- SXSW 2026: Wishful Thinking, The Saviors (March 15, 2026)
Two of the more interesting synopses in this year’s SXSW Film & TV Festival program revealed themselves at the Zach Theater in Austin on back-to-back days to start the festival. While the overall profile of SXSW has dimmed a bit in the last couple years as streaming service originals have dominated too much of the Headliners category, there are still gems to be found when you get away from the Paramount. There’s one in this two-fer dispatch, joined by a film that has some strong ideas but doesn’t do enough with them.
The better of the two is Graham Parkes’ clever “Wishful Thinking,” a sci-fi rom-com that plays almost like “Marriage Story” meets “Colossal.” Do you ever get the sense that the temperature of your relationship has an impact on the world around you? Of course, it’s never one-to-one but we’ve all felt that snowballing effect of good and bad vibes in the way that happiness in our partnerships can feel like it’s leading to better things in other aspects of our life, and the inverse being just as true. Good and bad news comes in waves. What if we could control those waves with our emotions?
What Parkes imagines is a couple so powerful in their vibes that they can shift the world around them, impacting not just their surroundings but the entire world. What if a fight between you and your partner literally led to not only plants dying in your house but an actual earthquake? And what if a great orgasm opened career paths for not just you but those you know? It’s a fascinating way to riff on the idea of manifestation, the belief that we control the world around us, and how being a true partner requires giving up some of that control. It’s hard to manifest happiness when you feel betrayed.
Julia (Maya Hawke) and Charlie (Lewis Pullman) discover they have this remarkable power after attending a session with a pair of twin therapists (both played by Kate Berlant, having a moment in multiple SXSW films, including the Boots Riley and both films in this dispatch) who basically pull out of them their supernatural powers.
Before then, Julia and Charlie seemed headed for a break-up. She’s a game designer struggling with being unable to implement her vision because her boss (Randall Park) forces her to make awful sex games for rich clients. Charlie is a frustrated musician, worried he’s reaching that chapter break in life when he has to put potential futures on the shelf. He works as a sound technician, which allows for a very funny recording session with Jon Hamm, who actually becomes an effective recurring joke.
The sequences in “Wishful Thinking” in which Julia and Charlie learn the power of their relationship are clever and funny. They start fights to see what happens around them, and then they make up and fireworks literally appear in the sky. Of course, it’s all a symbol for how the people close to us actually do shape the way we look at the real world.
Hawke and Pullman are both consistently spectacular, the kind of young stars who inspire hope for long careers every time they’re on screen. He finds a funny, playful register he hasn’t been often allowed to play while she’s more magnetic with every film appearance. It’s a real collaboration between two actors who really understand the vision of their creator.
That vision gets a little less confident in the final act. There’s a bit with Charlie actually having a breakout hit that backfires on him that takes up too much screen time just as the movie is digging its nails into its thorny premise. How far would you go to “fake” happiness if it impacted the world around you? The truth is that no couple is always happy, and it’s unhealthy to obsess about having to be so. As “Wishful Thinking” approaches this complexity, it stumbles a bit, but that’s almost in keeping with its uncertain protagonists, two people fumbling their way through this impossible thing called love. Aren’t we all?
Less effective in truly maddening ways is Kevin Hamedani’s “The Saviors,” a movie that thinks it’s saying much more than it ultimately is. It’s a timely movie in its messaging of xenophobia and increased suspicion of our neighbors, but its filmmaking has a frustrating habit of derailing its best intentions. “The Saviors” is one of those films that does nothing once, repeating every idea to make sure it’s thoroughly pounded into your head, and it strands a good cast in a think piece of a film that prioritizes themes and twists over human connection.
Sean (Adam Scott) and Kim Harrison (Danielle Deadwyler) are a couple in crisis, an average pair headed for divorce. He sleeps in the basement, and the pair can barely talk to one another. To help with the mortgage, they rent out a guest house to a Middle Eastern brother and sister named Amir (film MVP Theo Rossi) and Jahan Razi (Nazanin Boniadi), who arrive in the middle of the night with a suspicious trunk.
From the beginning, Sean suspects something is up with the Razis. Of course, the blatant racism of his family (including Kate Berlant and Ron Perlman) doesn’t help, even as Sean pushes back against their stereotypes. But then things start to get weird. Sean sees bright lights in the middle of the night, intercepts blueprints coming in the mail, and finds what looks like bomb parts in the guest house. He eventually convinces Kim to join him on the suspicious side of the property, and the two begin to investigate their new tenants, getting closer as they do. Nothing fixes a broken relationship like xenophobia.
