Unmistakably Real
Share
Boots Riley has opened this yearâs SXSW with I Love Boosters, starring Keke Palmer as the leader of the Velvet Gang, a trio of shoplifters whose latest target is a billionaire played by Demi Moore. I Love Boosters is set âin a version of the Bay Area where the floors of an office are tilted at a forty-five-degree angle,â notes Angie Han in the Hollywood Reporter, âwhere a demon sucks the souls out of people by going down on them, where a teleportation device shows great promise as a way for retailers to cut down shipping costs. But watching it feels less like being transported into a different universe than putting on X-ray goggles to look at our ownâand finding, buried under all the frustration and despair, a joyful and unruly sense of hope.â
Varietyâs Owen Gleiberman calls I Love Boosters âan incendiary prank of a movie that begs our indulgence at times yet also invites us to get high on what a playful provocation it is,â and at TheWrap, Chase Hutchinson finds that the film is Rileyâs âmost emotional work yet. Though the film tackles many of the same ideas Riley has explored in past works, including Sorry to Bother You and Iâm a Virgo, his latest work has him more attuned to character this time around.â In the meantime, Riley has confirmed that his next project will be an adaptation of Anne Washburnâs dark comedy Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play.
The best source of SXSW news and reviews is naturally the Austin Chronicle, where Richard Whittaker outlines the astonishing transformations the festival and its host city are currently undergoingâand will be undergoing for several years to come. Through next Wednesday, SXSW will screen a total of 119 features, and for recommendations, turn to Natalie Keogan (Filmmaker), Jacob Oller (A.V. Club), Mark Olsen (Los Angeles Times), Brian Tallerico (RogerEbert.com), Hammer to Nail, and the Playlist.
Itâs been a big week for lineup announcements. New Directors/New Films (April 8 through 19) will open with Adrian Chiarellaâs horror movie Leviticus, Robert Greene (Kate Plays Christine) has curated a thematic program for Full Frame (April 16 through 19), and Jane Fonda will introduce the opening night film at this yearâs TCM Classic Film Festival (April 30 through May 3), Barefoot in the Park (1967), directed by Gene Saks, written by Neil Simon, and costarring the late Robert Redford.
Further down the calendar, Cannes will present an honorary Palme dâOr to Barbra Streisand during its awards ceremony on May 23. And Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair, the little series launched in Los Angeles in 2022, is expanding to become a global film festival set to take place in June in seventy-three cities in the U.S., the UK, and Latin America.
This weekâs highlights:
- Following an âunofficialâ hiatus of a little more than two years, Another Gaze has returned to relaunch with a freshened-up design and a new issue that includes articles on Emerald Fennellâs Wuthering Heights and Deborah Stratmanâs Last Things (2023) and interviews with Mary Helena Clark and Paula GaitĂĄn, both of whom have selected work to stream on the newly revamped Another Screen. âAs feminist film theorist Teresa de Lauretis (1938â2026) put it,â write the editors, ââhow to effect another vision: [how] to construct other objects and subjects of visionâ? In 2026, we are still asking ourselves this question.â
- June 1 will mark the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Marilyn Monroe, and exhibitions are set to open in Paris (April 8 through July 26), Los Angeles (May 31 through February 28), and London (June 4 through September 6). New Yorkâs Museum of Modern Art is presenting a series of films starring Monroe through March 25, and MoMAâs Magazine is running curatorial associate Francisco Valenteâs piece on the echos of the starâs legend in David Lynchâs Mulholland Dr. (2001). âYou could say that Laura Palmer is Marilyn Monroe,â wrote Lynch in Room to Dream, âand that Mulholland Dr. is about Marilyn Monroe, too. Everything is about Marilyn Monroe.â
- Throughout last monthâs Berlinale, MUBIâs Daniel Kasman asked filmmakers âto select a memorable image or moment from their film and describe why it is particularly special to them.â The result is an amazing Notebook collection of reflections from, for example, Charles Burnett, who says that âthe saving grace of My Brotherâs Wedding [1983]â is his lead characterâs relationship with his grandparents. Alain Gomis (Dao) shares an unsettling moment, while for Radu Jude (Shot Reverse Shot), âthe whole architecture is crucial.â Angela Schanelec (My Wife Cries) focuses on her ensemble, and Gore Verbinski (Good Luck, Have Fun, Donât Die) talks about an accidental discovery he intuitively incorporated âlike an infant grabbing candy.â
- Written and directed by the late Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer, Nobodyâs Fool), Places in the Heart (1984) is âone of the great films of the 1980s, and the greatest Texas movie of all time,â writes Matt Zoller Seitz in a fantastic piece for the Southwest Review. Set in 1935 Waxahachie, this story of an ad hoc family led by Edna (Sally Field) is âa Texas movie in every way. Itâs set in a specific Texas city during a specific time, and written and directed by an artist who didnât come to the material as an outsider but was a native son with a compassionate but unsparing eye. It has larger points to make, of course. But for the most part, itâs a splendid example of how to illuminate the universal by drilling down on specifics.â
- Juliette Binoche is in Copenhagen, where her directorial debut, In-I In Motion, a collaboration with dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, is screening at CPH:DOX. New Yorkâs Metrograph is currently presenting a series of films starring Binoche, and in the Journal, Elissa Suh writes that âBinocheâs great gamble has been to play emotions straight, without quotation marks. It works because of her uncanny ability to impart both self-awareness and uninhibitedness, a paradox that scholars like Shonni Enelow have traced in her performances. There is, too, that cosmopolitan glibnessâa light, quick intelligence so often, fairly or not, ascribed to the French, which flickers at the edge of even her most stricken heroines and grounds her more extreme emotions in something unmistakably real.â
Donât miss out on your Daily briefing! Subscribe to the RSS feed.
