Authors — Erik Luers
-
“It’s a Maximalist Kind of Movie”: Producer-Turned-Director Alex Scharfman on Horror Comedy Death of a Unicorn
Death of a Unicorn, the feature debut by producer Alex Scharfman, could also be titled Death by Unicorn, as the film offers numerous stabbings via horn by the title creatures. The A24 production co-stars Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega as a father and daughter who, on their way to visit an uber-rich pharmaceutical bigwig (Richard E. Grant) at his secluded compound in the woods, hit a unicorn with their car. The father and daughter load it up and plan to dispose of it later, but the mythical creature’s family comes looking for revenge, going on a murderous parental outrage. “When […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 31, 2025 -
“It Took 31 Years”: Zeinabu irene Davis on Compensation
Because I had loved so deeply, Because I had loved so long, God in His great compassion Gave me the gift of song. Because I have loved so vainly, And sung with such faltering breath, The Master in infinite mercy Offers the boon of Death. — “Compensation” (1906) by Paul Laurence Dunbar Zeinabu irene Davis’s Compensation (1999) tells dual stories of pairs of lovers (both played by Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks) at the beginning and end of the 20th century. The film is uniquely attuned to deaf culture, American prejudice and two distinct pandemics. Creative in her […]
by Erik Luers on Feb 28, 2025 -
The Truth Exhumed: Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat on Sugarcane
Beginning in 1894, the Canadian government forced Indigenous children to attend segregated boarding schools. The schools were designed to “get rid of the Indian ‘problem.’” Most were run by the Catholic church. For years, students spoke of abuse and whispered about missing classmates. This explanatory text opens Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie’s Sugarcane, establishing the basis for a piece of investigative journalism and a portrait of healing familial catharsis. After unmarked graves were discovered in 2021 on land once occupied by the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, NoiseCat and Kassie became interested in making a film about […]
by Erik Luers on Dec 16, 2024 -
“You Can’t Tell the Story of America Without a Theft”: Malcolm Washington on The Piano Lesson
Set in 1936, The Piano Lesson—the fourth chronological entry in playwright August Wilson’s ten-play Century Cycle—is both a family drama and a ghost story. The titular musical instrument sits in the living room of Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson), who lives in Pittsburgh’s Hill District with his adult niece Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) and her young daughter Maretha (Skylar Aleece Smith). As the story opens, Berniece’s brother Boy Willie (John David Washington) and his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher) have arrived at the Charles House from Mississippi, looking to sell a truckload of watermelons they’ve brought from their home state. Once inside […]
by Erik Luers on Nov 22, 2024 -
Cap’n Crunch and the Serial Killer: John McNaughton on His Career
Currently underway at the the Nitehawk Cinema in Prospect Park, “Portraits of Wild Things: The Films of John McNaughton” is a long overdue retrospective of the Chicago-based filmmaker of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). Like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), I’ve always felt that the most exploitative aspect of McNaughton’s film was its title—it sounds like something you shouldn’t take joy in watching even if you’re even depraved enough to seek it out in the first place. Critically praised upon its (much delayed) release, Henry provided McNaughton with a path to mainstream success, even as the filmmaker […]
by Erik Luers on Oct 2, 2024 -
Shudder Speed: Fantasia International Film Festival 2024
The largest genre film festival in North America, Montréal’s ever-growing Fantasia International Film Festival celebrated its 28th edition this summer. This was my seventh year covering for Filmmaker, my ninth in attendance and I arrived with a severe case of FOMO: at an industry party last year, I met a man dressed head-to-toe in a gigantic beaver costume, allegedly to promote a feature he had at the festival. He was charming, so I told him I’d make an effort to see Hundreds of Beavers, but a part of me, taken aback by the man’s zany attire and commitment to self-promotion, knew […]
by Erik Luers on Sep 24, 2024 -
“We Have Complete Creative Control”: Chuck Russell on Witchboard
The first film directed by Chuck Russell I can remember seeing was the special effects-driven Jim Carrey vehicle The Mask at a multiplex with my family thirty years ago (the summer comedy opened on July 29th, 1994 in over 2,300 North American theaters). However, it was his work in the horror genre with co-writer Frank Darabont that really hooked me. Both 1987’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors—released when the filmmaker was only 28—and 1988’s remake of The Blob were gooey and gory, yes, but also competent adventure films, their charm derived from Russell’s nimble craftsmanship and the […]
by Erik Luers on Aug 12, 2024 -
“Everybody Passed on It”: Sean Wang on Dìdi
If having your first feature premiere at the Sundance Film Festival is an accomplishment, being nominated for an Academy Award the same week is pretty much unheard of. Nonetheless, that’s what writer-director Sean Wang experienced last January when his coming-of-age narrative feature, Dìdi, premiered to glowing reviews (and a distribution deal with Focus Features) while his nonfiction portrait of his two grandmothers, Nai Nai & Wài Pó, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Short. Still in his 20s, Wang’s career has skyrocketed over the past year, and now Dìdi “younger brother” in Chinese) opens in theaters riding a […]
by Erik Luers on Jul 26, 2024 -
Three Weeks in July: Greg Kwedar on Sing Sing
The first and best reason to see Sing Sing, the new feature from Transpecos director Greg Kwedar, is for the lead performance of Colman Domingo. One year after receiving an Academy Award nomination for his title role in Rustin, Domingo is even better as John “Divine G” Whitfield, a wrongfully incarcerated inmate of Sing Sing Correctional Facility. An accomplished author, Divine G was a member of Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), a program founded at Sing Sing in 1996 that “helps people in prison develop critical life skills through the arts, modeling an approach to the justice system based on […]
by Erik Luers on Jul 18, 2024 -
Internal Lives: Annie Baker on Janet Planet
For a playwright, making their feature directorial debut comes with a certain degree of anticipatory hype, and the results are evaluated with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they aren’t too “wordy” or “stagey.” As with David Mamet’s House of Games, Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me, John Patrick Shanley’s Joe Versus the Volcano or Celine Song’s Past Lives, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker’s Janet Planet should put any fears to rest as to how the director would take to creating specifically for the screen. Not that there should have been any doubt: Her interests have long been steeped […]
by Erik Luers on Jun 27, 2024