Of course, the Razis are not what they seem or what the Harrisons think they are: There’s no movie otherwise. Knowing that, “The Saviors” has a puzzle box aspect in that we, the audience, play with trying to figure out what the Harrisons are misreading about their admittedly suspicious neighbors. Did I mention that the President is coming to town soon for a funeral? Or that Sean keeps having visions of a bright light and a bombed-out future? It’s a lot.
And yet it ends up being frustratingly little, too. There’s just nothing to hold onto when one looks back on “The Saviors,” a movie that arguably would have been more interesting told from the other perspective, the POV of a refugee brother and sister dealing with their nosey neighbors. But that’s a more daring film than this one, a movie that ultimately made me angry not at the world but at a film that thinks it’s pushing buttons but doesn’t press nearly hard enough.
- SXSW 2026: The Peril at Pincer Point, American Dollhouse, Anima (March 15, 2026)
There’s a slogan that goes around the city that hosts the SXSW Film Festival that’s on T-shirts, posters, and bumper stickers: “Keep Austin Weird.” The three films in this dispatch are doing their part.
Jake Kuhn and Noah Stratton-Twine’s “The Peril at Pincer Point” is aggressively weird, and that’s why it works. It commits to its oddity, revealing its creator as a playful visionary who seems equally inspired by “Eraserhead,” “The Wicker Man,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” if they were all directed by Andrew Bujalski. So many films at a festival like SXSW pretend to be quirky and strange but are actually quite predictable and routine; this is not the case with “Pincer Point,” a true oddity that also owes a debt to early British filmmaking. It’s truly not like anything else you’ll see this year.
Jack Redmayne plays Jim Baitte, a sound designer trying to make it big years after his breakthrough on the hit franchise “Frogopolis.” He gets a gig working with an eccentric horror director named P.W. Griffin, who speaks rapturously of the production of his latest project on a remote island, a place filled with legends of pirate captains and magical ladies. He tasks Jim with finding both a sound that will elevate the climax of his film and a woman he remembers from his time on the distant isle. When Jim gets there, he finds out that the damsel in distress is literally missing, but that’s only one of the many unusual things about his predicament. Another one? He can hear the crabs talking like surly pirates.
The irascible crabs are truly only one of several oddities in “Pincer Point,” a movie shot in fuzzy black and white by cinematographer Murray Zev Cohen in a style that gives it the tone of a dream (and I think there’s a legitimate reading of the film that it is actually all a vision of the night). As Jim wanders the eccentric isle, usually carrying his sound recording equipment with him, “Pincer Point” maintains a strong personality from beginning to end, becoming a project that feels, in part, like it’s about the power of moviemaking to weave with legends to become something new. After all, artists, even sound recorders, are the modern version of the pirate sitting around the bonfire telling tall tales of the sea. Kuhn and Stratton-Twine not only get that, they embrace it, making a movie that’s like nothing else at SXSW. In a time when too much looks and sounds the same, this a unique pirate story worth hearing.
Sadly, the other two films in this “weird” dispatch don’t connect their concepts with their execution with the same success. First, there’s John Valley’s “American Dollhouse,” a movie boasting an all-Austin production but that sometimes feels like it takes place in an alternate reality. What should be a taut thriller slides too often into an uncanny valley of behavior that’s not quite recognizably human, people going through the motions for a genre impact. Having said that, the commitment by the two leads is admirable, and there are a couple gnarly kills, but this is the kind of B-movie one expects to see at a more horror-inclusive genre fest than the broad canvas of SXSW. (People would be more forgiving of it at Fantastic Fest than here, for example.)
Hailley Lauren plays a woman who moves back to her childhood home after the death of her mother, getting lost in the memories that can feel trapped by a place from our youth. Her brother seems a bit worried about leaving his hard-drinking sister alone to face her demons, but he has his own life to live. And then the woman notices that the incredibly creepy neighbor (Kelsey Pribilski) is watching her through the window, insistent that she put up the Christmas lights that her mother did every other year. To say that she’s an obsessive neighbor would be an understatement, and she clearly (barely) hides a psychotic violent side. From here, “American Dollhouse” becomes an exercise in the inevitable. As our heroine brings people into her life like a possible boyfriend and old friend come to town, we know they’re merely fodder for the crazy lady next door, although Valley does have a bit of fun figuring out new ways to dispatch hapless visitors.
