News

Michael Hurley, the beloved eccentric folk singer whose music became a touchstone for a generation of singer-songwriters, has died at 83.

The singer’s death was announced in a statement from his family, and his publicist confirmed that Hurley died in his home state of Oregon after returning home from a series of weekend performances at the Big Ears festival in Knoxville. A cause of death was not provided.

“It is with a resounding sadness that the Hurley family announces the recent sudden passing of the inimitable Michael Hurley,” the statement reads.

“A Complete Unknown” follows a young Bob Dylan’s rise to fame. Timothée Chalamet, who depicts the rock-folk artist in James Mangold’s film, insisted on singing live and learning to play guitar to authentically portray the music legend.

Following the success of his Academy Award-winning Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line,” the director was confident that the cast and crew of his new film could support live vocals. All of Bob Dylan’s vocals were performed live by Chalamet, as well as Edward Norton’s for Pete Seeger, Monica Barbaro’s for Joan Baez and Boyd Holbrook’s for Johnny Cash.

The 140-minute film is filled to the brim with music, highlighting the careers of Dylan as well as his influences Seeger, Barbaro, Cash, Woody Guthrie and more. With over 70 songs on the soundtrack, the film tracks Dylan’s sprint onto the folk music scene and culminates in his then-radical shift to “go electric.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Beyond Utopia (Madeleine Gavin)

A harrowing, brave account of what it’s like to defect from North Korea, Madeleine Gavin’s Beyond Utopia follows a heroic pastor and the people he helps. Perhaps most unforgettable is a multigenerational family whose escape is shown through furtive, horror-movie-like handheld camera and revealing interviews. As Gavin offers a rundown of North Korean politics, we see this family slowly reckon with their own brainwashing and realize the world outside North Korea is not what their upbringing taught them to believe. – Lena W.

Where to Stream: PBS

The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

How, exactly, did Sean Baker do it? How did the director of Tangerine make this story of a mother and daughter living at a rundown...

Near the end of Matewan (1987), socialist union organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), a guiding light and galvanizing force for a West Virginia town of striking coal miners under siege, attempts to console frustrated young Danny Radnor (Will Oldham), a nascent preacher and union man. Overwhelmed by the violence and hardships they’ve suffered, the boy gives into despair, declaring in rage and desperation that it’s every man for himself. Joe’s stirring reply is that they must all look after each other, no matter what. Though followed by a long-brewing scene of climatic violence, this quiet but deeply moving moment between […]

The post Cinema of Bread and Roses: An Interview with Maggie Renzi and John Sayles first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Near the end of Matewan (1987), socialist union organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), a guiding light and galvanizing force for a West Virginia town of striking coal miners under siege, attempts to console frustrated young Danny Radnor (Will Oldham), a nascent preacher and union man. Overwhelmed by the violence and hardships they’ve suffered, the boy gives into despair, declaring in rage and desperation that it’s every man for himself. Joe’s stirring reply is that they must all look after each other, no matter what. Though followed by a long-brewing scene of climatic violence, this quiet but deeply moving moment between […]

The post Cinema of Bread and Roses: An Interview with Maggie Renzi and John Sayles first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

"There's nothing out there..." "You think you're better than me?" Dark Sky has revealed an official trailer for an indie small town psychological thriller titled Hands that Bind, from up-and-coming filmmaker Kyle Armstrong. Made in Canada, this film first premiered at the 2021 Calgary Film Festival a few years ago, with a stop at the Vancouver Film Festival also that year. It's finally getting a small US release this fall after a few years in limbo. A hired hand plans to eventually take over his boss farm are shattered when the landowners son returns to claim his birthright. He watches as his way of life begins slipping right through his fingers... Described by the festival as a "prairie gothic" film that "elevates rural mundanity into something mythical." The film stars Paul Sparks, Susan Kent, Landon Liboiron, Nicholas Campbell, Will Oldham, with Bruce Dern. This looks pretty good, better than you might be expecting,...

At the height of the pandemic, Jess Williamson found herself taking long walks with her neighbor Natalie Mering, who performs as Weyes Blood. “I had met her in passing over the years, but we didn’t know each other,” says Williamson. “We were podded up, and we got to be really good friends.” Venturing around Los Feliz with Mering’s Pomeranian, Luigi, the songwriters discussed their upcoming music and dating, even starting a group text titled Ho Support. “We’d talk about boys and sorcery,” Mering says. “Mostly boys.”

Williamson...

