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Tag: SXSW 2024

  • SXSW Will No Longer Work With the U.S. Army or Defense Contractors

    SXSW Will No Longer Work With the U.S. Army or Defense Contractors

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    Photo: Hutton Supancic/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty Images

    SXSW is ending its partnerships with the U.S. Army and defense contractors after pro-Palestine protests this year. “After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model,” the festival said after opening applications for 2025. “As a result, the U.S. Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.” More than 60 artists and participants boycotted this year’s festival over SXSW’s ties to defense groups that supply Israeli weapons in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The U.S. Army was a “super-sponsor” of the 2024 festival, and Collins Aerospace, a company under defense conglomerate RTX Corporation (f.k.a. Raytheon), also participated. “A music festival should not include war profiteers,” said Squirrel Flower, one of the first artists to boycott. “I refuse to be complicit in this and withdraw my art and labor in protest.”

    SXSW previously defended its military ties amid this year’s controversy. The festival called the defense industry “a proving ground” for new technology and said working with the Army “is part of our commitment to bring forward ideas that shape our world.” The Army said it was “proud” to sponsor SXSW, which it called “a unique opportunity.”

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    Justin Curto

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  • Akira Galaxy: Rockstar, Poet

    Akira Galaxy: Rockstar, Poet

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    Akira Galaxy is a romantic. You can hear it in her music. You can see it in her music videos as she runs across Normandy in a glittering bodysuit. Even when she’s on stage in a vintage nightgown, strumming a glittering silver guitar. I encountered it firsthand in Austin, Texas, while she sat in between SXSW sets, telling me how she’s been reading Eros: The Bittersweet in her spare time.

    “It’s just a lot of reflection of love and loss and sitting with yourself,” she said of her debut EP, What’s Inside You. “And a lot of desire.” Akira’s distinct vocals, her poetic lyricism, the gut-pulling guitar riffs — they all add up pure palpable desire.

    Although What’s Inside You came into the world earlier this year, much of it was written during the height of the pandemic. And while many of us were making sourdough, Akira was falling in love.

    “I fell in love with someone through a computer and through my phone,” she told me. “It was really romantic. It reminded me of back when people would send letters to each other and that was your only way of communicating. And that’s something that will never fully happen again. It was a point in time where that was the only option to connect with people. This person was across the world, the borders were closed. So we fell in love with each other through our minds.”

    Though it wasn’t only this relationship that inspired her EP, the ache for connection reverberates through her music. Inspired by conversations with old friends during lockdown, her hometown of Seattle, and a whole lot of poetry, What’s Inside You is a tapestry threaded together by deep reflection and devastating hooks. It’s vulnerable, but never saccharine. Lyrics like “Give me your impossible devotion” (“Virtual Eyes”) and “No one’s gonna love you like I do,” (“Silver Shoes”) are grounded by poetic details that deftly traverse both the personal and the universal.

    Gaining such craft and skill as a songwriter and musician didn’t happen overnight. Or even over the pandemic. Galaxy has spent the past few years honing her craft — polishing her sound and even studying the art of mime (find her in LA mime classes) to bring intention to her performances.

    And now, with What’s Inside You, she’s finally arrived. “It’s been such a long time coming,” says Akira. I spoke to her about her sound, her stage presence, and her style at SXSW 2024.

    Pet Shop DaysAkira Galaxy

    POPDUST: Your debut EP, What’s Inside You, just released. How did you find your sound?

    AKIRA: I had just moved to LA and was writing a ton. And then COVID hit so I went home to Seattle. I still hadn’t figured out my sound. I hadn’t found a song where I was like, this is fully me. I want to share this with the world. When human physical touch and one-on-one connection were stripped away, it really fucked with my hardware, like anyone. It made me look inward and I was scheduling these Zoom meetings with people I went to school with — like first grade. I hadn’t talked to them in like 10 years. I just wanted to get in touch with all these people who had drifted to the back of my mind. I was really able to reflect on another version of myself. So that’s when I figured out my sound and then the first song I wrote was “What’s Inside You.” And I also bought my first acoustic guitar learned a bunch of Bob Dylan covers like “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” That’s the first song I learned how to do vibrato with my voice on. So a combination of everything — especially reflection of the past and also accepting this new way of living — blossomed this EP. And that’s when I discovered my sound.

    POPDUST: Now that physical touch is back, is that yearning still there?

    AKIRA: I’ve been reading a lot of Greek mythology recently. Like Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson. And there are a lot of themes about desire and yearning. Especially when someone’s away and how that distance creates desire. I just think it’s really interesting to go back in time and see how other people were describing things. That was like their Bible, right? And it’s a really romantic way of describing things that we feel today. Like, the bittersweet taste of honey melting on my tongue. Or an ice cube melting the palm of my hand. Or the veil between us while we’re sleeping in a bed. I’m really into that kind of stuff. And into the origin of colors, and different ways to really describe the things that we’re feeling and try and understand the way we’re feeling.

    POPDUST: It’s interesting that the details that appeal to you the most are from something so fantastical as mythology.

    AKIRA: I feel like maybe I’m just used to picking out that kind of stuff because I read poetry so often to get inspired for my lyrics. So I’ll read a poem and see the big picture of it, but a lot of the time, I’m finding words that really stand out to me and make me feel something. So I’ve learned to look for things like that.