“American Dollhouse” just doesn’t do enough to distinguish it from the crowd. Back stories for both of the leads are hinted at but underdeveloped because Valley is having too much fun making people bleed. The leads commit fully but Valley the writer often doesn’t give them enough to hold onto, making them dolls in his own under-furnished house.
There’s a similar frustrating shapelessness to Brian Tetsuro Ivie’s “Anima,” another sci-fi fable about “what really matters to the human condition” but delivered with such consistently affectless posturing that it almost aggressively avoids emotional connection. It’s a movie of pregnant pauses and deep considerations masquerading as insight, and one that’s consistently sterile in its presentation. It’s almost as if Ivie sought to make as cold and calculated a film as possible about the often-overheated way death is considered in film. It’s something of an admirable effort that makes for a film that just too rarely feels true.
Sydney Chandler (recently in “Alien: Earth”) plays Beck, a young woman who gets a job in a near-future as a sort of hospice chauffeur. Paul (Takehiro Hira, great in “Rental Family”) is dying, but he’s going through a process that will create a sort of eternal A.I. version of himself for anyone who wants to call or even visit. Imagine if you could contact your deceased loved one again or even play with them on a digital beach. Ivie and co-writer Brev Moss do so little with this idea, making it more of an endpoint for Beck/Paul’s journey than exploring a world in which this was possible. Instead, they turn Beck and Paul’s trip across country for Paul to say goodbye to people he’s wronged through his life into an often-traditional end-of-life movie. Paul gets things off his chest like telling a friend that he slept with his wife while Beck sees her troubled relationship with her father reflected in this new one. Both characters feel like they’re at the whim of the plot, pushed into emotional spaces that the writing and even the performing haven’t earned.
I often come out of films at festivals frustrated but intrigued by what the creators will do next. “Anima” falls into that category. Ivie’s sterile color palette here drove me a little insane, but he clearly has vision that’s greater than a traditional indie dramedy filmmaker. He’s trying to do something here that’s not like the other stuff playing SXSW, and he deserves credit for that effort, even if the result comes up short.
- SXSW 2026: Adam’s Apple, The Dads, Your Attention Please (March 14, 2026)
Despite being in one of the most conservative states in the country, the SXSW Film Festival has long-reflected a more progressive viewpoint through its documentary programming. It’s an interesting blend of docs at SXSW that can often be divided into three categories: quirky tales, pop culture stories, and movies with a message. This dispatch profiles three of the last category: Two character profiles that are also about trans acceptance and a piece about how the digital era is warping evolution.
Amy Jenkins’ “Adam’s Apple,” the best doc I’ve seen at this year’s SXSW, might be dismissed as little more than someone else’s home movies. This would be wrong. Not only is the assemblage of years of Jenkins’ personal filmmaking of her son Adam’s journey remarkably edited, but there’s a vulnerability here that shouldn’t be diminished by presuming this kind of display is remotely easy.
A deeply moving story of a family, “Adam’s Apple” is both a narrative of empowerment and one of ordinary parent-child dynamics. In many ways, it’s the latter that makes the former that much more powerful in that, yes, this is a story of a young man transitioning genders, but it’s also one of more universal issues of coming into adulthood like picking a college, dating someone new, and even your first car crash. It is an excellent piece of work that connects both as a story of supportive allyship through the eyes of a mother who just happens to be a filmmaker and as a reminder that trans kids go through many of the same road markers as cis ones.
“Adam’s Apple” is the story of a teenager becoming a trans man. Over eight years, Jenkins filmed her son Adam through ordinary and extraordinary moments, including hormone replacement therapy, an official name change, and surgeries. Adam Jenkins is a fascinating subject, someone who Amy is careful not to witness from afar but make part of the filmmaking journey, too. He often holds the camera and seems more like a collaborator than a subject. It’s not surprising to learn at the end that he’s majoring in Creative Writing.
Both Amy and Adam are careful not to turn his story into a scripted message movie, focusing on the reality of these formative years more than anything else. The result is a film that never sensationalizes the journey of a trans teenager, allowing Adam to serve as a role model just by being who he is. He’s also so remarkably eloquent. In one of the film’s most casually powerful moments, Adam’s father tries to thread a needle by noting how he’s happy to know Adam but misses the daughter he used to have. Adam points out that he still has the same child he always did and says, “I don’t want to be seen as a lost daughter.” It’s a simple yet remarkably insightful statement. The film is full of them.
