Eulogized debuts draw ravenous, patient cynics, who stalk the scent of a fledgling’s success to their second movie, hoping their foe might slip. Robert Eggers, a name of contention after headlines announced he would remake Nosferatu (TBD) before his Sundance debut The Witch was released theatrically for audiences to decide if he were worthy themselves, has made his second move.  The Lighthouse, a sophomore effort especially susceptible to readied blows, has made it back with critics on the festival circuit and will now see appraisal from the mainstream on its theatrical bout. But the film expels farts and sailor vulgarity, an […]

Bong Joon Ho may have shifted his subject from genetically engineered super pigs (Okja) and setting from a speeding, class-stratified train (Snowpiercer), but it’d be wrong to assign his Palme d’Or winning Parasite to a new league of subtlety. That’s not a knock — vulgarity is the name of the game for this “Korean New Wave,” in which Bong, and now Parasite, have an evolving role. Bong’s metaphors have shrunk in size for his latest, but they’ve increased in number, becoming part of a loud, meta, and self-parodying dialogue. Ki-woo (Choi Woo-Shik), the son in Parasite‘s working-class family, interacts with […]

I didn’t know if Tim Heidecker was going to show up for this interview, or if I was going to get his boorish, abusive, dim alter ego, Tim Heidecker. Luckily Tim Heidecker leaves Tim Heidecker in the On Cinema universe. That project he started with Gregg Turkington is comprised of an ongoing series called On Cinema at the Cinema, various spin-off series including The Trial of Tim Heidecker, special episodes, segments, tweets, songs, and now the feature film Mister America. In this half hour, I ask Heidecker to lift the hood on his performance style and the evolution of his […]

The wise and talented Cassidy Freeman plays Amber, wife of Danny McBride’s character Jesse, on the hilarious new HBO comedy series The Righteous Gemstones. She talks about the wonderful troupe mentality on that show, what acting in 60+ episodes of Smallville did to build her craft early in her career, the importance of creativity for the actor, plus much more! Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher. And if you’re enjoying what you are hearing, please subscribe and rate us! Photo credit: Catie Lafoon

It’s tempting to sum up this weekend’s pop culture focus as rooted in chronic coulrophobia. As Todd Phillips’s Joker, the latest big screen incarnation of the DC Comics ubervillan, opens across 4,000 theaters, a fear of clowns (coupled with a pathetic lack of common sense gun laws) has collectively stricken the country. Temporary bans have been put in place that discourage moviegoers from adorning clown makeup, security amped up for extensive bag checks, and theater chains encouraged to emphasize Joker’s well-earned, hard R-rating. Has the mere thought of clowning (that is, the obscuring of identity under facepaint) brought about an […]

For 20 years running, the films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have confronted a single fundamental facet of modern life: class. From their breakout La Promesse (1996) to The Unknown Girl (2016), the messy tangle of money, employment, and morality has defined their work. The brothers take a hard turn, in subject if not style, with Young Ahmed. The film debuted at Cannes, like their previous seven features, where it won the Best Director prize earlier this year. Despite that honor–which they won over Almodóvar, Tarantino, and Malick among other heavyweights–the film has earned the harshest reviews of the Dardennes’ career. […]

The greatest soccer player of his time, Diego Maradona was also the sport’s highest-paid athlete until he was forced out of competition due to his criminal connections and substance abuse problems. Director Asif Kapadia built the HBO Sports release Diego Maradona from over 500 hours of archival footage, much of it never seen by the public. After a theatrical run for Oscar consideration, Diego Maradona is now screening on HBO. The documentary focuses on Maradona’s years in Naples, where he led the Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli team to its first league championship. A native of Argentina, Maradona also played in […]

[The following conversation was provided by Kartemquin Films.] This October 29 at the 2019 Empowering Truth Benefit Luncheon, Kartemquin will honor documentary trailblazer Julia Reichert with the inaugural Empowering Truth Award. The Empowering Truth Award recognizes the extraordinary accomplishments of an individual or organization whose work has made a significant contribution to social issue storytelling or has strengthened the landscape of the field in ways that foster diversity and empower marginalized perspectives. For nearly 50 years—since the release of her groundbreaking debut Growing Up Female in 1971 —Julia Reichert has consistently championed the unsung, fought racial and gender discrimination, and laid […]

The first time I saw Angela Schanelec speak, there was nothing for her to smile about: at a cartoonishly hostile Q&A for 2016’s The Dreamed Path, she fielded questions like “Was this supposed to take place in an alternate universe where emotions don’t exist?” and admirably didn’t yield an inch. Returning to TIFF, Schanelec was onhand not just for Q&As for her latest, I Was at Home, But… but to introduce a 35mm rep screening of Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket—one of the foundational works from a director whose influence on, and importance for, Schanelec’s work is immediately apparent. Both when I interviewed her […]

Starring the “bastard son of a hundred maniacs” (the horrifically burned, blade-adorned fictional sweater-wearing slasher, Freddy Krueger), A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge was itself a kind of bastard son, birthed by good intentions but several less maniacs. Released on November 1st, 1985, the sequel was rushed into theaters on the goodwill and unexpected success of its Wes Craven-directed predecessor. Reviews were less than stellar, and it would take the return of Craven in a creative role to right the ship with the third entry in 1987. Nightmare 2 was forgotten and ignored, deemed an outlier in the franchise […]