News

New Release Wall

“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” (Lionsgate) could very easily have been a one-joke movie, but Nicolas Cage playing a less successful and more venal version of himself is just the launching point for a clever and engaging film about fame, the movies and male bonding. When “Cage” accepts a gig to appear at the birthday of a nefarious Spanish billionaire (a hilarious Pedro Pascal), it’s one surprise after another both for our hero and for the audience.

Also available:

“Ambulance” (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment): Michael Bay puts the robots away for this heart-thumping caper starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.

“The Bad Guys” (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment): Animated anthropomorphic villains seek some redemption in this Dreamworks comedy.

“The Contractor” (Paramount Home Entertainment): Chris Pine stars as a desperate veteran who gets tied up with an underground paramilitary force.

“Eraser: Reborn” (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment...

As 2021 mercifully winds down, the Criterion Channel have a (November) lineup that marks one of their most diverse selections in some time—films by the new masters Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Garrett Bradley, Dan Sallitt’s Fourteen (one of 2020’s best films) couched in a fantastic retrospective, and Criterion editions of old favorites.

Fourteen is featured in “Between Us Girls: Bonds Between Women,” which also includes Céline and Julie, The Virgin Suicides, and Yvonne Rainer’s Privilege. Of equal note are Criterion editions for Ghost World, Night of the Hunter, and (just in time for del Toro’s spin) Nightmare Alley—all stacked releases in their own right.

See the full list of October titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

300 Nassau, Marina Lameiro, 2015

5 Card Stud, Henry Hathaway, 1968

Alone, Garrett Bradley, 2017

Álvaro, Daniel Wilson, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandra Lazarowich, and Chloe Zimmerman, 2015

America, Garrett Bradley, 2019

Angel Face, Otto Preminger, 1953

Angels Wear White,...

Rebecca Hall’s “Passing” won the U.S. Narrative Feature Jury Award at the 33rd LGBTQ film festival NewFest in New York City.

The jury statement reads, “A chance encounter between two friends kicks off this film’s exploration of race and sexuality in 1920s America. The film’s expressive cinematography, beautiful performances, and clear directorial vision all come together in this devastating story of destabilized identity.”

The Documentary Feature Jury Award went to “Miguel’s War,” directed by Eliane Raheb. The jury described the doc “as emotionally captivating as it is visually stimulating.

“’Miguel’s War’ impressively tangles with deep human emotions and complex aspects of the human condition in its wide-ranging exploration of trauma, repression, the fallibility of memory, and the messiness of fantasy,” the statement continued. “Using fictional techniques to unearth essential truths, ‘Miguel’s War’ combines traditional interviews with staged reenactments and fanciful animation to take...

Outfest announced the winners of its 2021 edition, including Vivian Kleiman’s “No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics” for documentary feature and Brielle Brilliant’s “Firstness” for U.S. narrative feature.

The Los Angeles LGBTQ film festival also honored Pooya Mohseni with the grand jury prize for best performance in a U.S. narrative feature for her performance in “See You Then,” while Wes Hurley won best screenplay for “Potato Dreams of America,” a non-traditional portrayal of a gay immigrant’s transition to America and his relationship with his mother.

Park Kun-young was awarded best international narrative feature for “A Distant Place,” and Ümit Ünal won best international screenplay for “Love, Spells, And All That.” “Sweetheart” actor Nell Barlow took home the award for best performance in an international narrative feature “for her ability to emote even under a pair of sunglasses and a bucket hat.”

Xavier Seron won...

Outfest has announced the award winners of its 2021 Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival.

The nation’s leading LGBTQ festival ran from August 13th to August 22nd, holding its closing night at the iconic Orpheum Theatre, with Vivian Kleiman’s No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics claiming the Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize, and Brielle Brilliant’s Firstness winning the U.S. Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize.