“Adam’s Apple” also becomes a document of parenthood and growth that’s often not about being young and trans as much as it is the universal blend of pride and grief that comes with saying goodbye to a child. It may have hit me harder as someone with a son currently applying for colleges, but I think anyone could find truth in this emotionally raw piece of work as a reminder that we shouldn’t “other” trans kids not just in sports but in every walk of young life. Jenkins has a line early in the film as she’s filming a caterpillar develop a chrysalis: “I love watching time unfold.” Time is both a blessing and a curse to parents. “Adam’s Apple” is a reminder to embrace both.
A more in-your-face approach to trans issues works well for Luchina Fisher’s “The Dads,” an expansion of her Emmy-winning Netflix short of the same name (to a work that’s still remarkably brief at 72 minutes). While making a film about a group for dads of trans children, Trump 2.0 was inflicted on the world, changing the temperature of the project entirely. What clearly started as a project designed just to listen to men talk about overcoming their own biases to support their trans children became a document of a country moving backward.
These men end up not just having to vocally support their kids but fight for them in courts, and some of them even end up leaving the country because of their fear over what it means to be trans in the United States in the 2020s. It makes for a film that sometimes feels like it’s trying to tell too many stories in its very brief runtime, but it’s still a passionate reminder that it’s increasingly difficult out there to be trans, or even just to be someone who loves a trans person.
Subjects in “The Dads” include men like Stephen Chukumba, a widowed father of four whose trans son Hobbes is heading off to college, and Ed Diaz, a Texan father of a younger trans child who faces the tough decision of fleeing the country to protect them. These men are vulnerable and honest in front of Fisher’s camera, telling their stories but also revealing their fears as the world changes radically in November 2024.
Once again, we hear stories of the prosecution of trans people in this country, but films like “The Dads” put human faces on statistics, legal rulings, and headlines. Again, it sometimes feels like it’s trying to do too much in 70 minutes; there’s a version that really spends time at the Dads Retreat in June 2024, which this movie feels like it rushes through to get to the election a few months later. Seeing the men and their children speak in June 2024 about their hope for the future when the Democrats are re-elected to the White House has a bitter poignancy. What could have been.
Finally, there’s Sara Robin’s “Your Attention Please,” another documentary about people trying to protect our children in a world where their safety seems like an increasingly lowered priority every day. As a parent of three teenagers who has had to navigate the impact of social media, there are issues raised by Robin’s film that need to be a greater part of the national conversation.
As a film, Robin makes some frustrating choices like losing focus, repeating talking points, and cherry-picking ways to reflect social media or nostalgia for a time that never really existed—body image issues weren’t invented by the internet; amplified to be sure, but the opening scenes of “YAP” long for a time that either didn’t really exist or still does in pieces today. The narrator speaks of a time when kids randomly met up on the weekend like everyone is sitting alone on their phones now. As a dad, I can personally attest that a lot of this isn’t as black and white as this movie wants it to be. Benefits like access for the physically or socially disabled, representation, connection, and knowledge are waved away by the panic around social media.
Having said all of that, the panic is righteous, especially that of the inspiring Kristin Bride, who advocates for legal restrictions on social media after the suicide of her son, who was cyberbullied. The truth is that there’s a generation that sadly got lost in the development of social media. Kids now are taught about the dangers of technology in a way that they should have been from the beginning; my son’s high school has stricter phone polices like one captured in the film, and it’s worked out as well as it does here. People like Bride and the groundbreaking Trisha Prahbu will make sure future generations don’t fall into the social media trap that swallowed too many of the last one. Prahbu founded a company called ReThink, which quite literally just asks teens “you sure?” when they’re about to post something cruel. Stunningly, 93% of teens delete the bullying comment. The truth is that we know the difference between right and wrong, but devices enable us to forget. That’s one of the film’s most fascinating insights.
Most of all, the testimonials from parents in “Your Attention Please” are heartbreaking. It can be so moving when it focuses on them that the frustrations I have with the filmmaking elsewhere fall away. As Vivek Murphy says in the film, “We have not had enough conversation about [the impact of social media on youth] as a society.” That’s undeniably true. And this film will help with that. And how can anyone listen to Kristin Bride and not want to cheer her on? She deserves ALL of our attention.
