Richard Linklater
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TIFF 2023: The Holdovers, Hit Man
In terms of acquisitions, the most financially significant screening of last year’s TIFF was an industry-only one of The Holdovers, a Miramax-developed title whose worldwide rights promptly sold for $30 million to Focus Features; this year, it returned for press and public inspection following its Telluride premiere. It is, as previously announced, a crowdpleaser directed by Alexander Payne, designed for career rejuvenation after the ambitious, unwieldy and expensive commercial failure of 2017’s Downsizing, and effectively written under his instruction by sitcom writer-producer David Hemingson. He cannibalized what was initially written as a prep school-set pilot by, among other things, following Payne’s directive to […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 12, 2023 -
“Once I Said Yes to That Film, It Changed Everything”: DP Lee Daniel on His Pre-Slacker Austin Days
Austin in the ‘80s was a college town dressed up as a state capitol, attracting a steady stream of students, dreamers, and dropouts hanging out on the edge (literally and metaphorically) of the University of Texas campus, where Lee Daniel and Rick Linklater screened foreign flicks and postmodern masterpieces in a DIY venue above a coffee shop. Daniel and Linklater brought revival-house sophistication to a community of misfits and film fanatics when they formed Austin Media Arts (now the Austin Film Society) in 1985. The pair lived down the street from their repertory cinema in a West Campus residence that […]
by Barbara Purcell on Mar 1, 2022 -
Bun B on the Houston Cinema Arts Society, Criterion Laserdiscs and Squid Game
In May of 2015, legendary rapper and Texan Bun B joined the board of directors of the Houston Cinema Arts Society—first conceived in 2007, with the first edition of its annual film festival held in 2009. This Friday sees the start of the 13th Houston Cinema Arts Festival, including centerpiece and closing night screenings of Bushwick Bill: Geto Boy, a documentary that allows the late artist to tell his story in his own words. Bun B will be moderating the latter Q&A, which is far from the first time he’s gotten out and pushed for the organization. My job, by definition, does not […]
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 11, 2021 -
Watch: Richard Linklater’s Anti-Ted Cruz Campaign Ad
A new contribution to the Texas midterm battle between Ted Cruz and aspirant challenger Beto O’Rourke, this campaign ad is directed by Richard Linklater. It stars Sonny Carl Davis, something of a legend in Texas film, going back to his roles in Eagle Pennell’s The Whole Shootin’ Match (1978) and Last Night at the Alamo (1983). The ad does not explicitly endorse O’Rourke; it’s 30 seconds of Davis fiercely trash-talking Cruz in a diner, a chopped-down monologue that plays like an outtake from Linklater’s Bernie. There’s a reason for that: it’s Davis who delivers that film’s monologue breaking down the “five different states” of Texas, and […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 11, 2018 -
Critic’s Notebook NYFF: Faces Places, The Rape of Recy Taylor, Last Flag Flying
Seventeen years ago, Agnès Varda filmed her own hand in horror. The blotches, the wrinkles, the bulging blue veins: These may as well be the hands of a stranger. “My hair and my hands keep telling me that the end is near,” she says in her 2000 film The Gleaners & I. Despite the forebodings of death in Gleaners and 2008’s The Beaches of Agnès, Agnès is still with us; what a gift it is to have her still around. Varda, now 89, has partnered with French artist JR to co-direct another freewheeling, full-of-life documentary. Faces Places overflows with the […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Oct 4, 2017 -
NYFF 2017: Last Flag Flying
Until relatively recently, Richard Linklater’s hopscotching across genres and budgetary tiers had him generally pegged as an unpredictable magpie whose next move would never be clear; now, certain circles of online discourse have him basically pegged as the alpha male celebrator of white patriarchy (I did my song and dance on this a while ago, no reprise necessary). Setting aside those pejoratively-described constants, I think it’s true that starting with Before Midnight (the exact pivot point is arguable) the mandatory elements of A Film By Richard Linklater have become pretty fixed (put another way, I certainly don’t expect faithful filmings of mediocre plays […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 28, 2017 -
Richard Linklater on the Future of the Austin Film Society: “This is the Best Year We’ve Ever Had”
The Austin Film Society hosted a media-exclusive lunch this past Friday to discuss their most exciting current project: the redesign and expansion of their cinema and event space. Presented by Founder & Artistic Director Richard Linklater, CEO Rebecca Campbell, Head of Film & Creative Media Holly Herrick, architect Michael Hsu and Designtrait, the afternoon stressed a shared belief in making a place for Austinites to discover artistically significant cinema old and new. A repertory house, a first-run theater, a shrine to great records and beautiful poster art, and an event space equipped to host a multitude of special gatherings: it’s clear that the AFS […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 14, 2017 -
23 Paces to Baker Street, Mildred Pierce, Linklater and Almodovar, and More: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations
In a career-spanning interview with Polly Platt for the DGA oral history series, director Henry Hathaway dismissed his 1956 thriller 23 Paces to Baker Street as a throwaway, one of those studio assignments he took without much relish. It’s yet another example of why filmmakers cannot be trusted when it comes to their own films, for while the material is slightly shopworn (and owes an enormous and obvious debt to Hitchcock’s Rear Window), Hathaway frames it with meticulous care and artistry. The movie follows Van Johnson as a blind playwright who thinks he overhears a crime being plotted; after the […]
by Jim Hemphill on Feb 24, 2017 -
Anti-Art Criticism, “In the Age of Trump”
The joke between me and my Sundance roommate/colleague was that every review and write-up would contain the phrase “In the age of Trump.” Another phrase to watch out for is “now more than ever,” spoken verbatim twice during this year’s Sundance acceptance speeches. The proposition that independent film will “lead the resistance” against Our 45th President is a dubious one: I don’t remember The Lucky Ones or In the Valley of Elah helping anything in particular. The repeated invocation of certain dead phrases to summon up a spell against the darkness inevitably and a bit boringly brings to mind Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” […]
by Vadim Rizov on Feb 2, 2017 -
“OK, Storaro, Let’s Go”: DP Shane F. Kelly on Working with Richard Linklater and Everybody Wants Some!!
After a decade working with Richard Linklater, cinematographer Shane F. Kelly has learned that the most important rule on a Linklater set is that the performers have primacy. “Rick wants you to provide him with a stage for his actors to work within. So as a DP you can’t really be too controlling,” Kelly said. “He wants the actors to have freedom of both performance and movement and if I try to restrict that, I’ll get a little nod from Rick.” It’s a lesson Kelly learned in his first collaboration with Linklater on 2006’s A Scanner Darkly, when the Irish-born […]
by Matt Mulcahey on May 19, 2016