Sandra Oh to star in sci-fi thriller Can I Get A Witness.

Toronto-based Mongrel International arrives at AFM with four sales titles led by Ann-Marie Fleming’s sci-fi thriller Can I Get A Witness to star Sandra Oh, and Kyle Armstrong’s horror thriller Hands That Bind.

Can I Get a Witness takes place in the near future when 50-year-olds are expected to die in order to save the planet while teenage artists are ordered to document their demise. Eric Mussolum and Jayme Pfahl are producing the project, which is in development.

Hands That Bind follows a farmer who struggles...

Killing Eve star Sandra Oh is reuniting with award-winning Canadian director Ann Marie Fleming on sci-fi thriller Can I Get a Witness.

The project, which is in development, is among four new features being launched at the American Film Market this week by Canadian sales outfit Mongrel International, a division of Toronto-based independent film distributor Mongrel Media.

Set in the near future, the film unfolds in a reality where, in order to save the planet, “death is everyone’s job”, with 50-year-olds making the sacrifice, while teenage artists have to document it.

Fleming and Oh previously collaborated on the award-winning 2016 animated feature Window Horses. Producers on the new project are Eric Mussolum and Jayme Pfahl.

Mongrel will also launch sales on two other projects in development: Jason Lapeyre’s crime thriller Stealing Is Bad starring Nick Stahl (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) and Kevin Pollak (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel...

Click here to read the full article.

Killing Eve star Sandra Oh is reteaming with director Ann-Marie Fleming for the sci-fi thriller Can I Get a Witness.

Canadian distributor Mongrel Media is shopping the Canadian indie, now in development, at AFM via its Mongrel International banner. Can I Get a Witness, also written by Fleming, is set in the near future in which, to save the planet, death is everyone’s job. And while 50-year-olds make the sacrifice, teenage artists have to document the deaths.

Oh is set to star, while Eric Mussolum and Jayme Pfahl share producer credits.

Canadian-born Oh voiced a key role, Rosie Ming, in Fleming’s 2016 animated feature Window Horses, about a young Canadian Chinese poet discovering her family history in Iran. Elliot Page, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Navid Negahban also voiced roles in the indie feature, which Oh also produced in the wake of her Grey’s Anatomy exit as Dr.

Low budget and small scale, the questions and observations at the heart of David Lowery‘s “A Ghost Story” are much bigger than you might expect. Starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, this story of love, loss, and grief, also ponders human existence and where we ultimately land in the grand cosmic plan.

That latter theme is best expressed in a show-stopping, mid-film monologue by musician/actor Will Oldham (who you might also know as Bonnie “Prince” Billy).

Continue reading ‘A Ghost Story’ Exclusive Clip: Will Oldham Builds A Legacy at The Playlist.

There is a long unedited sequence 30 minutes into A Ghost Story where a ghost, wearing a white bedsheet with two eye-holes cut out like Charlie Brown with the Great Pumpkin, is observing his sobbing widow. She sits on the kitchen floor and eats a pie. That entire pie, bite by bite, is devoured in a scene that goes on a good five minutes. I think this is where uninformed moviegoers who may have wandered into A Ghost Story expecting a conventional haunted house thriller will have their patience stretched to the breaking point. A Ghost Story is an arty meditation on love and loss, glacial in pace, and on the surface not much happens in it. It’s not for all tastes, but for adventurous film fans it is rewarding, one of those strange movies that promises to stay with you long after the end credits have rolled.

Casey Affleck...

Chicago – Not all supernatural tales are meant to scare, and writer/director David Lowery haunts in a different way with his new film, “A Ghost Story.” Using the classic “white sheet” costume, with actor Casey Affleck underneath it for most of the film, Lowery creates a spirit with both emotion and a contemplation of its fate.

The Ghost (Casey Affleck) and Its World in ‘A Ghost Story’

Photo credit: A24

“A Ghost Story” involves a young married couple, M (Rooney Mara) and C (Casey Affleck) as they move into small, remote house. There are some “bumps in the night” within the dwelling, but generally they’re in love with their castle. Tragedy strikes when C is in a car accident, and dies. At the morgue, he paranormally sits upright, and envelopes the sheet around him, taking on the persona of the classic ghost outfit. He goes back to “haunt” the house he formally lived in,...