For the first time ever, Outfest collaborated with IMDb in choosing Audience Award winners, selecting them based on IMDb ratings. Among other prizes and recognition, eligible Outfest Los Angeles winners received a one-year membership to IMDbPro.

The winners of the Grand Jury Prizes for Best U.S. Narrative Short, Best Documentary Short, and Best International Narrative Short all received a $2000 cash prize awarded in partnership with Entertainment Partners.

Also of note is the fact that the U.S. and International Narrative...

Exclusive: Dark Star Pictures has acquired North American rights to Potato Dreams of America, writer-director Wes Hurley’s autobiographical dark comedy that had its world premiere at this year’s SXSW. The pic will get a U.S. theatrical release in Q1 2022 followed by a digital bow, and the deal comes as the pic readies for Los Angeles premiere tonight at Outfest LA where it is in the official lineup. The full cast is expected to be in attendance.

Hurley’s queer coming-of-age tale tells the story of a gay boy growing up in the collapsing Ussr, his mail-order bride mother and their eventual escape to America. The film is an immigrant’s take on the American Dream and the power of cinema. Marya Sea Kaminksi, Tyler Bocock, Jonathan Bennett, Lea DeLaria, Sera Barbieri, Hersh Powers, Dan Lauria and Sophia Mitri Schloss lead the ensemble cast.

The pic was produced by Mischa Jakupcak and Hurley,...

The Deauville American Film Festival has unveiled the competition lineup of its 2021 edition, which includes Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket” and Michael Sarnoski’s “Pig.”

Under the leadership of artistic director Bruno Barde, the festival’s competition will also showcase Pascual Sisto’s John and the Hole,” David Bruckner’s “The Night House,” Justin Chon’s “Blue Bayou,” Josef Kubota Wladyka’s “Catch The Fair One,” Ninja Thyberg’s “Pleasure,” Wes Hurley’s “Potato Dreams of America,” Tim Sutton’s “The Last Son,” Lauren Hadaway’s “The Novice,” Antonio Tibaldi’s “We Are Living Things,” and Alana Waksman’s “We Burn Like This.”

Several films in the Deauville roster world premiered at Cannes, notably the competition title “Red Rocket,” about a former porn star who moves back to Texas City to get a fresh start and falls back into old habits; and “Blue Bayou,” a heart-wrenching drama with Justin Chon...

Outfest Los Angeles features two films with "RuPaul's Drag Race" winners BeBe Zahara Benet and Bianca del Rio in its lineup for its 39th Film Festival.

Season 6 winner Bianca del Rio will join the main cast members of "Everybody’s Talking About Jamie," Max Harwood and Lauren Patel, in the festival's opening event. Del Rio plays art teacher Miss Haywood in the feature adaptation of the musical.

Season 1 winner BeBe Zahara Benet will perform live before the premiere of "Being Bebe," which follows the Cameroonian-American immigrant's struggle to embrace being an LGBTQ performer against discriminatory cultural forces.

Named after the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization Outfest, the 10-day festival will celebrate LGBTQ+ stories and voices in film and television and will return to in-person screenings.

Outfest will also host the 5th Annual Trans and NonBinary Summit on August 21 with a panel featuring established and emerging trans and nonbinary creators, Zackary Drucker and Our Lady J.

Monday, May 3

Charli Xcx Documentary to Close Inside Out Film Festival

Toronto’s 2021 Inside Out film festival will take place online from May 27 to June 6. The 2Slgbtq+ fest will open with Natalie Morales’ “Language Lessons,” which picked up the audience award at this year’s SXSW Film Festival. Closing Inside Out will be the Charli Xcx documentary “Alone Together.” A total of 143 films, including 33 features and five episodic series, fill the lineup for this year’s programming.

Other highlights include the Zachary Quinto-narrated “Yes, I Am: The Ric Weiland Story,” about queer computer programmer Rich Weiland, and “Drag Invasion,” a doc about an LGBTQ community in Peru that is inspired to mobilize while watching “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” The Sundance Audience Award-winning “Ma Belle, My Beauty” will also be show,n as will the premiere of Wes Hurley’s autobiographical dark comedy “Potaro Dreams of America.”

