A24
A24’s Lamb is Slow-Burn Folk Horror Like Ewe Have Never Seen: Review
The Pitch: Out in the foggy hills of Iceland, Maria (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Gudnason), a couple spending a dignified, quiet existence on their sheep farm, reside far from the rest of civilization. It’s relatively unspoken, but one intuits early that they’re reeling from the recent loss of a child. It still stings, but the two press on in their virtually silent existence, going about their chores and assisting their ewes’ new births. One day, a member of the flock gives birth to a curious creature — an uncanny hybrid of man and lamb — that the pair immediately adopt as their own child. Her name? Ada. But as the three of them build a strangely comforting existence together, their fog-shrouded idyll is disrupted by forces outside their control. The arrival of Ingvar’s dead...
NYFF Review: Simon Rex Gets a Surprising A24 Showcase in Sean Baker’s Red Rocket
The Pitch: Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) rolls back into his hometown on a bus, bruised and nearly penniless. His career as an adult film performer has seemingly dried up some time ago, so he shows up at the doorstep of his not-quite-ex-wife Lexi (Bree Elrod), another porn-industry castoff. With few job prospects and no car — he tools around on a one-speed bike — Mikey attempts to rebuild his life. This might sound like a kitchen-sink recovery drama, but Mikey’s interest in self-improvement is questionable and filmmaker Sean Baker’s interest in misery-wallowing is, as ever, minimal. Instead, Red Rocket is a queasily hilarious chronicle of misdirected American hustle. Sunshine States: After exploring the streets of Los Angeles in Tangerine and the outskirts of Orlando in The Florida Project, Bake...
NYFF Review: Joel Coen Goes Solo in Style with The Tragedy of Macbeth
This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: The Coen Brothers plus Shakespeare — whaddaya need, a roadmap? Actually, you might; or at least a program note to explain why The Tragedy of Macbeth has only one Coen on hand. It’s not a retro affectation that Joel Coen is taking sole director credit, as he used to on the joint Coen projects (until 2004’s The Ladykillers, Joel took “director” and Ethan handled “producer,” even though they were always really doing both). Ethan is taking a break from making movies, while Joel has mounted a black-and-white version of Shakespeare’s famous (and fleetest?) tragedy, with Denzel Washington as Lord Macbeth, who becomes convinced he must take bloody action to fulfill his destiny and become king of Scotland, and France...
Zola Turns a Twitter Thread Into a Thrilling Dark Comedy: Review
This review originally ran as part of our Sundance 2020 coverage and has been updated as of June 2021. The Pitch: “Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out????????” began Aziah “Zola” Wells’ epic 2015 Twitter thread, a near-mythic tale of strippers, murder, and kidnappings that went immediately viral. Five years later, here we are, with the first film ever derived from a series of tweets, recounting the story of how Zola (Taylour Paige) falls in with a fellow stripper named Stefani (Riley Keough), who ends up roping her into a road trip to Tampa with her boyfriend Derrek (Succession‘s Cousin Greg himself, Nicholas Braun) and her “roommate” X (Colman Domingo). But it doesn’t take long before Zola figures out the real score: Stefani turns out to be a sex work...
A24 Releases Trailer for Zola, Stripper Film Based on Viral Twitter Thread: Watch
A24 has released the official trailer for their new movie Zola, which premiered at Sundance in early 2020. The film is based on a viral Twitter thread that tells the true story of two strippers who embark on a treacherous road trip across Florida. Directed by Janicza Bravo and starring Riley Keough as Stefani and Taylour Paige as Zola, who fall in love with one another and trek across the state to see how much money they can make as dancers. The two are joined by Stefani’s erratically violent boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun) and her “roommate” X (Colman Domingo), but shortly into the trip, Zola realizes that Stefani is a sex worker and Derrek is her pimp. The real Zola recounted the wild tale in a famous 2015 Twitter thread that was then adapted into a slightly dramatized R...