David Lowery knows that you're probably going to laugh at the sheet. He did too, a little bit, when he first saw it. So did Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara. It's a natural reaction, he says. You don't have to fight it. Get it out of your system. Or don't. There were days on the set of A Ghost Story, Lowery's experimental mood-piece-of-a-movie, where the 36-year-old director would look up and find himself face to face with an adult under a large white cloth with two black eyeholes, expecting to be told what to do,...

Hey you. Reader. Are you feeling particularly fulfilled or stable today? Good! You should! As David Lowery’s A Ghost Story reminds us, the infinite extrapolation of cosmic uncertainty renders each and every one of us rationally insignificant. No matter what we do, humanity will eventually hit an apocalyptic brick wall – all achievements, designs and structure forgotten. So chin up! Try as you might, but we’re all going to die someday along with our legacy. Find comfort in your tiny fleck of an existence as time runs out, like one particle of sand in a draining hourglass.

Isn’t it nice to have our universal egotism checked every now and then? Your answer to this question will dictate either appreciation or disdain shown towards A Ghost Story.

Lowery’s reflective exploration stars Casey Affleck as a new-to-form ghost, represented by the white sheet draped over Affleck’s body. His...

Back in January at the Sundance Film Festival, one of the more anticipated titles to debut was David Lowery’s latest. It was the spooky sounding A Ghost Story, which reunited Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara with the filmmaker. Folks in Park City were surprised, and in many cases, delighted, to find that this was instead an artful meditation on death and time. In fact, IMDb describes it as a “singular exploration of legacy, love, loss, and the enormity of existence”. The movie received some of the fest’s strongest reviews, and now, after a slow build up at other festivals, it gets set to hit theaters this week. The film has gotten the reputation as one of the more acclaimed independent titles of 2017 so far. Having just seen it this week, it’s fresh in my mind, so let us discuss it a bit! The movie is a drama about grief and moving on,...

Director discusses cinema/VoD debate at Karlovy Vary film festival.

David Lowery, the director of Sundance hit A Ghost Story, talked about the impact of Netflix on the film industry at a press conference promoting the film at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Lowery said: “I am a devotee of the big screen. I like to watch everything on the big screen and I made my movie to be watched on the big screen. That being said, I want my movies to get made.

“[Netflix] are setting aside the theatrical experience more than I’d be comfortable with, but I’d rather them do that and not make the movies. I fully support and endorse them and I’d be delighted to collaborate with them.

“I know that most people will ultimately see my films on a screening service of some sort… so I should set aside my own ego to a certain extent to have my...

Tony Sokol Mar 29, 2017

Is there love after death? Rooney Mara gives up the ghost to Casey Affleck in the trailer for A Ghost Story.

We do what we do to endure. We build our legacy piece by piece and maybe a few people remember you after you’re gone. The new trailer for A Ghost Story shows that sometimes you have to give up the ghost to leave a spiritual trail. Even if your story is written in chalk on a city sidewalk.

A Ghost Story stars Casey Affleck as a man watching over the legacy of his lover Rooney Mara. The romantic take on love after death is reminiscent of the Academy Award-winning supernatural romance Ghost, which starred Demi Moore and the late Patrick Swayze.

"It's all about time," promises the official synopsis. Will Oldham, Sonia Acevedo, Rob Zabrecky, and Liz Franke star in this story of a 'ghost and the house he haunts'.

David Lowery has found his voice. After two fairly remarkable features (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Pete’s Dragon) that felt more imitative than original, here emerges something that answers only to itself. Its logline couldn’t be simpler – a man (Casey Affleck, credited as “C”) dies, and his ghost haunts the house he shared with his wife (Rooney Mara, “M”) until he can find peace. But it didn’t take the eventual leaps in time or the fact that C’s ghost is literally a man with a sheet over his head or Will Oldham’s late-film monologue to make it clear that Lowery was finally establishing his own rhythms.

Early on, a simple scene of M taking out the recycling begins with a whip-pan down from the sky, the camera then arching around the front of the house as Mara drags the bin down to the curb.

The premise is a simple one. A man only credited as C (Casey Affleck) dies after a head-on car accident in front of his house, leaving behind his wife, M (Rooney Mara). After examining his corpse at the hospital, she leaves the room, and, covered by the white cloth over his body, his ghost rises up and returns home to observe the grieving widow he left behind. If one thought only a spooky, small-scale haunted house tale is to follow, David Lowery’s latest is proof that a premise is merely a foundation. Beginning with the beauty, patience, and humor of an Apichatpong Weerasethakul movie before segueing into the existential musings reminiscent of Richard Linklater dialogue, and then infinitely expanding its scope to become a stunning meditation on the passage of time, A Ghost Story is one of the most original, narratively audacious films I’ve ever seen.