- SXSW 2026: The Sun Never Sets, A Safe Distance, Seahorse (March 14, 2026)
While Austin’s favorite festival is a big event for genre filmmaking, they also welcome more traditional storytelling, the kind more focused on character dynamics than hauntings or serial killers. There’s a long history of dramedy screenwriters bringing their latest projects to this festival, and one of the most interesting things about this year’s program was the reveal of a new project by Chicago indie filmmaking legend Joe Swanberg, who reunites with his most loyal collaborator, the star of his “Drinking Buddies” and “Digging for Fire,” Jake Johnson. Riffing with co-stars Dakota Fanning and Cory Michael Smith, Johnson and Swanberg have made a dramedy that might be intolerable for those uninterested in watching people try to figure out their relationship status for two hours, but its stars do a great deal to elevate some admittedly over-written dialogue. While “The Sun Never Sets” may not be my favorite Swanberg, it’s nice to have him back on the indie scene. Don’t wait so long for another one, Joe.
Fanning is charming as Wendy, the longtime girlfriend of Johnson’s Jack. He is divorced with two wonderful kids, but he has been upfront with Wendy from the beginning that he’s at a very different chapter of his life than she is. He does not want more kids; he doesn’t even want to marry again. And it’s worth noting that Wendy and Jack are different in more ways than age gap—she’s into the outdoors, even considering buying a boat; he’s an indoor child. When Wendy’s last freewheeling friend announces that she’s pregnant, Wendy brings the agita related to what feels like the end of something back to Jack, who has the dumbest idea ever: He tells Wendy to go play the field and make sure that there isn’t someone out there who fits her needs better than he does. He still loves her, but he doesn’t want her to feel trapped and resentful.
The truth is that Jack thinks Wendy will come running back, more confident in their relationship to put away a version of herself she’s not ready to discard. He didn’t plan on Wendy running into her ex, Chuck (Smith). Wendy left Chuck years ago because he wasn’t mature enough for their dynamic, but he seems to have improved with age, a truth that sends Jack spiraling. He tries becoming a hiking guy, makes demands on her, dates other people, and just coping, but nothing seems to work.
The vast majority of “The Sun Never Sets” consists of people talking about what they need and want from a relationship, sometimes in a way that doesn’t ring true. It’s one of those things where people often sound like they know what the next line is going to be and where the plot is going. However, what it lacks sometimes in dialogue, it makes up in character detail and even visuals. Swanberg shot it on 35mm in Alaska (a nod to the land of sunlight in the title), and it looks so much better than your average streaming dramedy. Most of all, Fanning and Johnson are just remarkably easy to root for, the kind of performers who can make a clunky script feel smooth through the sheer power of their likability.
A very different kind of mind game unfolds in Gloria Mercer’s effective “A Safe Distance,” a film so influenced by Patricia Highsmith’s character-driven noirs that it even directly references Deep Water, and the Ben Affleck movie made recently that adapted it. It doesn’t really come together like I hoped it would in the final act, but Mercer has a solid eye, and directs performers well, especially the charismatic Tandia Mercedes, who holds the midsection of the film together. A clearly personal film—you don’t have to read in the production notes that it was made in response to the end of “a difficult relationship” to sense that in the storytelling—it’s a tale of two women who end up empowering each other in unexpected ways, even though one is a bank robber.
Bethany Brown plays Alex, a Canadian woman who has gone on a camping trip with her slimy boyfriend Joey, the kind of guy who isn’t overtly obnoxious as much as casually selfish. You get the impression that he’s never asked what she wants for dinner, much less noticed that she doesn’t really want to go camping. When Joey actually proposes on a lookout on the trip, Alex turns him down. What does the hurt man-child do? Sneaks away in the middle of the night, leaving Alex stranded. That’s when she stumbles into the camp of Kianna (Mercedes) and Matt, a couple living off the grid, in part because the authorities are looking for them for a string of armed bank robberies.
Before you know it, Alex has joined this Bonnie and Clyde in a throuple, even becoming enticed by the allure of bank robbing, which Matt insists is a victimless crime given they’re taking from corporations with insurance to back up the loss. The problem is that Matt is a bit of a jerk, too, which might make him a third wheel soon.