“Having pulled off the...

The Sunset Tower is getting ready for Oscar night. Owner Jeff Klein tells me that freshly minted winners will be treated to dinner if they come in after the show with their statuettes. The public can also book a meal at the hotel, and rooms are available for private Covid-safe viewing parties. Options range from four people in a deluxe king suite with Champagne, popcorn and movie candy to a sit-down dinner for 15 in a townhouse or penthouse. Plus, Klein is doing away with the hotel’s no-photo policy for the night so guests can share their evening in social media if they’d like. And it looks like swag suites are back. The Gbk Brand Bar & eOn Hand Sanitizing Mist lounge just sent out a release that it will be handing out freebies on April 21 in West Hollywood. Attendees will have to take a rapid Covid test before entering the suite.

Potato Dreams of America Review — Potato Dreams of America (2021) Film Review from the 28th Annual South By Southwest Film Festival, a movie directed by Wes Hurley, and featuring Marya Sea Kaminski, Dan Lauria, Tyler Bocock, Lea DeLaria, Sera Barbieri, Hersh Powers, Jonathan Bennett, Sophia Mitri Schloss, Lauren Tewes, [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Potato Dreams Of America: A Campy Gay Auto-Biopic That Can’t Quite Connect Its Dots [SXSW 2021]...

The question of how to convey characters speaking a language other than English in a fully English-language production is one that many a director of an exotically-set Hollywood production or lumpy Europudding has faced over the years. For those who simply cannot resort to subtitles, the artifice of heavily accented English dialogue is a stilted standby. “Potato Dreams of America” finds an unusual way around the problem, though it takes some time for its cleverness to emerge.

Wes Hurley’s autobiographical comedy of a gay Russian teen and his plucky single mother seeking a new life in 1980s America begins in unexpected fashion: A title card tells us we’re in Gorbachev-era Vladivostok, yet the unhappy family tableau we’re plunged into is performed in broad, brash American speech. “Our lives are like Russian movies, nothing good ever happens,” observes young Vasili (Hersh Powers). That is as may be; to us,...

The South by Southwest Film Festival has rolled out its full programming line up, with high-profile new documentaries bolstering previously announced features.

For many in Hollywood, the last-minute cancellation of the Austin-based 2020 SXSW conference was a reality check about the severity of the coronavirus pandemic. Global lockdowns followed, and a year later, the film portion of the cultural event is soldiering on.

“We feel privileged to have been able to pivot to SXSW Online and present a fantastic treasure trove of programming, including a pared down and wonderful selection of films that we know will delight, entertain and move our attendees,” said Janet Pierson, SXSW’s director of film.

Among the selection is “Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free,” featuring a 16mm footage archive of the late singer at work on his 1994 album “Wildflowers,” largely considered his best. The film is directed by Mary Wharton, and leans into SXSW’s reputation for top-tier music programming.

The Seattle Story Award recognizes an emerging, independent filmmaker who not only embodies diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision, but has a history of transforming people through rich stories — exactly what Seattle does for anyone who spends time there.

This year’s recipient, Lael Rogers, embodies all of that while bringing a fresh female perspective to filmmaking.

Rogers is a writer, director and creative director for Seattle-based studio All is Well. She directed the narrative short “Collision” (2015) and episodes 1-3 of the online series Northern Belles (2016-2017). Both projects played film festivals nationally.

Vimeo has announced its 2018 nominees for the Best of the Year Staff Picks Awards. Vimeo has recognized the best Staff Picks of the year by calling out the winners on its blog since 2016, but the company is elevating its end-of-the-year celebration this year by revealing nominations and bringing in a distinguished jury for each category to decide the winner. Each award recipient will receive a cash prize and a physical trophy, in addition to the Best of the Year badge, and the winning films will be screened at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on January 17th.