One of...

The main special effect in “A Ghost Story” is older than the movies: After a young Dallas musician (Casey Affleck) dies in a car crash, he returns as a ghost to the home he shared with his wife (Rooney Mara), and he’s draped in a sheet with hastily made cutout eyeholes, like some misbegotten Halloween costume.

Yet writer-director David Lowery channels the absurdity of this setup into an extraordinary mood piece that amounts to his best movie yet. Lowery has quickly developed a filmography that mines for awe in solitude, and here delivers a cosmic variation on that theme, exploring the ineffable relationship between people and the meaning they give to the places that have value in their lives. Both formally ambitious and emotionally accessible, “A Ghost Story” transforms its main stunt into a savvy dose of minimalism with existential possibilities that cut deep.

That’s unsurprising for a...

2016 is nearly over and most people can’t wait to reach the finish line, so the Sundance Film Festival lineup couldn’t arrive at a better moment to give us something to anticipate for the new year.

Read More: Sundance 2017 Announces Competition and Next Lineups, Including Returning Favorites and Major Contenders

With the announcement of the U.S. and World Competition sections as well as the ever-tantalizing Next category of edgier fare, the first set of Sundance announcements kick off a wave of expectations from new talent and veterans alike. There will be much to dig through, from potential sales titles to breakthrough talent, and more announcements to come (the midnight section, short films, and forward-thinking New Frontiers section are all around the corner). In the meantime, we’ve dug through the initial Sundance blast to unearth a few standouts worthy of anticipation.

David Lowery’s Secret Movie Isn’t...

Kelly Reichardt’s films capture a sense of American identity that has lost its way. It began with her debut, “River of Grass” (1994, and newly restored last year), and continues all the way through “Certain Women,” which opens this month. “These characters are all trying to acquire something,” Reichardt said when we spoke at the Sundance Film Festival, where “Certain Women” premiered. “They all want something.”

But for Reichardt’s characters, fulfillment is always just beyond reach.

In “River of Grass,” a young man (Larry Fessenden) crashing at his grandmother’s house ignores the alarm clock in a mostly barren room, adorned only with a tattered American flag. Later, he hits the road with a bored housewife (Lisa Bowman), on the lam for a murder they didn’t commit, pursuing the romanticism of an escape.

Read More: ‘Certain Women’ Clips: Kristen Stewart And Michelle Williams Star In Kelly Reichardt’s...

Director Harmony Korine currently has his hands in two features that are in different stages of development: “The Trap,” a star-studded film that includes Idris Elba, Benicio del Toro, and Al Pacino that was set to begin shooting last year but ended up being permanently delayed, and “Tampa,” an adaptation of Alissa Nutting’s acclaimed book by the same name that follows a teacher seducing a young student. But while he’s not tackling those two films, Korine has taken on another assignment, an advertisement for Yves Saint Laurent’s female fragrance Black Opium. Watch the ad below, courtesy of The Playlist.

Read More: Harmony Korine Set to Adapt Controversial Teacher-Student Sex Novel ‘Tampa’

Set to Emma Louise’s “Jungle,” the ad follows model Edie Campbell as she saunters through dark streets, neon-drenched clubs, and an underground aquarium of sorts, all so she can pick up a key to acquire...

Nine years before he completed production on the multi-million dollar Disney remake of “Pete’s Dragon,” David Lowery was living out of the back of his car, editing corporate videos. The Dallas native directed his first feature, the little-seen “Lullaby,” at age 19. The ensuing years found him collaborating with a close-knit group of local film-savvy friends, but little in the way of upward mobility. “I never put a premium on making a living,” he told me in a recent phone conversation. “It was never one of those things that was important to me.”

Lowery’s work at the time suggests as much — it’s anything but commercial — and yet it provided him with an ideal platform for a massive career move as one of Disney’s newest secret weapons. “Pete’s Dragon,” a $60 million re-imagining of the 1977 live-action-animated musical film, has all the hallmarks of Lowery’s earlier work: a serene,...

Walt Disney Records is set to release a massive original motion picture soundtrack for their upcoming live-action take on “Pete’s Dragon” next month. The new album features 3 original songs written for the David Lowery film, including the end credit track “Something Wild” by electronic violinist Lindsey Stirling featuring Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. The soundtrack will also include “Nobody Knows” performed by the Lumineers, plus “The Dragon Song” performed by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.