Some of the material about the “freedom” of the criminal life is a bit overwritten (although that’s sometimes-intentional given Matt is a bit of a blowhard), and the final act has a a few choices and a twist that didn’t land for me, but the bulk of “A Safe Distance” works. Not only is Mercedes a magnetic performer, Mercer shoots her limited settings well, giving the film a lush, natural look. I think Patricia Highsmith would have dug it.
Finally, there’s Aisha Evelyna’s “Seahorse,” a drama with the best of intentions that falls short by not truly committing to what I believe is its intent: Humanizing the unhoused in a way that makes them more than just figures in a news story or people overlooked on the street. Evelyna also wrote and stars, which often leads to problems in indie drama as there aren’t enough voices in the mix to work together in harmony. I fully believe that Evelyna set out to do something dramatically sound, but “Seahorse” disappoints by using an unhoused character in a manner that feels more manipulative than genuine, turning him into a figure for a protagonist’s journey instead of someone who feels like they have an interiority and back story of their own.
Evelyna plays Nola, a Toronto sous chef rising in the industry enough to have a truly annoying boss. One day, while trying to get away from the jerk and taking the trash out behind her restaurant, she sees a figure from her past in the alley: her estranged father. She begins a tentative connection with the man as “Seahorse” flashes into the past to reveal some of the reasons they split in the first place. As her new relationship threatens to derail her career, she’s forced to make some tough choices about a man she thought she’d probably never see again.
Again, “Seahorse” comes from such a genuine place that it feels almost mean to come down on it, but filmmaking is about execution as much as it is intention, and I believe the former clouds the latter here. I trust that Evelyna set out to make a movie about the cruel manner in which we treat the unhoused in the U.S. and Canada through the lens of a character study, but the blunt truth is that I didn’t believe the emotion of “Seahorse” enough because the people in it all felt like ingredients in that overcooked recipe instead of three-dimensional people.
- SXSW 2026: Beyond the Duplex Planet, Cornbread Mafia, My Brother’s Killer (March 14, 2026)
Sundance has really developed a reputation for documentaries as the pipeline from festival premiere to Oscar nomination with all five nominees this year coming from premieres at last year’s Park City event. What does that leave for the other festivals? Well, SXSW has carved out a non-fiction identity that opens uncommon doors, looking at subcultures and strong personalities that don’t necessarily scream documentary subject. Two of the best from last year were “Grand Theft Hamlet” and “Secret Mall Apartment,” two films that certainly fit that model. And all three in this dispatch tell under-told stories of communities: a pop culture movement that sprung up from an elder home, a group of farmers that revolutionized the weed trade in the United States, and the queer community that rallied around the murder of one of their own.
David Greenberger made a career not just listening to an oft-unheard portion of society, the elderly, but turning their stories and dreams into art. “Beyond the Duplex Planet” doesn’t just recount Greenberger’s fascinating work but subtly turns it into a call to find art in everyday life, and to find value in listening to those who have lived it. It’s a bit more straightforward a piece of filmmaking than one would expect given it’s about an unusual chapter of art history, but it’s still effective, in part because Greenberger himself remains such an interesting interview subject.
In 1979, David Greenberger got a job in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts at Duplex Nursing Home. He loved talking to the residents there, but not in a traditional “biopic” way in which we often define the elderly by their pasts instead of their presents. He would ask them about their current passions, as well as just quirky questions to provoke unexpected responses. He would listen to their dreams, interests, and stories, turning them into a ‘zine called The Duplex Planet, which became a huge hit in that market, drawing fans like Penn Jillette (who appears in the doc), and even R.E.M., who ended up using one of the Duplex resident’s art on their Out of Time. Greenberger would do live readings of poetry by Duplex friends, and display their art, even drawing the attention of Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), who brough this project into the graphic novel world.
What’s so refreshing about Greenberger’s approach, and something that’s captured well in Beth Harrington’s film, is the lack of sentimentality in his conversations. We often center the elderly in a context of life gone by or even about to end, but Greenberger doesn’t wallow in grief or mortality, presenting these people as still vital, still creative, and still wonderful. He has a truly powerful curiosity about those he meets that’s downright inspiring. My favorite line in the film is “The ordinary is how we experience a connection.” We often overemphasize the big transitions of life, when it’s really the shared ordinary—dreams, interests, needs—that ties us all together.
The story of a real-life “Dukes of Hazzard,” Drew Morris & Evan Mascagni’s “Cornbread Mafia” is the story of the largest marijuana production in the history of the United States, a group of ordinary guys who revolutionized the drug, battling authorities and even developing a hybrid form that could survive the cold conditions of the country.
