not much, just hangin out

good

online now: my roundup from the 27th Maryland Film Festival filmmakermagazine.com/133637-maryl...

Shiny and Oh So Bleak Denial of our "new normal" in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's post-pandemic films. || Alex Lei

Since @alexlei.bsky.social hasn't posted it here, this is his new column on Kurosawa Kiyoshi :3

SXSW has moved on, but mumblecore preserves its legacy 20 years after Dance Party USA premiered, a DIY movement, a film festival, and a city have all taken a turn.

for the 20th anniversary of Aaron Katz’s DANCE PARTY, USA premiering at SXSW, i took a look back at the scrappy legacy that gave the festival and Austin the DIY clout it rests on today www.avclub.com/sxsw-mumblec...

Robert Duvall's strength was finding the blood in stony men A rock-solid physical presence, the Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall always let emotion dance behind his eyes.

wrote about Robert Duvall’s extraordinary physical presence www.avclub.com/robert-duval...

LAST CHANTS FOR SUNDANCE [FILM DISPATCH] - BRUISER Alex Lei reports on the festival's final Park City edition

went long on the last Park City Sundance www.bruisermag.com/lei_sundance

“About a mile up the road in a strip mall was where the cinema was happening…”

@alexlei.bsky.social reports on Sundance’s final outing to Park City

oh i’m sure

this is just like Twitter. incredible

Shut Up and Drive The Outfit (1973) is an audacious and violent crime film by John Flynn from Richard Stark's novel. || Alex Lei

wrote a few weeks ago about what i think is Robert Duvall’s finest film www.splicetoday.com/moving-pictu...

“I believe in resuscitation” might as well be a manifesto for the troupe itself.

@alexlei.bsky.social reports on CIMINO’S DEFEAT, the latest production from the vital Brooklyn-based theater company Adult Film

Environmental Horror: Abby Ellis Talks About Luring Audiences into Watching ‘The Lake’ Abby Ellis talks about ringing the alarm on the “environmental nuclear bomb” in Utah with her Sundance doc The Lake

as the Sundance dust starts to settle, The Lake has emerged as one of my favorites—for Doc Mag, i talked to Abby Ellis about her thrilling, apocalyptic and skeptically optimistic film about the efforts to save the Great Salt Lake documentary.org/online-featu...

There's never been a better time to get in on the guy who makes the world's longest films Magellan welcomes a new audience to the challenging, slow-burn work of Lav Diaz with a perfectly representative movie.

went long on Magellan, and how it stands less as a new leap in his cinema and instead is a part of his longterm project excising the ghosts of Filipino history www.avclub.com/lav-diaz-mag...

James Cameron tried to bring the Western into the future, but only went backwards Avatar: Fire And Ash shows how clearly James Cameron has regressed towards the worst tropes of the Western.

wrote about how James Cameron used the tropes & imagery Western in the Avatar films and how his adaptation of the genre reduces it of its complexity www.avclub.com/james-camero...

“Ahead of its latest installment playing at New/Next, I kept asking around about what the hell Reveries actually was. ‘It’s hard to describe.’ ‘You just have to see it.’ ‘It’s, like, two guys riffing. But trippy.’”

@alexlei.bsky.social interviews the trio behind the REVERIES series

“Withholding Information Makes You More Engaged”: Elena Oxman on “Outerlands” After a run-in with a new coworker at the laundromat, Cass (Asia Kate Dillon) has a drunken hookup with Kalli (Louisa Krause). Kalli seems to take an immediate trusting to Cass, and after Cass tells…

had a great chat with Elena Oxman on her stunning debut OUTERLANDS, which effortlessly bounces between a first-person realism and a surprising poetic inflection filmmakermagazine.com/132649-inter...

they blew up the pigeon population in Mumbai last night

i’ll circle back on this around 2am

let me hit the casino and get back to you

How to Open a Volunteer-Run, Non-Profit Video Store in Your City (like we did in Bmore!) | [ON PATREON HIATUS] Eric Allen Hatch Get more from [ON PATREON HIATUS] Eric Allen Hatch on Patreon

re: WB-Netflix

physical media is more important than ever and it should be accessible to people everywhere. Baltimore has had a nonprofit video store for year’s now, and one of its co-founders @ericallenhatch.bsky.social wrote about how it can be replicated www.patreon.com/posts/24007106

i see a number of you talking about the “Train Dreams Wars” which is quaint and all but i’m not sure you realize how in the trenches it got

Tibet via California: Tenzin Phuntsog on “Next Life” An image of the Dalai Lama gives diasporic texture to an otherwise anonymous suburban American house; the camera tracks to the next room, where a father, mother, and son sit like statues.

had a great talk with my old professor, Tenzin Phuntsog, about making films that are important to you and his debut NEXT LIFE filmmakermagazine.com/132497-inter...

bro last night was an american canto

film criticism may be dying, but The A.V. Club let me write about Bazin’s ontology of the image, and that’s not for nothing