Read More: How Indie Filmmaker David Lowery Embraced ‘Pete’s Dragon’ at Disney

The film’s original score was composed by Daniel Hart (“Tumbledown,” “Comet”) and Stirling will also appears throughout Hart’s work on the film’s instrumental accompaniment.

Performed by Grammy-nominated band The Lumineers, “Nobody Knows” was written by “Pete’s Dragon” co-screenwriter Toby Halbrooks with Andrew Tinker. “The Dragon Song,” performed by singer-songwriter Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (Will Oldham), was written by “Pete’s...

No matter under which name you’ve heard his music — Will Oldham, Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, Palace Music — the prolific Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (his most familiar, and famous moniker) has carved out his own corner of the independent music scene with his highly original, evocative songs that would be reductive to call simply “folk music.” […]

The post Exclusive: 21-Minute Documentary About The Making Of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s ‘More Revery’ appeared first on The Playlist.

With Harmony Korine still figuring out what movie he's going to make next, he's got some time on his hands, but he's making sure he's keeping his skills honed. And he's doing so with one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. Read More: Venice Review: Harmony Korine's 'Spring Breakers' Is A Semi-Conventional Genre Flick & Future Cult Favorite Today sees Rihanna launch the video for "Needed Me" from her latest album "Anti," with the artist noting she chose the date "just because it’s 420." Ha. The director puts his touch on the sexy, mid-tempo jam with this distinctive brand of imagery. He doesn't helm music videos often, but you can't really say no to Rihanna, and the video adds to his roster which includes clips for Sonic Youth, Cat Power, and Will Oldham. Light one up and watch below.

Filmmaker Rick Alverson has made some absorbing and intimate indie works. "The Builder" is a terrifically underrated gem, and “New Jerusalem” coaxes another strong lead performance from musician Will Oldham. But it's Alverson’s provocative and pointed collaborations with comedian Tim Heidecker that have proven to be layered and rich next-level works. The deeply misunderstood “The Comedy” — a hilariously confrontational, but also alarming examination of the age of ironic distance — is an incendiary piece de resistance. But Alverson may have outdone himself with “Entertainment,” an even more abrasive, alienating, and nightmarish masterwork about the cruel futility of connection, performance, and existence. Read More: Gregg Turkington Goes To The Edge In Exclusive Clip From Rick Alverson's 'Entertainment' Comedian Gregg Turkington stars as Neill, essentially playing a loose riff on the actor's alter ego Neil Hamburger (the world’s worst, most insufferable...

A review of tonight's "True Detective" coming up just as soon as I'm running a yogurt stand... "Is Ray hurt? What happened?" -Felicia "Somebody murdered him." -Frank At the end of the first season of "True Detective," Nic Pizzolatto expressed some frustration that his audience had spent so much time fixating on the show's oblique references to the supernatural. "I'm interested in the atmosphere of cosmic horror, but that's about all I have to say about weird fiction," he told me. "I did feel the perception was tilted more towards weird fiction than perhaps it should have been." The viewers who latched onto that part of Rust and Marty's story weren't imagining it. Those references to "The Yellow King" and Cthulu were there in the show, even if they weren't intended to be viewed as the larger point of the piece. Those viewers were disappointed when the solution to the...

Italian director Paolo Sorrentino knows his contemporary indie music, and even in a movie like “The Great Beauty,” filled with sonorous opera, vocal ensemble, and classical music, he still manages to sneak in some Esg, Damien Jurado, Decoder Ring, and Gui Boratto’s Kompact Records version of “Take My Breath Away.” The director also clearly has affection for classic post-punk influenced music. His 2011 film, “This Must Be the Place” (named after a Talking Heads song), featured Sean Penn in a role that appeared to be a thin disguise for The Cure’s Robert Smith, and its soundtrack featured artists like David Byrne, Will Oldham, Jonsi from Sigur Ros, Iggy Pop, and more. His latest film, “Youth,” which just premiered at the Cannes Film Festival (read our review here), has its own hip score. The film features Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, and Paul Dano and centers on two aging friends,...