The title of the film refers to what the U.S. prosecutors called the group in 1989, when they also revealed that the operation that started simply enough in the ‘70s had stretched across 10 states and employed dozens of people Morris & Mascagni’s film tells the saga of the Cornbread Mafia with a wink and a yeehaw, using animation for some of the more out-there stories like when one of the key players just happened to have a live bear in his passenger seat as his driving buddy. Some of the tone is a bit too “good ol’ boy” humorous at times, but the filmmakers smartly offer a bit of the counter with a few of the officials who chased the Cornbread Mafia across the country offering the argument that these weren’t just harmless potheads. Overall, it’s an entertaining, informative watch, even if the whimsical sense of humor could have been dialed down a few notches.
“Cornbread Mafia” allows the key players to tell their own story, most notably Joe Keith Bickett, who was one of the key figures in the organization and later became an advocate for a broken justice system that kept drug offenders behind bars even as the drug for which they were convicted was being legalized across the country. Bickett is an engaging interview subject in a manner that gives the film a foundation instead of just becoming a series of wacky anecdotes. They also spotlight Johnny Boone, one of the most famous members of the CM who went on the run after his crop was found.
There are aspects of the film “Cornbread Mafia” that feel a bit underdeveloped, but it maintains a consistent tone in a way that makes it never boring. When you learn in the closing credits that the excellent narration was done by Boyd Holbrook, and that two kings of southern-fried comedy in David Gordon Green and Danny McBride produced it, it all makes sense.
Finally, there’s Rachel Mason’s “My Brother’s Killer,” a film that has a title that makes it sound like it belongs on one of the streaming true crime factories like the ID section on HBO Max but that actually works better as a portrait of a community in crisis than as a mystery. It does get a bit repetitive and some of the interview soundbites sound a bit over-directed instead of organic, but it’s a reminder of multiple important themes to queer history, including both how protective communities form in marginalized groups, and, sadly, how violence can erupt when people aren’t allowed to be themselves.
The severed head of Bill Newton aka Billy London, a gay adult star in the ‘80s, was found in a dumpster in West Hollywood in 1990. Despite efforts by the police and community, the crime went unsolved for decades. Filmmaker Rachel Mason has a connection to the Hollywood gay community through a gay adult video store that her parents ran in the area. As AIDS took so many lives in the ‘80s, the store became a safe haven, and a place where people questioned what might have happened to Billy London, and if his killer walked among them or if it was a hate crime committed by an outsider. Mason began production of “My Brother’s Killer” before the crime was solved but ended up playing a role in its harrowing conclusion, the revelation of a killer who walked in the same circles as London despite hating his true self enough to lash out violently because of it.
“My Brother’s Killer” often struggles with over-direction, but it undeniably tells a powerful story that still resonates today. As attacks on the queer community have risen under Trump 2.0, Mason’s film is a vital reminder of not just the importance of allies like Mason’s parents (and the role she played in solving this heartbreaking case) but in the strength of marginalized groups to unite against pure evil.