Saint Maud Is Wholly Terrifying: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Beyond Film Festival. The Pitch: Maud (Morfydd Clark) does palliative care for a private healthcare facility and becomes the maid for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a former avant garde dancer and choreographer. Maud has found God following a traumatic event at work, hinted at through flashbacks and haunting visions, and has now taken a pious approach to work that borders on fanaticism. Faced with antagonism from Amanda, Maud slowly spirals more and more into religious fueled actions and experiences — talked to and touched by God — that will lead to a string of actions that have an irreversible impact and her and those around her. This Cast and Crew Are Doing the Lord’s Work: British writer and director Rose Glass boldly shows off her ch...
Minari’s Steven Yeun on His Performance of the Year: “I Just Want to Keep Playing My Part”
Two things you need to know about Steven Yeun: He calls comparisons “comps”, and he has a better understanding of who he is as an actor and cultural figure than many other stars his age. Of course, it helps that he’s taken the long road to stardom, breaking out in a big way as zombie apocalypse survivor Glenn for six years on The Walking Dead, before moving on to roles in films by some of our most idiosyncratic, interesting filmmakers working today: Bong Joon-ho (Okja), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), and Lee Chang-dong (Burning), to name a few. His latest, A24’s soul-stirring family drama Minari, feels like a turning point of sorts, both in the gripping complexity of his performance and the film culture that’s finally taken due notice of him. In Lee Isaac Chung’s thoughtful melodrama, ...
Top 25 Films of 2020
Our Annual Report continues as we reveal the Top 25 Films of 2020. Stay tuned for more awards, lists, and articles in the days and weeks to come about the best music, film, and TV of the year. If you’ve missed any part of our Annual Report, you can check out all the coverage here. Going to the movies ain’t like it used to be, right? What an understatement. With theaters shuttered up and movie chains filing for bankruptcy, one might argue it’s been a pretty crap year for cinema. Financially speaking, they’re not wrong. But, art is a funny thing. It has a way of enduring even the most arduous obstacles — you know, that whole Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park, “life finds a way” bit — and this year was a testament to that truth. Art had no issue finding a proper stage. That stage, as fate...
A24’s Saint Maud Is A Captivating Debut Full of Human and Psychological Terror: Beyond Fest Review
The Pitch: Maud (Morfydd Clark) does palliative care for a private healthcare facility and becomes the maid for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a former avant garde dancer and choreographer. Maud has found God following a traumatic event at work, hinted at through flashbacks and haunting visions, and has now taken a pious approach to work that borders on fanaticism. Faced with antagonism from Amanda, Maud slowly spirals more and more into religious fueled actions and experiences — talked to and touched by God — that will lead to a string of actions that have an irreversible impact and her and those around her. This Cast and Crew Are Doing the Lord’s Work: British writer and director Rose Glass boldly shows off her chops and gives viewers a lot to appreciate and more importantly a lot to look forwa...
A24 Premieres Jonathan Glazer’s New Quarantine Short Film STRASBOURG 1518: Watch
Director Jonathan Glazer has returned with a new short film. It’s called STRASBOURG 1518 and features pulsing new music by composer Mica Levi, who worked with the filmmaker on 2014’s Under the Skin. A24 is streaming the short film here. Dubbed a “collaboration in isolation”, the 10-minute film gracefully oscillates between some of the “greatest dancers working today” as they perform alone in their respective homes. Not gonna lie, a few of the shots are pretty damn eerie. And they should be given that the whole thing was inspired by a dancing plague. Yes, a dancing plague. In July of 1518, a case of dancing mania washed over the citizens of Strasbourg, prompting 50 to 400 people to dance for days. [editors-pick id=”557632,982420″] Already, several critics and fans have called it a...
The Safdie Brothers Ink Deal with HBO
Benny and Josh Safdie, the brothers behind the instant cult favorite Uncut Gems, have signed a two-year, first-look deal with HBO. As THR reports, they’ll create new projects under their own banner of Elara Pictures. Two longtime Safdie collaborators, producer Sebastian Bear-McClard and writer Ronald Bronstein, are also along for the anxiety-inducing ride. All of their HBO efforts will be executive produced by A24, which had previously worked with the Safdie’s on Uncut Gems and Good Time. A24 has lately developed a robust relationship with Home Box Office, including producing the new hit Euphoria. Interestingly, THR notes that the deal allows for A24 and Elara to partner up for “select projects outside of the HBO first look.” For now it’s unclear wh...