Give all of the awards to the full title of the alternate take of Bonnie Stillwatter's "The Devil Is People": "The Devil Is People (The Cheech Wizard's Hemiolic Chantey at the Edge of the Anthropocene Epoch).” Bonnie Stillwatter, of course is "a conceptual collaboration of artistry and friendship" between Will Oldham (aka Bonnie 'Prince' Billy) and noise/rock group Watter. Now give the bulk of the rest of the awards to Bundy K. Brown (of Tortoise and Gastr del Sol) who had this to say about his mix of this heavy, righteous tune: "For me, this is not so much a remix, as an alternate take of The Devil Is People, which I think even casual listeners will easily discern. I've never been fully comfortable with the avenues that remixes have typically been trafficked in, or the reductive approaches and expectations that seem to leap to most folks' minds when they think of remixes,...

Technically speaking, not much happens in Pioneer, David Lowery’s 2011 short about a man who tells his son a bedtime story. The action is confined to one room as it cuts between the two actors, but the yarn spun by Will Oldham’s character, and the subtle inflections in the pair’s performance along with a textured sound design, make the film as charged as any meticulously choreographed exchange. Listen closely, and you can even discern some early seeds of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints in the mix.

Technically speaking, not much happens in Pioneer, David Lowery’s 2011 short about a man who tells his son a bedtime story. The action is confined to one room as it cuts between the two actors, but the yarn spun by Will Oldham’s character, and the subtle inflections in the pair’s performance along with a textured sound design, make the film as charged as any meticulously choreographed exchange. Listen closely, and you can even discern some early seeds of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints in the mix.

"Rick Alverson has made some absorbing and intimate indie works," begins Rodrigo Perez at the Playlist. "The Builder is a terrifically underrated gem, and New Jerusalem coaxes another strong lead performance by musician Will Oldham. But it's Alverson’s provocative and pointed collaborations with comedian Tim Heidecker that have proven to be layered and rich next-level works. The deeply misunderstood The Comedy—a hilariously confrontational, but also alarming examination of the age of ironic distance—is an incendiary piece de resistance. But Alverson may have outdone himself with Entertainment, an even more abrasive, alienating, and nightmarish masterwork about the cruel futility of connection, performance, and existence." We're gathering more reviews. » - David Hudson...

"Rick Alverson has made some absorbing and intimate indie works," begins Rodrigo Perez at the Playlist. "The Builder is a terrifically underrated gem, and New Jerusalem coaxes another strong lead performance by musician Will Oldham. But it's Alverson’s provocative and pointed collaborations with comedian Tim Heidecker that have proven to be layered and rich next-level works. The deeply misunderstood The Comedy—a hilariously confrontational, but also alarming examination of the age of ironic distance—is an incendiary piece de resistance. But Alverson may have outdone himself with Entertainment, an even more abrasive, alienating, and nightmarish masterwork about the cruel futility of connection, performance, and existence." We're gathering more reviews. » - David Hudson...

Filmmaker Rick Alverson has made some absorbing and intimate indie works. "The Builder" is a terrifically underrated gem, and “New Jerusalem” coaxes another strong lead performance by musician Will Oldham. But it's Alverson’s provocative and pointed collaborations with comedian Tim Heidecker that have proven to be layered and rich next-level works. The deeply misunderstood “The Comedy” — a hilariously confrontational, but also alarming examination of the age of ironic distance — is an incendiary piece de resistance. But Alverson may have outdone himself with “Entertainment,” an even more abrasive, alienating, and nightmarish masterwork about the cruel futility of connection, performance, and existence. Comedian Gregg Turkington stars as Neill, essentially playing a loose riff on the actor's alter ego Neill Hamburger (the world’s worst, most insufferable comedian). An aging, inept stand-up with no discernible talents or skills, he tours the wastelands of...

Broad Green Pictures, which announced its presence on the distribution scene in Toronto with a marquee $3 million deal for 99 Homes, has acquired North American rights to Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden. The pic, set in the underground electronic dance movement in early-’90s Paris, had its world premiere in Toronto and is playing the New York Film Festival that kicks off Friday.

Broad Green plans a spring 2015 release for the pic, which follows Paul (Félix de Givry), a teenager drawn to the more soulful rhythms of Chicago’s garage house than rave music forms a DJ collective named Cheers (two of his friends form another one called Daft Punk, who float throughout the movie). Together they plunge into the ephemeral nightlife of sex, drugs, and endless music. Pauline Etienne, Vincent Macaigne co-star with appearances by Brady Corbet, Laura Smet and Greta Gerwig. The deal was negotiated by Grégoire Melin and Ram...

