Some indie stalwarts have been around for so long; you’re kind of surprised when you realize they haven’t worked with another indie veteran. Such is kind of the case with actor Ethan Hawke and indie filmmaker Abel Ferrara. Yes, Hawke showed up in Ferrara’s 2008 documentary “Chelsea Hotel,” interviewed about staying in the famous hotel. Still, he’d actually never starred or appeared in any of Ferrara’s many narrative feature-length films, an oddity considering the same paths they often traveled.

Continue reading ‘Zeros & Ones’ First Look: Watch The First 2 Clips Of Ethan Hawke In Abel Ferrara’s Locarno Award-Winning Drama at The Playlist.

Lockdown affected us all in peculiar ways, and given that veteran provocateur Abel Ferrara was pretty damn peculiar to begin with, it’s no surprise that “Zeros And Ones” — a fiction that makes use of the non-fictional pandemic in ways both fascinating and frustrating — should turn out to be such a conundrum, equal parts confounding and intriguing, repellent and rewarding. Ostensibly a more genre-based exercise than Ferrara’s last few films – there are explosions, soldiers, guns, spycams, and foot chases through the livid Rome night — in fact, this new dystopian drama may be more difficult and inaccessible than his 2020 Berlin mindfuck “Siberia,” which at least had a fish quoting Nietzsche to signal that perhaps it wasn’t all meant entirely seriously. 

READ MORE: Abel Ferrara Talks ‘Siberia,’ Working With Dennis Hopper, Staying Sober & Much More [Deep Focus Podcast]

“Zeros and Ones,” by contrast, is profoundly serious — possibly to the detriment of understanding its sludgier undercurrents; a little bit of leavening humor might have made it all less impenetrable.

Continue reading Abel Ferrara’s ‘Zeros And Ones’ With Ethan Hawke Is A Flashbulb Pop Of Pandemic-Era Filmmaking & A Fascinating, Ferocious Funsuck [Locarno Review] at The Playlist.

John Swab‘s fourth feature film as writer-director-producer, “Ida Red,” (and if it’s your first of his, don’t feel too bad; it well may also be your last) starts with a police stop that turns out to be a heist. On a deserted stretch of highway late at night, a nicely spoken cop, played by Josh Hartnett, asks politely to see a trucker’s manifest. And when the tired, irascible trucker seeks permission to retrieve it from his door compartment, you feel a frisson of worry.

Continue reading ‘Ida Red’ With Josh Hartnett, Frank Grillo And Melissa Leo Asks: What if ‘Animal Kingdom’ But Dumb And Oklahoman? [Locarno Review] at The Playlist.

Look, sometimes even the snootiest of cinephiles, with the most obscurantist of cinematic palates (generally well served by the Locarno Film Festival selection), just needs a movie about a massive sinkhole. And when that mood strikes, now there’s Kim Ji-hoon‘s “Sinkhole,” aka “Sing-keu-hol” (pronounced: “Sinkhole”), a modest little social issues drama about a boy from a rural farming community who haha just kidding it’s about a sinkhole.

Continue reading ‘Sinkhole’ Is A Silly, Sentimental, Satisfying Comedic Disaster Movie About Man’s Inhumanit–No, It’s About A Really Big Sinkhole [Locarno Review] at The Playlist.

No matter who you believe, whether it’s the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) saying theaters are being destroyed by streaming or perhaps studios trying to explain how streaming and theatrical release models will benefit everyone involved, the truth is that the theatrical experience is changing in a big way. And some, like John David Washington, are concerned about the survival of the big screen experience.

READ MORE: ‘Black Widow’ Has Historically Bad Box Office Drop As Theater Owners Blame Disney+ Access

Speaking at the Locarno Film Festival (via Variety), where his new film, “Beckett,” is having its world premiere, John David Washington talked about the feature and why the festival experience has him worried about the future of the industry.

Continue reading John David Washington Talks The “Survival Of The Theatrical Experience” While At ‘Beckett’ Premiere at The Playlist.

For a film in which John David Washington lurches, staggers, stumbles, shambles, flounders, falters, wobbles, scrabbles and totters across an entire Greek province, getting shot, stabbed, cuffed (often in the very same already broken arm), punched, beaten, chased and stung by bees, is in two-car crashes but also gets hit by a car, escapes in the trunk of a car, gets in a taser fight in a car and eventually falls from a great height onto a car,  “Beckett” sure is dull.

Continue reading Netflix’s ‘Beckett’ With John David Washington, Alicia Vikander & Vicky Krieps: A Wrong-Man Thriller That Never Gets It Right [Locarno Review] at The Playlist.

It’s no secret that movies take a long time to make. With the special effects that go into creating an animated, those often take even longer. But at 30 years in the making, “Mad God” blows them all out of the water. With its new trailer, the movie is finally going to see the light of day.

READ MORE: Summer 2021 Preview: Over 50 Movies To
Watch

“Mad God” comes from famed special effects master Phil Tippett.

Continue reading ‘Mad God’ Trailer: VFX Master Phil Tippett Introduces A Film 30 Years In The Making at The Playlist.

The 74th Locarno Film Festival will take place in person from August 4 to August 14 in Locarno, Switzerland, and the festival’s film lineup has been announced via The Hollywood Reporter. The Swiss event was founded back in 1946 and is one of the longest-running film festivals in the world.

