AFS Viewfinders

AFS Viewfinders is a film culture website with information, resources and opinions designed to deepen and broaden appreciation of film.

Commemorating 50 Years of ‘The Death Of Hollywood’

Some of us are guilty of sounding the death knell of Hollywood (as a business concept, not a geographic location) ever more loudly as each year pours out its cornucopia of overprocessed, not-very-nourishing entertainment offerings onto our summer picnic blanket. Because we care a lot about the art of film and the experience of going […]

Behind The Scenes at Shaw Brothers 1975

As the Old School Kung Fu Weekend approaches (July 24 and 25), our thoughts turn to these classic martial arts films and the people who made them. There were a ton of producers in Hong Kong and Taiwan who cranked out a lot of Kung Fu movies, but the best of the batch were the […]

Watch This: A Raucous, Profane & Altogether Amazing Q&A with Director Ana Lily Amirpour

Ana Lily Amirpour, photo credit Charles Ramírez Berg     First off – if you don’t want to hear a bunch of off-color language, drug references and vulgar sexual metaphors, go watch something else right now. It’s cool. However, to really get an idea about Ana Lily Amirpour’s aesthetic, you kind of need to ride […]

Name-Check: Jeanne Eagels, Born 125 Years Ago Today

“I’m the greatest actress in the world and the greatest failure, and nobody gives a damn.” Chances are, unless you came across this post while looking for information about Jeanne Eagels, that you’ve never heard the name, let alone known the reputation that Eagels enjoyed among her contemporaries as an incandescent, proto-method actress. She was […]

Pauline Kael’s Legendary Sick-Burn “Replying To Listeners” Radio Broadcast

Nearly 14 years after her death, film critic Pauline Kael still inspires controversy. During her lifetime she was loved by many, hated by some and feared by studios and publicists (much of Hollywood felt, with some justification, that she could make or break a movie with her New Yorker reviews). One matter than nearly everyone […]

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky Interviews EDEN Director (and AFS July Guest Programmer) Mia Hansen-Løve

Here’s a nice interview piece from Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on Mia Hansen-Løve’s new movie EDEN. She will guest-program three screenings: Jean Eustache’s epochal THE MOTHER & THE WHORE, Assayas’ under-seen SOMETHING IN THE AIR and a sneak of EDEN. The rare 35mm screening of THE MOTHER & THE WHORE (1973) takes place at the Marchesa Wednesday, July […]

Celebrate Billy Wilder, Born On This Day in 1906, with this Extended 1995 Interview

Billy Wilder with Austrian Pickelhaube helmet and Oscars Here’s a long form interview with the still very agile minded Billy Wilder conducted in 1995. As this video was created by the Writer’s Guild, there is a lot about story – very few have ever mastered movie storytelling as well as Wilder, after all – but […]

Richard Linklater on Paul Schrader, Mishima & More.

The AFS Jewels In The Wasteland II series, programmed by Austin Film Society founder and artistic director Richard Linklater, wrapped up earlier this month with an archival 35mm screening of MISHIMA: A LIFE IN THREE CHAPTERS. It’s appropriate that a Paul Schrader film would cap our screening series focusing on the years 1984-1986, because, during […]

Independent Movies Under The Stars: Cinema East’s Summer Season Preview

Holly Herrick previews this year’s Cinema East season. All Cinema East screenings take place on the French Legation grounds. Summer movies outdoors are not only the creation of the American drive-in, they are a pleasure the world over, and enjoyed in outdoor amphitheaters from Ouagadougou to Athens, Australia to India. Austin’s open spaces mean that […]

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT Writer/Director Ana Lily Amirpour in Conversation with Roger Corman

Ana Lily Amirpour portrait by Jason Bedient A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour and legendary producer/director Roger Corman sat down for a discussion earlier this year at the Hammer Museum for a wide-ranging discussion that begins with an advertisement in favor of LSD use, and then moves on into more […]

Happy Birthday H.G. Lewis, Here He is Talking Shock Tactics with John Waters in 1997

Herschell Gordon Lewis, born on this date in 1929, is known as the Godfather Of Gore for a reason. At a time in the ’60s when independent exploitation filmmakers were trying to find the next big thing, Lewis decided to give blood and guts a try. It went over big, literally breaking attendance records at […]

A 1984-1986 Summer Viewing List (and more) from Richard Linklater

From TO LIVE & DIE IN LA. This is what 1985 felt like, 24/7. Since you’re reading this I can guess that you’re a big movie enthusiast. Me too. Together we’ve seen a lot of movies. When we get together with our friends we’re the ones who know that actor’s name or that director’s name, […]

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