Part of our continuing partnership with the online film journal, cléo. Every month, cléo will be presenting a great film to watch on our video on demand platform. In conjunction, we'll be hosting an exclusive article by one of their contributors. This month the journal's managing editor, Julia Cooper, writes on Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy, which is available to watch starting July 31 in the Us and Canada.

Sitting cross-legged in his wind-chiming garden, the sound of a gong signals the beginning of Mark’s (Daniel London) meditation practice; inside, his pregnant wife Tanya (Tanya Smith) blends and gulps downs a green smoothie: This is Oregon. Director Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy (2006) opens with this scene of relative domestic calm. Yet, from the mound of ants that threaten to disturb Mark’s half lotus, to the camera’s quick cut to the noisy blender indoors, there is the sense that...

The actor/singer crossover is almost as old as the industry itself, with a mixed success rate. From Elvis Presley to Mick Jagger to David Bowie to Madonna to Will Oldham (though he was a child actor first), from the famous to the little-known, many have stepped both on the stage and in front of the camera. And now another acclaimed artist is attempting the same.Lykke Li, the Swedish singer/songwriter behind "Little Bit" and "Dance Dance Dance," and an engaging live performer in her own right, is trying out her skills in the acting realm with a role in the upcoming Swedish thriller "Tommy." And while the first trailer for the movie doesn't offer much of a suggestion of how she is in front of the camera—she says about one line of dialogue (in Swedish)—she does have an expressive face which does some lifting all on its own.

Here it is; Sound On Sight’s list of our favourite soundtracks released this year. Usually we post a list of 10 to 15 picks, but this time, we decided to only publish five. With that said, we also recorded a bonus Sound On Sight podcast to complement this very article. In it, Simon Howell and I chose 10 of the best tracks from 10 of the best soundtracks for your listening pleasure. You can listen to the podcast here.

Soundtracks that make an appearance on the podcast include Her, The Bling Ring, Afternoon Delight, Sightseers, Frances Ha, Spring Breakers, The World’s End, and Drinking Buddies.

Last year, the soundtrack to Rick Alverson’s cheekily titled The Comedy topped our list. This year, another hipster-indie gem does the same. Here is our list of the top 5 soundtracks of 2013.

****

5. American Hustle

While Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times” was used in the first...

Wasn't easy to whittle this list down to 10, let alone 11, so I picked 12 for 12-12-12. A few of these selections were last minute additions that knocked two other picks out of top spots. Moreover, I decided to include twelve more picks at the end of my selections to show what else was being considered.

Nada Surf The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy (Barsuk)

I've not seen this album on any critics' year-end lists (aside from my managing editor Steve's list, obviously). Not sure why, because Nada Surf released a timeless collection of alt pop-rock songs. This is songwriting 101 -- verse, chorus, verse, bridge. If there is a better pop-rock band in America, let me know. Twenty years in and no sign of lazy rock star bullshit, just plenty of great chiming guitar riffs and hooky-as-hell tunes. Album of the year.

Father John Misty Fear Fun (Sub Pop)

Father John...

Will Oldham, the bearded, likely musky singer from Louisville, Kentucky, has his own fragrance now. Bonnie Billy by Bonnie “Prince” Billy is a unisex fragrance intended for both Bonnies and Billies, costs $220, and was produced in collaboration with Sanae Intoxicants. While seasoned Oldham fans might expect Bonnie Billy to smell like whiskey, weed, beard scuzz, and semen, blogger Diane Pernet has sampled the product and says Oldham’s main inspiration was “the scent of the Agarwood tree, also known as ‘oud’ which is not only a fragrance that has been used in perfumery dating back to the most ancient ...

The years have seen countless musicians cross over into the acting world, and of late, indie films have featured their fair share of artists taking a stab at a new medium. Will Oldham (who actually was an actor first, starring as a child in "Matewan"), James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem), David Yow (Jesus Lizard) and Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney) are among those who have traded the stage for a set, and now Deerhunter and Atlas Sound frontman Bradford Cox will be making the transition with the Jean-Marc Vallée-helmed '80s-set AIDS drama “The Dallas Buyer's Club.” Written by Craig Borten and Melissa Wallack, the film is based on the true story of Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey), who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 and was given only months to live. With nothing to lose, he began experimenting with underground, non-fda-approved drugs, and wound up living longer than expected. He began getting these...