There are three jurors for each Staff Pick category, including the 2017 winners for each respective category. Categories include: Best of Action Sports, Best of Animation, Best of Comedy, Best of Documentary, Best of Drama, Best of Eye Candy and Best of Travel. Jury members include Alan Cumming, Roger Ross Williams, Reinaldo Green, and Sarah Schneider,...

Wes Hurley wanted to turn the story of his journey from Russia to the United States into a movie, but he wasn’t thinking of a short documentary.

Instead, Hurley wrote a feature script about growing up gay in the repressive and homophobic Russian society, about his and his mother’s move to the United States and about a bizarre twist that followed after she became the mail-order bride to an intensely religious man in Seattle.

But somewhere along the line, Hurley got a small grant and decided to make a short documentary and a complementary virtual-reality short as a way to build momentum for his feature. The resulting film, “Little Potato,” he said, “took off in its own right,” and is now one of the 12 finalists in TheWrap’s 2018 ShortList Film Festival.

Also Read: Finalists Announced for 2018 ShortList Film Festival

“During the Sochi Olympics [in 2014], I wrote an article for...

TheWrap is pleased to announce the 12 finalists in the seventh annual ShortList Film Festival, launching today online.

The finalists, hand-picked from the world’s top film festivals over the last year, will stream on the site starting today through August 22, 2018 — allowing visitors to vote on their favorites.

The Audience Prize and The Industry Prize winners will each receive a $5,000 cash prize during a ceremony to take place at the AMC Century City in Los Angeles on Thursday, August 23.

The films in the main competition are a mix of foreign language, drama, comedy and animation created by filmmakers from around the globe.

Also Read: Meet: The 2018 ShortList Film Festival Jurors!

In addition, eight student films from top colleges and universities included in TheWrap’s ranking of film schools have been named finalists in a sidebar competition.

The contenders come from filmmakers who studied at USC, UCLA, University of North Carolina School of the Arts,...

Keep up with the always-hopping film festival world with our weekly Film Festival Roundup column. Check out last week’s Roundup right here.

Lineup Announcements

– Cardiff Animation Nights will be returning to run a dedicated animation strand at Cardiff Independent Film Festival (C.I.F.F.) for a second year this May. This year’s animation strand at C.I.F.F. will comprise three programs of animated short films in competition for the Best Animation Award, as well as an Animated Family Shorts program curated by renowned Cardiff-based studio Cloth Cat Animation, networking events, and an Animation Quiz run by the team at Skwigly Animation Magazine.

The competition program features animated short films from across Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australia, including Mikey Hill’s The Orchestra, Anete Melece’s Analysis Paralysis, Chris Shepherd’s Johnno’s Dead, Ross Hogg’s Life Cycles and Alois Di Leo’s Way of Giants.

At a packed Paramount Theater this evening, the SXSW Film Festival, now at the halfway mark, handed out their big film awards. The fest’s two big competition jury prizes went to director Ana Asensio’s “Most Beautiful Island” (Best Narrative Feature) and directors Jairus McLeary and Gethin Aldous’s “The Work” (Best Narrative Feature).

Read More: Terrence Malick Makes a Rare Appearance at SXSW 2017 and Digs Deep On His Process

Asensio, a Spanish actress and filmmaker living in New York, shot her film in super 16mm. It tells the story of undocumented female immigrants struggling to start a life in New York. It is a feature film debut for Asensio, who also stars and wrote the screenplay. “Island” is being billed as a dramatic thriller and was produced by the New York horror master Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix.

The Doc Prize winner, “The Work,” is an intense...

Premiering at this year’s SXSW festival, “Little Potato” centers around the Seattle-based artist Wes Hurley and the obstacles he faced as a gay man growing up in Russia. Including an interview with his mother, “Little Potato” focuses on a mother and son wanting to find a better life for themselves outside the confines of an oppressive Russian regime.