- Check These Out: Needle Design's 10 Best Picture Films Poster Series (March 14, 2026)
Every year during the last month of the awards season, talented poster artists from around the world create a collection of posters honoring the Best Picture nominees. This tradition has been ongoing for quite some time now, with each artist attempting something fresh, pushing themselves to come up with dynamic, fascinating art each & every time. With the 2025 awards season just about to end with the 98th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday evening (March 15th), it's time to feature some of these posters. I'm always a huge fan of Olly Gibbs' annual statuettes series - seen here for 2025. However, my favorite series of posters this year are designed by artist Matt Needle - so I'm featuring his stunning set of 10 Best Picture posters. Matt (aka "Needle Design") is a designer based in Cardiff, UK - visit his official website. He's also selling most of these designs (and more) as prints in his own online shop right here. So if you enjoy these as much as I do, support him and buy a print before they're all sold out. I really dig his more distinct designs with muted colors, going for a more old school look than flashy. He's quite talented and all 10 of these are superb. // Continue Reading ›
- Official Trailer for RZA's 'One Spoon of Chocolate' with Shameik Moore (March 14, 2026)
"If you want to live, I suggest you leave this town immediately." "Or I can stand here and fight for what's mine." 36 Cinema + Variance has debuted their official trailer for a film titled One Spoon of Chocolate, a new movie from filmmaker The RZA. This premiered last year at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival but hasn't been given a final release yet. After playing on the festival circuit it's set to open in US theaters this May - now presented by Quentin Tarantino. He states: "As a filmmaker, RZA really brought home the bacon on an old-school, foot-to-ass, Revenge-a-matic! This picture drives audiences wild wherever it screens. We’ll sell you a whole seat, but you’ll only use the edge of it." An ex-military convict seeks a fresh start in a small town, but his past catches up as he finds love amidst danger and chaos. RZA's One Spoon of Chocolate stars Shameik Moore in the lead role as the character Unique, joined by Blair Underwood, RJ Cyler, Paris Jackson, Emyri Crutchfield, Michael Harney, and Harry Goodwins. This looks rad - an invigorating story about one guy fighting back against corruption and racism and all the assholes who run this town he's in. I'm glad RZA is still going against the grain and crafting his unique films like this to keep us all inspired. // Continue Reading ›
- Watch: The 10 Nominees from 2025 - Oscars Best Picture Showcase (March 13, 2026)
"Even though that old world is gone, you can still feel the echo of it..." It's finally time for the Oscars. The Academy has revealed their 2026 Best Picture Nominee video just before the ceremony this weekend. This magnificent 2-min montage brings together all 10 of the nominees – from Sinners to Train Dreams to The Secret Agent to Marty Supreme to OBAA – to reminds us why movies still matter. Why they still mean the world to each & everyone one of us. The Academy has been unveiled these final montages for the past few years: here's for 2023, also for 2024, and from 2025, and they keep getting better. This Oscars montage was edited by a friend of the site, known as "Sleepy Skunk", who has been creating movie trailer mashups and retrospectives for years (view them all there). I love the way he edits the different bits of dialogue from each of these movies into one longer, poetic, profound tale of glory. A must watch 2 min Oscar recap! Enjoy. // Continue Reading ›
- Making Of Feautrette for 'Street Fighter' Movie with Director Nakayama (March 13, 2026)
"I think they've managed to accomplish something very difficult in a really smart way." Maybe they pulled it off! Legendary & Capcom have posted a quick behind-the-scenes video for the upcoming Street Fighter movie, set to hit theaters in October later this year. We initially posted an awesome teaser back in December and we're waiting to see some more footage. Street Fighters Ryu & Ken reunite when Chun-Li recruits them for the World Warrior Tournament. As they face a hidden conspiracy, they must confront each other and their past – or face destruction. The massive cast features: Noah Centineo as Ken Masters, Andrew Koji as Ryu, Jason Momoa as Blanka, Roman Reigns as Akuma, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as Balrog, Andrew Schulz as Dan Hibiki, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison (yep!!), Cody Rhodes as Guile, Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim, Eric André as Don Sauvage, Orville Peck as Vega, Olivier Richters as Zangief, Hirooki Goto as E. Honda, Mel Jarnson as Cammy, and Rayna Vallandingham as Juli. This promo shows Takayuki Nakayama, director of both the Street Fighter 5 and 6 video games for Capcom, visiting the set and hanging out with the cast and crew. It's still looking very good. // Continue Reading ›
- Nicolas Cage & Elisabeth Shue in 'Leaving Las Vegas' New 4K Trailer (March 13, 2026)
"Do you still wanna have dinner?" Studiocanal UK has unveiled a brand new trailer for a 4K re-release of this 90s romantic drama titled Leaving Las Vegas, one of the mid-90s Nicolas Cage hits that won a bunch of awards. It first opened in 1996 after playing at the 1995 Toronto & London Film Festivals. Leaving Las Vegas is a 1995 romantic drama film written and directed by Mike Figgis and based on the 1990 semi-autobiographical novel from John O'Brien. Nicolas Cage stars as a suicidal alcoholic in Los Angeles who, having lost his family and been recently fired, has decided to move to Las Vegas and drink himself to death. Once there, he develops a romantic relationship with a prostitute. O'Brien died by suicide after signing away the film rights to the novel. An emotionally demanding and truly extraordinary movie, shot on 16mm film. Starring Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue in career defining roles - it also won Cage his first and only Academy Award for Best Actor (so far). This 4K restoration is being re-released on Blu-ray in the UK first from Studiocanal. Only so much to clean up from 16mm but this still looks better than ever. Worth a watch. // Continue Reading ›