READ MORE: ‘Halloween Kills’ To Premiere At Venice Film Festival As Jamie Lee Curtis Honored With Lifetime Achievement Award

Studio pics at the Piazza Grande lineup will include Ferdinando Cito Filomarino’s thriller “Beckett” that features performances from John David Washington and Alicia Vikander, Shawn Levy‘s video game adventure film “Free Guy” led by Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer, John Swab’s actioner “Ida Red” starring Melissa Leo, and Liesl Tommy’s biopic “Respect” starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson.

Continue reading Locarno Film Festival Lineup Includes ‘Beckett,’ ‘Ida Red,’ Abel Ferrara’s ‘Zeros & Ones,’ Gaspar Noé’s ‘Vortex’ & More at The Playlist.

Coming of age movies are a dime a dozen, but they normally don’t include sandwiches — that is, until “Ham on Rye.” The new trailer brings about a different coming of age story.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2020 You Didn’t See

The movie follows a bizarre tradition in protagonist Haley’s hometown. Kids dress in their grandparents’ clothing and make a pilgrimage to the local deli.

Continue reading ‘Ham On Rye’ Trailer: Festival Fave Indie Reinvigorates The Coming Of Age Film & Arrives Next Week at The Playlist.

The summer film festival season is apparently not going to happen. We already saw Cannes move from the spring to the summer, to hopefully avoid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, that move didn’t help and it appears that the first film festivals of the year could be happening in September. That means, festivals such as Locarno, the Swiss festival (scheduled for August) that proudly features international indie films, is also dealing with unplanned cancellation.

Continue reading Locarno 2020 Is Canceled & Replaced By Initiative To Support Struggling Independent Filmmakers at The Playlist.

Centered around the coming of age of nine-year-old Alma (Oro De Commarque), on vacation with her two brothers Jean (Ettore Giustiniani) and Seb (Milo Roussel), separated (and inept) father Carlo (Riccardo Scamarcio), and his writing partner/lover Benedetta (Alba Rohrwacher), Ginevra Elkann’s tender directorial debut “Magari” [aka “If Only”] is a sweetly nostalgic film that is intimate in its scope and treatment of its characters.

Continue reading ‘Magari’ Is A Sweet, Nostalgic Debut For Filmmaker Ginevra Elkann [Locarno Review] at The Playlist.

A quiet, contemplative film that never wants for excessive dialogue or exposition, “Maternal” is so visceral and raw that it almost feels verité. This isn’t a documentary, though, but rather a thoughtful drama that is wholly concerned with the experiences of women, and the fluid nature of motherhood.

“Maternal” is set, and remains almost entirely throughout, in an unwed mothers shelter in Buenos Aires. The facility is managed by Catholic nuns, who look after the women and tend to the upbringing of their children, who range from newborns to preoperational.

Continue reading ‘Maternal’ Is A Magnificent Minimalist Drama That Beautifully Grapples With Timeless Issues [Locarno Review] at The Playlist.

In the opening stages of “Echo,” a farmhouse burns brilliantly against the beautifully bruised sky of Iceland at dusk. It’s a striking image that recalls the climax of Andrei Tarkovksy’s “The Sacrifice,” a moment consumed with despair, madness, and transformation as part of a bargain with God. However, in the new film by Rúnar Rúnarsson, the occasion carries no such theological or metaphysical concerns.

Continue reading ‘Echo’ Elegantly Explores Iceland’s Personal & Political Landscape At Christmas [Locarno Review] at The Playlist.

Sure, everyone has their sights set on the upcoming fall film festival season, with Venice being the headline-grabber right out of the gate. However, let’s not sleep on the Locarno Film Festival, which begins August 7. One of the premier festivals devoted to bringing the best in international arthouse fare has just announced its lineup, and if you’re in Switzerland during that 10 day period, you’re likely going to have plenty of great films to check out.

Continue reading Locarno 2019 Includes A New Short From Yorgos Lanthimos & Films From Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Patrick Vollrath & More at The Playlist.

It’s rare to be truly surprised by a movie. Even at a film festival (especially one like the LFF, which mostly screens movies that have picked up buzz elsewhere), you’re often playing catch-up, and even when you find something that no one else has told you about, it all too often falls into a familiar sort of formula. Which is why a movie like “Good Manners” is so refreshing, and we’d suggest you went into it knowing as little as possible about it (we’ll stay as spoiler-free as we can below).

Continue reading ‘Good Manners’ Is The Year’s Best Brazilian Lesbian Werewolf Musical Melodrama [BFI London Film Fest Review] at The Playlist.

Watch: Trailer For Hong Sang-Soo's Locarno Award Winner 'Right Now, Wrong Then'; Film Heads To TIFF Next

Continue reading Watch: Trailer For Hong Sang-Soo’s Locarno Award Winner ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’; Film Heads To TIFF Next at The Playlist.

Locarno Exclusive: Watch The Trailer For Zach Weintraub's Bromantic Dramedy 'Slackjaw'

Continue reading Locarno Exclusive: Watch The Trailer For Zach Weintraub’s Bromantic Dramedy ‘Slackjaw’ at The Playlist.

Weinsteins Kept 'Snowpiercer' From TIFF, Wanted Neil Gaiman To Write New Voiceovers For The Film

Continue reading Weinsteins Kept ‘Snowpiercer’ From TIFF, Wanted Neil Gaiman To Write New Voiceovers For The Film at The Playlist.