Thanks to all who attended the screening and to Tinker Street Cinema for hosting.

BLACKOUT now streaming on your favorite platforms

FRIDAY, MAY 17 at 7:00PM
Q&A with Fessenden to Follow

At the Metrograph in New York, American Landscapes: The Cinema of Kelly Reichardt continues with two films Executive Produced by Fessenden: CERTAIN WOMEN and NIGHT MOVES.

by Mary Beth McAndrews 

Zombies are a horror staple, especially thanks to the works of one George A. Romero. We’ve seen slow zombies, fast zombies, smart zombies, zombies that eat brains, zombies that just eat flesh, we’ve seen it all. So how could you create something unique in an oversaturated landscape? Enter Jim Jarmusch, the mind behind Only Lovers Left Alive, who creates his own strange yet silly zombie-filled world in The Dead Don’t Die, which is dominating the charts on Max.

In the film, per Max, “Zombies terrorize a small town, whose sheriff happens to be Bill Murray. Hilarity and splatter ensue in this engaging horror spoof.“

The film doesn’t just feature Adam Driver and Bill Murray. Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny, Selena Gomez, Austin Butler, Danny Glover, RZA, and Larry Fessenden also star in The Dead Don’t Die. Jarmusch stacks the cast with a who’s who of his favorite actors and musicians all to create his own strange version of life after the zombie apocalypse.

The Dead Don’t Die had its world premiere at the opening night of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Despite Jarmusch’s pedigree and the bevy of talent, the film was initially met with mixed critic reactions. Many criticized the script and the strange humor on display that never hits its stride. But others were tickled by the deadpan delivery and the way Jarmusch plays with genre expectations.

Read at Dread Central

Video: Alex Hurt Talks Finding His Footing on Broadway in PATRIOTS
Patriots is running on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Welcome to another Edition of The Roundtable on BroadwayWorld! This week, talk about an acting dynasty of a family… Alex Hurt is here! He is one of the stars of Patriots now playing at the Barrymore Theatre. His father, Academy Award-winning legend, William Hurt performed Hurly Burly at the Barrymore so things are full circle! What was Alex’s journey to Broadway? Why is this his “proper” Broadway debut? We find out!

Read / watch at Broadwayworld.com

This Boy’s Vida: Made in America has been awarded the Top Prize for Dramatic Pilot Writing (Joseph Castillo-Midyett) and the prestigious Caz Matthews Award at their recent SeriesFest world premiere.

Jury Statement: For the detailed and empathetic portrait of a boy in a world seldom depicted on television, the script that touched our hearts and made us want to see the next chapter in this boy’s life, the writing prize goes to Joseph Castillo-Midyett.

…

This Boy’s Vida: Made in America Series’s Logline: With the help of his imaginary future self, an American Latino boy who dreams of being an actor turns “Robin Hood” to feed his starving sisters, until the system catches up with him and forces him to choose between his family or dreams.

The Caz Matthews Award, which includes a one-time financial donation from the Caz Matthews Fund, honors “independent filmmakers who have important stories to tell and have the desire to both create work as well as find distribution opportunities that further promote tolerance, acceptance and understanding of all cultures and persons in the general population.”

“I want to thank SeriesFest and Caz Matthews for being true allies,” says Joseph Castillo-Midyett. “This is the story of SO many Americans TODAY.”

…

Read More at Broadwayworld

★★★★★
one of the most intelligent and interesting werewolf movies of the twenty-first century.
—Craig Ian Mann, OurCulture

“One of the 13 best horror films of the year (so far)…
a compelling and haunting drama about a man trying to atone
for his own beastly nature in a monstrous world”
—Matthew Jackson, AV Club

appealingly scrappy and thoughtful…
carves out its own moral seriousness about the monsters inside all of us…
the idiosyncratic earnestness of an experienced horrormeister…
makes for a substantial midnight snack.
—Robert Abele, The Los Angeles Times

★★★★★
not to be missed… Blackout is a fantastic film.
—Emily Von Seele, Daily Dead

Scout Tafoya • 13 MAY 2024

I had saved my question about Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) until the last possible minute. Larry Fessenden, a disarmingly amiable man with an edge to his self-deprecating humor I recognized only too well, has a new werewolf movie out.
If you know Larry’s movies— No Telling (1991), Habit (1995), Wendigo (2001), The Last Winter (2006), Beneath (2013), Depraved (2019), and now Blackout (2023)—you know it’s never just a matter of a monster. As we dug into its story of a lycanthropic curse doubling as a metaphor for an artist’s alcoholism and a town’s despair at a recent solar eclipse, I could see Larry the filmmaker turn into Larry the eager, devoted student and fan under the half-light of the black sun…

Read full article at Mubi

being a mother can be tough in the genre space:
(clockwise) MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND, RIVER OF GRASS, STAKE LAND, WENDIGO