Authors — Erik Luers
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“Can You Shoot Action?” Director Gina Prince-Bythewood and Editor Terilyn A. Shropshire on The Old Guard and Love & Basketball’s 20th Anniversary
A summer action movie (based on a pre-existing comic book) starring Charlize Theron may feel like a familiar recipe for a blockbuster hit. But as envisioned by Gina Prince-Bythewood, The Old Guard is less cookie-cutter, multiplex fodder than a humanist portrait of independent contractors who just happen to be immortal beings keeping the peace. From the Crusades through the Civil War and, as the film opens, America’s current War on Terror, the old guard consists of its leader, Andy (Theron) and three men (Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli) who have fought in every war the world has ever […]
by Erik Luers on Jul 14, 2020 -
“A Sequel to a Film That Doesn’t Exist”: Max Barbakow on Palm Springs
Setting a record for most expensive acquisition in Sundance history, Max Barbakow’s debut feature, Palm Springs, sold jointly to Neon (theatrical) and Hulu (streaming) for a reported $17.5 mil and 69 cents (it broke the previous record by 69 cents). Early press described the film as a sci-fi twist on the 1993 comedy, Groundhog Day; trading in SNL’s Bill Murray for another alum, Andy Samberg, Barbakow welcomes the comparison. With the marketable hook firmly established (Harold Ramis meets Shane Carruth!), Palm Springs ultimately becomes a film about two strangers brought together by an agonizing event: a cringeworthy wedding in Palm Springs. […]
by Erik Luers on Jul 9, 2020 -
Director Michael Jacobs on Making the Basketball Doc Blackballed for Quibi’s Mobile, Dual Aspect-Ratio Platform
Long regarded as the worst-run franchise in the National Basketball Association, the Los Angeles Clippers have (after brief stints in Buffalo and San Diego) called the “City of Angels” their home since the summer of 1984. Purchased for a cool $12.5 million in 1981 by real estate tycoon Donald Sterling, the Clippers’ relocation to LA was seen as a move that would hopefully rival its “big brother” franchise led by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Los Angeles Lakers. That ultimately wasn’t meant to be: the Lakers, long a shining example of the league, continued its successful run atop the […]
by Erik Luers on May 21, 2020 -
“Directing Other People’s Writing Makes You Become a Better Writer”: Andrew Ahn on Driveways
There are a number of films about an inquisitive child who discovers a solemn, older neighbor next door, but it’s rare for one to provide equal weight to both the child and adult characters. Driveways, a modest but heartfelt second feature from Spa Night’s Andrew Ahn, succeeds at striking the balance. Kathy (Hong Chau) and Cody (Lucas Jaye), a mother and son from Michigan, arrive in upstate New York to clear out the home of a deceased family member and prepare it for sale. Del (Brian Dennehy), a Korean War veteran and lonely widower, spends his days sitting on the porch next […]
by Erik Luers on May 14, 2020 -
“The ’50s as Seen Through the Lens of the ’80s”: Martha Stephens on To the Stars
A small town in Oklahoma in the early 1960s: not much tends to happen here, and if it were up to its lifelong residents, things would stay that way. Maggie (Liana Liberato), an 18-year-old outsider, arrives from the big city, her parents and siblings in tow. Brash and outspoken, Maggie befriends Iris (Kara Hayward), a shy, bookish teen who’s harrassed by the local boys and mocked by the girls. The two bring out the best in each other, encouraging a period of growth and self-discovery. Both from various forms of a broken home, the two friends’ fluid meshing of personalities […]
by Erik Luers on May 1, 2020 -
“Some of the Old LA Sleaze”: Rachel Mason on Circus of Books
Long an enclave for individuals to frequent and explore without fear of condescending judgment, brick-and-mortar porn shops have been going the way of the dodo bird. Why browse in person when you can search through endless adult content online free of charge? Who wants to sheepishly walk toward the back of a store, slipping through the creaky saloon doors to peruse graphic DVD covers that promise over eight hours of explicit content when you can just as easily scroll through an infinite archive on your phone? Feel awkward purchasing toys, lubricants, edibles, and reading material over the counter in person? […]
by Erik Luers on Apr 24, 2020 -
“We Needed a Killer Concept Trailer”: Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham on Crip Camp, Battling the Health Care System and Working with the Obamas
The 1970s: an oil and energy crisis, numerous coup d’états (some failed, some successful), a massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, the rise (Margaret Thatcher, Augusto Pinochet) and falls (Richard Nixon) of world leaders, the beginning (Lebanon) and end (Vietnam) of drawn-out wars, and a New York-based serial killer who terrorized young adults because his neighbor’s dog ordered him to. Oh, to go back again! Stateside, the ’70s saw further proliferation of rock music, drugs, second-wave feminism, the Black Panther movement and general political unrest and upheaval. Titled after a since-closed Catskills camp for disabled youth that was itself something […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 27, 2020 -
“Handwashing is Not Exactly Cinematic”: Carlo Mirabella-Davis on Swallow
While release dates are often determined months in advance for a slew of reasons solely related to a film’s individual success, it’s striking to see how some can be placed in indirect conversation with one another. I recently revisited Carlo Mirabella-Davis’s debut feature Swallow just a few days after taking in Leigh Whannell’s feminist blockbuster adaptation of The Invisible Man. Both are about women in emotionally abusive relationships that have grown increasingly difficult to break free from. To complicate matters, each are pregnant with their lover’s child, and that the pregnancy is carried out to term is of utmost importance to […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 11, 2020 -
“No One Was Willing to Sign the Check”: Rashaad Ernesto Green and Zora Howard on Premature, Shooting 16mm and Self-Financing
Included in the 2010 edition of 25 New Faces of Independent Film, director Rashaad Ernesto Green has been sitting with his intricate story of love had and love lost, Premature, for quite a while now. The original short film, made while Green was a film student at NYU Tisch, was described in his 25 New Face profile as being “classically built,” telling the story of a “teenager who, having found no support for her pregnancy from either her disaffected family and brutal community, resorts to drastic, near-tragic measures to free herself of responsibility.” Green’s leading lady in the short, his […]
by Erik Luers on Feb 24, 2020 -
“Exploring the Toll Activism was Taking on People of Color Specifically”: Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan on Their Oscar-Nominated Short St. Louis Superman
Bruce Franks Jr., an African-American resident of St. Louis, Missouri, grew fed up with senseless gun violence running rampant throughout his community. Inspired in part by the Black Lives Matter protests of Ferguson, MO following the 2014 slaying of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, Franks Jr. decided to run for office and was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democractic state legislator. Filmmakers Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan’s St. Louis Superman, nominated for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at this weekend’s Academy Awards, chronicles Franks Jr.’s year-long quest to pass a bill that will classify youth-affected gun violence as an epidemic. […]
by Erik Luers on Feb 7, 2020