Tim Heidecker is best known as half of the "Tim and Eric" comedy duo whose odd shenanigans on Adult Swim and elsewhere have made them underground heroes. But Heidecker also stars in The Comedy, an inappropriately titled dark satire about a bored man with no moral center. We talked to him about the movie, his philosophies on comedy, and whether this particular film is supposed to be provocative.   Movies.com: This is one of the few things that you've had a major role in that you didn't also write. And yet it also seems very much your style. How did you come to be involved in it? Tim Heidecker: I was contacted a couple years ago by Will Oldham, who is a singer and songwriter and a guy I know, who had worked with this director Rick Alverson. He sent me a...

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It’s unlikely that anyone had a more schizophrenic Sundance this past January than Tim Heidecker. The 36-year old actor and filmmaker attended the festival with two projects – Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, the feature-length culmination of his and longtime collaborator Eric Wareheim’s cult absurdist comedy TV series Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and the ironically named The Comedy, a dark drama from filmmaker Rick Alverson (New Jerusalem). And as both films have rolled out over the past year, Heidecker has had to juggle dueling personae – zany comedic curmudgeon and dramatic leading man.

In The Comedy, Heidecker plays Swanson, a depressed, affluent, and serially-detached Williamsburg hipster. Throughout the film, Swanson engages in a series of provocations with the outside world, testing the limits and boundaries of those around him, while arguably spiraling towards some kind of mental break. It’s a dark, pitiless performance — an...

This Must Be the Place

Written by Umberto Contarello and Paolo Sorrentino

Directed by Paolo Sorrentino

Italy/France/Ireland, 2011

“Something’s wrong here. I don’t know exactly what it is, but something’s wrong here.” Repeated by its protagonist throughout This Must Be the Place, the line captures the baffling quality of Paolo Sorrentino’s English language debut. An erratic merging of different forms and tones, it is a difficult film to describe and one even harder to discuss in regards to why much of it succeeds. It is certainly schizophrenic conceptually and stylistically, but it also never feels disjointed or packed with too many strands.

Sean Penn plays a wealthy former rock star of around 50 years of age, Cheyenne, bored and jaded while in long-implemented retirement in Dublin. Perpetually slathered in the make-up and attire of his goth rock career, as well as frequently wielding cat eye glasses and a shopping trolley,...

Yes, I have too much time on my hands. Here's a new feature that was fun to put together (though quite time-consuming, which makes me worry about my ability to do this every month). I look back at rock, pop, and R&B albums that came out five years ago, ten years ago, etc.

1967

Buffalo Springfield: Again (Atco)

There was much chaos surrounding the creation of this quintet 's second album. Bassist Bruce Palmer, in some ways the soul of the band, was unavailable due to a drug charge deportation, and a string of session players took his place. Stephen Stills, who saw himself as the leader of the group, was feuding with Neil Young, who considered himself an equal, and Young actually quit -- but returned. And that's without getting into the fiasco that was the band's management team.

Nonetheless, it was a quantum leap forward from their debut,...

Factory 25 has acquired worldwide rights to the Rick Alverson-directed drama "New Jerusalem," which has played at the Rotterdam and SXSW film festivals this year. The specialty distributor will release the film digitally Nov. 30 along with a weeklong run at Brooklyn’s Videology theater followed by theatrical expansion. "New Jerusalem" stars Will Oldham and Colm O'Leary in the story of the friendship between an Irish immigrant coming to America after fighting in Afghanistan and an Evangelical Christian who tries to help him. Alverson co-wrote the screenplay with O'Leary and produced with Courtney Bowles. Executive producers include Chris Swanson, Darius Van Arman, Jonathan Cargill and Ben Swanson. Read More: Factory 25 Acquires North American Digital Rights to the Melissa Leo Drama 'Francine' Brooklyn-based Factory 25 has recently released "Francine," "The Oregonian," "Wah Do Dem" and "Make out...

10. Zach Galifianakis in Fiona Apple's "Not About Love"

We still have hope that these two will find love if only to see how eccentric and outlandish their offspring could possibly be. Apparently they met while performing repeatedly at the same club in Los Angeles, which means that the opportunity for the great reality show "Zach and Fiona Act Brilliantly Weird Together" goes fulfilled only in our heads.

9. Macaulay Culkin in Michael Jackson's "Black or White"

We could have gone with George Wendt for this one, but in 1991, no one could touch Macaulay Culkin after "Home Alone." After the stereotypical "turn the music down" parental yell, Culkin does what every 12-year-old kid wanted to do at the time. He will later show up as a hip-hopper and look tougher than Michael Jackson. Too bad the song is kind of lame, though. Eh. There's always the morph scene.

8. Chevy Chase...