Read More: SXSW: Midnighters, Short Films and Vr Round Out 2017 Lineup

In this short doc, Hurley opens up about the confusion he felt when he began fantasizing about men while in Russia. He thought he was alone. In the film, Hurley’s mother states that “no one talked about gay people back then, that they didn’t exist.”

American films ended up being the family’s saving grace. With exposure to American cinema, Mrs. Hurley saw a prosperous opportunity for her and her son. Hurley’s mother became a mail-order bride for American men; unfortunately,...

Wes Hurley, author of the Huffington Post's article 'Growing up Gay in Russia', is set to star as the EmCee in a modern new production of Cabaret. Arts on the Waterfront's new production will be set in Russia instead of the usual Germany, combining theatre, drag, and short clips of the actual vigilantesneo-nazis to comment on the recent events in Russia. The production will also feature Zachary Simonson of Seattle Repertory Theater's 'American Buffalo' as well as members of the Seattle drag community.

Wes Hurley, author of the Huffington Post's article 'Growing up Gay in Russia', is set to star as the EmCee in a modern new production of Cabaret. Arts on the Waterfront's new production will be set in Russia instead of the usual Germany, combining theatre, drag, and short clips of the actual vigilantesneo-nazis to comment on the recent events in Russia. The production will also feature Zachary Simonson of Seattle Repertory Theater's 'American Buffalo' as well as members of the Seattle drag community.

Cinekink, the NYC-based erotic film festival, is bringing its unique brand of sexuality to Los Angeles for three steamy nights on Oct. 8-10.

The festival’s definition of “erotica” is clearly a very broad one that includes neo-burlesque performers, bored dominatrices, kinky judges, randy sheep-women, 9/11 enthusiasts and more.

The feature films that are screening — the documentaries Waxie Moon by Wes Hurley and My Sexuality: A Sensory Experience by Felicia Giouzelis; and the fiction films S&M Judge by Erik Lamens and Modern Love Is Automatic by Zach Clark — were all award winners at the 2010 Cinekink. The short film program on the 9th, collectively titled “Best of Cinekink/2010,” also features a batch of award winners, while the other programs are a mix of general 2010 festival favorites.

Regular readers of Bad Lit will have noticed that one of our favorite films of 2009, Modern Love Is Automatic, will be screening, so we’re thrilled about that.

The seventh annual CineKink Film Festival in NYC gave all kinds of perverts and kinky-minded individuals a warm haven during the cold month of February, Feb. 16-21 specifically. Lots of sexy fare was screened at the venerated Anthology Film Archives, but the sexiest of the sexiest? That would be these award-winning films listed below.

Your average kinky film fan was given the chance to vote for several Audience Choice Awards, but there was also a jury of super kinksters voting on short films; plus the ultimate kinky players, i.e. the staff of the CineKink fest itself, gave out a handful of special awards.

The licentious jury voting on short films consisted of Bad Lit pal Mike White of the legendary zine Cashiers du Cinemart, Lolita Wolf of the Leather Yenta (Nsfw) blog and Bill Woods of the long-running New Filmmakers screening series.

Finally, before we get to the full...

The seventh annual CineKink Film Festival is set to undress for all kinky filmgoers in New York City on February 16-21. Included in the lineup are two fantastic, slightly dirty underground films, plus a full smorgasbord of sexy cinematic goodness.

The opening night festivities will begin on the 16th at the Kush Lounge (191 Chrystie St.) with music and performances, plus a screening of the lesbian ode to bestiality (sort of) The Sheep and the Ranch Hand, a beautiful and hilarious film by San Francisco filmmaker Loretta Hintz, and a newly found “lost” film by notorious ’60s radical, criminal and filmmaker J.X. Williams.

Then, on the 17th, the original museum of film, the Anthology Film Archives, will be transformed into an erotic museum when CineKink moves there for the duration of the rest of the festival.

But, on the 19th, don’t dare miss the wonderful S&M comedy Modern Love Is Automatic...