With Rick Alverson’s Filmmaker-recommended The Mountain opening today in theaters, we’re debuting this edition of Not Getting Stoned with Caveh featuring the Virginia-based auteur and his blissed-out interlocutor, Caveh Zahedi. Re the “not,” Alverson disdains pot smoke, allowing Zahedi to puff in his presence but not exhale. Topics discussed: why filmmakers talk about financing all the time, whether cinema produces a physiological response in our bodies that can’t be adequately described in words, and how Alverson thinks about his own filmography.
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 26, 2019Divisive. Vexing. Hilarious. Disturbing. Stimulating. Exhilarating. However one feels about the films of Rick Alverson, one thing’s for certain: the adjectives used to express that opinion will be strong. From The Builder (2010) to Entertainment (2015), Alverson has relentlessly challenged his audiences to confront—and dare to release—their preconceived notions of narrative cinema. At a time when the independent festival circuit has begun to feel more like a breeding ground for the major studios and television networks than a showcase for brash, defiantly original stand-alone works of art, Alverson is providing a desperately needed jolt—a reminder of what truly independent cinema […]
by Michael Tully on Jun 19, 2019