selected for the Lates series here at AFS.
I spent years trying to complete my own collection of “Psychotronic Video” magazine (the somewhat more sturdily put-together followup to the early mimeographed fanzine, and now it seems that the internet has done it for me, as the online site Archive.org now hosts a full archive of “Psychotronic Video” magazine plus some of the early “Psychotronic TV” issues as well. This is a big deal, and in one fell swoop has justified the invention of the iPad. Enjoy these issues with their years of interviews, reviews and features. This is truly a cultural treasure.
Special thanks to Rodney Perkins for bringing this archive to our attention. And of course special thanks to Michael Weldon, whose current venture, the Psychotronic Store has in one fell swoop justified the invention of Augusta, Georgia.
A new documentary by Frederick Wiseman is always a major cinematic event. The maker of TITICUT FOLLIES, HIGH SCHOOL, LAW AND ORDER and many other timeless classics of the form deserves our respect and adulation, of course, but here’s the funny thing: he’s lost nothing of his touch, his eye, his ear, and as he examines the institutions of modern life his carefully (sneakily, even) observations are even more valuable.
Recently he has been on quite a roll, documenting institutions of great cultural value (NATIONAL GALLERY, IN JACKSON HEIGHTS, AT BERKELEY), and his newest film EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY is a top-to-bottom, thorough portrait of that venerable repository, the people who staff it, and the people who use it every day.
The documentary highlights the variety of community programs, from tutoring to dance classes, offered by the N.Y.P.L., and gives a voice to everyday patrons, who extol the library’s virtues as a hub of the community. Underscoring it all, the film documents the multitude of changes and challenges the library is facing in our digital age.
It’s fascinating, and, as always with Wiseman, revelatory.
Ai captures the magnitude of the global refugee crisis with stunning cinematography. By turns heartbreaking and breathtaking, this documentary, shot in 23 countries worldwide, is a visually beautiful and empathetic look at the state of the world today.
In other words, it’s good. It’s powerful. It resonates under the touch of a great artist. You’ll want to see this one on the big screen. Tickets are available now.
Also, you can visit two sculptures by Ai Weiwei in Austin through 2018.
Iron Tree Trunk is on view at The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria (3809 W. 35th St.). Forever Bicycles is on view at the Waller Delta (74 Trinity St.) as part of The Contemporary Austin’s Museum Without Walls program and partnership with Waller Creek Conservancy.
It’s so rare to find a documentary that enfolds you in the sweep of monumental historic events, presents a hero whose accomplishments shine a light for future generations, and does it with such good humor and rousing execution.
DOLORES, the extraordinary new doc about the legendary activist Dolores Huerta, does all these things. You will be on the edge of your seat as you hear about the sometimes bitter struggles of farm-workers to secure their basic human rights. Your heart will swell with admiration as the diminutive Huerta stands tall and delivers the truth to power even in the face of beatings and recrimination. And, if you’re smart, you’ll listen closely to the important lessons this extraordinary woman, now 87 years of age and still going strong, has to share.
The film, directed by Peter Bratt, features interviews with Dolores Huerta and the people who know her best and the archival footage restored and uncovered for the film is utterly fascinating.
The third installment of Jewels In The Wasteland, a series of screenings of films from the 1980’s. programmed and hosted by Richard Linklater, is right around the corner.
The first screening of the series is DRUGSTORE COWBOY on Wednesday, October 4, and the series continues into December.
Of course, CARPINTEROS is the only Dominican Prison Action-Romance movie of all time. It’s still really good. It blasts through the cheapness and poverty of its means with performances and a story to remember. The handheld cameras and actual prison locations work in the film’s favor as we follow an new inmate into the prison. Played by Jean Jean, the man takes in the lay of the land and finds himself communicating via sign language with the inmates of an adjoining women’s prison. The tough, murderous leader of the cell block has Jean Jean send some messages to his girlfriend, and, most inconveniently, the pair fall in love.
This sets off a chain of events that ends in violence and revenge. Throughout, the filmmaking and acting is excellent and the film already feels like a modern action classic.
Filmed in a real prison in the Dominican Republic, using real inmates as extras, the film has an authenticity that can’t be bought. Handheld camerawork and crowd scenes imbued with authentic tension and anger suggest that this could be a particularly exciting documentary, rather than a narrative film. The film captures the claustrophobic, chaotic feel of the notorious Najayo Prison, providing a perfect backdrop for the violent battle that ensues.
The trailer is a little adult-contemporary for my taste, but it gives you a sense of what you’ll be looking at.
