SXSW

With the end of the year upon us, we now look ahead to 2021 and a “healthy & safe” award season. 

SXSW recently announced their coveted Audience Award Winners which included Edgar Wright’s highly anticipated Baby Driver as well as the emotional drama The Light of the Moon starring Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s Stephanie Beatriz. Other big winners include Noel Wells’ (Master of None) directorial debut, Mr. Roosevelt as well as Netflix’s adaptation of Justin Simien’s Dear White People.

The documentary Becoming Bond takes a refreshing approach to the story of one-and-done 007 actor George Lazenby while Bill Nye: Science Guy gives the iconic TV personality the scientific credit he deserves.

Comedy nerds will love how Nobodies puts an absurd slant on a specific part of the comedy community, while the ’90s-set pic Hot Summer Nights fails to pick a lane when it comes to tone.

Whatever you do, don’t call Mr. Roosevelt quirky. Thrift shop dresses are quirky. Ironic coffee shop wall art is quirky. This comedy is not. What could have been an ordinary, boilerplate indie rom-com of the SXSW ilk, is a solid feature debut with lively personality and perspective from Noel Wells.

David Flebotte’s Showtime series I’m Dying Up Here attempts to put its finger on the pulse of the comedy world and does an admirable job of itwith the jokes, snark, and riffing. But the humor is merely a vehicle to show the emotional relationship between the characters, the pleasure and pain of dream-chasing, and the catharsis of comedy.

Aaron Katz’s celeb murder mystery gives eerie vibes throughout, but as the film rolls along, the story loosens its grasp on the audience and makes for an ending that is simply satisfying rather than shocking.

The winners of SXSW’s Jury and Special Awards have been unveiled. Saturday Night Live cast member Sasheer Zamata announced the winners at a special ceremony at the Paramount Theatre in Austin. Ana Asensio’s psychological thriller Most Beautiful Island nabbed the top award in the Narrative Feature Competition while the captivating prison doc The Work earned the award for Documentary Feature Competition.

A genre mash-up of 28 Days Later, The Raid, and Office Space, Mayhem is a non-stop gnarly ride of tortuous blood-soaked fights driven by rage — and it is unbelievably awesome.

Evan Katz tackles very heady material in this pulpy noir and although it entertains (to a certain extent) and is stacked with a phenomenal roster of actors, the film tends to become over-involved and twisted within itself.

The film garnered acclaim at Sundance and turned the volume up a few of notches when it came to the conversation about identity politics. Now, with the new upcoming television adaptation, director Justin Simien plans to put the volume on blast with a series that allows the characters more room to grow with nuance and complexity that was originally planted with firm roots in the original film.

The adaptation of Greg Sestero’s non-fiction book of the same name tells the story of the author’s friendship with filmmaker and actor (if you want to call him that) Tommy Wiseau, the man responsible for bringing The Room into our lives — which is considered to be “the worst movie of all time.”

From beginning to end this is Charlize Theron’s shining moment as an action star. She’s like James Bond, but a lot cooler. Instead of shaken martinis, she guzzles down vodka on eyes and instead of nifty gadgets, she beats guys with everyday items like hoses, hotplates and house keys.

The Light of the Moon is a whirlwind of emotions, but one that never treats its subject of sexual assault with anything but sincere honesty and compassion. It’s an important watch, especially for women, and continues to make the case for more female creators in this space.

Between the Cornetto trilogy and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, writer-director Edgar Wright has never had a bad film in his career — and he’s continuing that streak with his latest project, Baby Driver.

The latest film from the team of Joe Swanberg and Jake Johnson, Win It All, is a perfectly fine film — good, even, in some regards — but it’s also a safe film.

The new film from Eshom and Ian Nelms, Small Town Crime, feels like it comes exactly out of ’70s Hollywood. Unfortunately, rather than doing anything interesting with the noir crime genre, it simply plays into the same, tired tropes

The American Gods pilot premiere and following Q&A showed today the series is poised to be not only one of the biggest television events of the year, but will also turn out to be one of the most thematically relevant and powerful television series as well.

Ridley Scott introduced three scenes from the upcoming film Alien: Covenant and they are absolutely terrifying — which is, apparently, Scott’s whole goal.

Somewhere in Terrence Malick’s new film Song to Song there’s a beautiful, poignant, heartbreaking story about women but unfortunately, it’s hard to find in the midst of everything else.

The 24th SXSW Film Festival is stacked with 125 films including the opening night film, Terrence Malick’s Song to Song as well as Edgar Wright’s highly anticipated Baby Driver. Still, there’s a whole lot to sort through. That’s why the Tracking Board has done the work for you and created a list of films and programs that should be on your must-see list if you’re headed to Austin for the fest.

The Austin-based fest will play host to the world premiere of James Franco’s adaptation of Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell’s The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside the Room, which follows the true story of the cult movie The Room (a.k.a. the Citizen Kane of bad movies.

The features lineup for the 2017 SXSW Film Festival (March 10-19, 2017) has been announced and is filled with highly anticipated world premieres, festival favorites, and unique genre pics that are fittingly on-brand for the Austin-based fest. Highlights include Edgar Wright’s heist pic Baby Driver, the shoot-em-out action comedy Free Fire, and Evan Katz’s Cheap Thrills follow-up, Small Crimes.

The lineup of speakers is starting to take shape for South by Southwest 2017. The festival continues their tradition of converging the interactive, film and music industries with a unique cross section of speakers and panelists and one of the first names to be added to the list is Transparent creator Jill Soloway.

The SXSW Film Festival wrapped over the weekend and now that the Audience Award Winners and the Grand Jury Winners have been announced, I can finally sit still for a moment and reflect back on all the good, the bad, and the mediocre of this year’s fest.

And Punching The Clown stands well on its own as a subtle and well-crafted comedy that makes sure every laugh is worth it.

On the surface, The Dwarvenaut seems like a doc about an eccentric Dungeons and Dragons fanatic, but it quickly turns into a well-told story about an orphan who became a successful entrepreneur.

Hush is a combo of Straw Dogs and The Strangers — but the victim is completely void of hearing and speaking which takes it to another level of terrifying.

After nine days, 143 feature-length films and 114 shorts, the SXSW Film Festival has announced the Audience Award winners.

Just when you thought there isn’t room for another movie about a music legend, Born to be Blue comes out. The Robert Budreau-directed film about jazz trumpeter Chet Baker is a music biopic that is fine, but forgettable.