    POPDUST: Your songwriting is similar. A lot of your peers are leaning into the confessional style but your lyrics are more abstract.

    AKIRA: So it’s really interesting that you bring that up because I’ve kind of been struggling with that myself. Because with so much of the lyric writing today, what you hear is what you get. There’s a quote that someone said to me once: The music will make you like an artist, the lyrics will make you fall in love with an artist. I feel that so heavily. For me, if I see lyrics that I love, it’s a spiral where I have to look at all their other lyrics. And a lot of the time, maybe I won’t fully understand what they’re saying at first, but I have to put the puzzle pieces together. And in my own way. I don’t know if maybe what I think the song is about will change a year from then. But to me, that’s what’s really interesting.

    POPDUST: The potential for transformation is there.

    AKIRA: Totally. Like Bob Dylan. He’s very simplistic with his writing in some capacity, but it’s a way that the words are formed together. That’s what I’m aiming for with my lyric writing in the future — aiming to get somewhere near that guy. You can say the simplest thing, but it can be the most profound thing in the world.

    POPDUST: And that’s something that comes from poetry, right? Precision and diction and transformation are such poetic features.

    AKIRA: Yeah. And I’m struggling with that. Because I really like abstract writing. But sometimes I’m like, I don’t know if this is going to make sense to everyone. But it makes so much sense to me in the most profound way. So maybe that’s enough. And maybe it becomes a completely different story for another person. And it’s constantly evolving with time.

    POPDUST: That timelessness is present in “Virtual Eyes.” It has the echoes of COVID and falling in love virtually. But it’s so rooted in the sensation of desire that it transcends the literal meaning and feels like its own thing.

    AKIRA: I wrote that in a day. Actually, I wrote the chorus lyrics about six months prior and then everything else was written in the span of a day. I just remember being in tears. Like, tears on the— on the like, page.

    I was going through one of the most painful times in my life and it was the only thing I could do to feel okay. And I think that’s a really beautiful thing about being a creative person or being an artist is you can pull life out of anything. And you can actually benefit other people too by doing that. So it’s funny because the easiest moments for me to write in are, I think a perfect combination of feeling really happy about a situation — but there being a bit of a tragedy in it as well. In the sense of, like, things are so bad that I have no other choice but to write. Because it’s the only way that I am going to not feel like everything’s in black and white.

    POPDUST: Do you think that’s the only way to write? With — or within — that extreme emotion?

    AKIRA: I think there’s something to be said about just constantly being aware of the smallest little romantic thing. Picking up on little romantic gestures or moments that can easily make their way into a song if you’re seeing all these things all the time. And for me, a really good way to be in tune is constantly like keeping the wheels turning. With everything. Watching films, reading, listening to music, hearing little weird sounds, and new songs, and constantly having that creative flow. And being around other creative people and talking about this stuff.

    POPDUST: I think that’s also what makes your persona — Akira Galaxy, the artist — seem so strong. It’s made up of so many details, from how you show up on stage to lyrics to your visuals. How did you carve that out?

    AKIRA: It’s gonna sound so simple and boring, but it’s just what I like. And it’s just what feels right. Like when I was creating visuals, I mean, the people I was working with were a huge part of it. But when I started thinking about visuals for the song, I just wanted really hyper-realistic landscapes. So I pulled from all the films that I like and, you know, Pinterest was a really good source for me.

    POPDUST: What were the inspirations for the “Virtual Eyes” video?

    AKIRA: I wanted to go to France and I found a bunch of locations in Europe, mostly in France, and in Italy. So I was like, Do you guys want to come to France with me? I need to do this. I need the first visuals to be amazing. And I think a lot of the reason why I felt that way was because it had been such a long time coming. I’ve been wanting to release something since I was like 16 years old. And then I wrote a lot of this EP when I was 20 and 21. So it had been a year or two in the making, and I was like, alright, well, because it’s been so long it has to be exactly the way I want it to be. And it has to be a full representation of myself.

    POPDUST: Many young artists, especially with the immediacy of TikTok, feel pressure to release music as fast and as often as possible. Do you ever feel that pressure?

    AKIRA: Right. If I had released the song that I wrote when I was 16 years old, I probably would have had a really different trajectory. So there’s some beauty in really making sure that it was the right moment. Because there’s that saying that you have your whole life to make your first album. But also, at some point, you gotta let it out and, like, let go of shit a bit.

    POPDUST: Do you have a sense of what the first album is going to be?

    AKIRA: I’m figuring that out in real-time. I have a good chunk of songs that I definitely want to go on an album or an EP and one of them’s my favorite I’ve written — even over “Virtual Eyes.” So I’m pretty excited. But I think it might sound a little more minimal or spacey. I love that, tied in with visuals like Sofia Coppola’s stuff. I mean The Virgin Suicides soundtrack is one of my favorite records of all time.

    POPDUST: And will you draw from all those little moments you’re always cataloging?

    AKIRA: For sure. Yeah. And it’s, interesting, a lot of this newer stuff is gonna be in real time. The past EP was a lot of reflecting and now it’s present Akira. A lot of it has to do with picking up on the little romantic details and life and just being consumed with what’s going on. I mean, I find it really interesting when artists write about things in the third person or from a weird perspective. I think a lot of artists today are like — and I think this is appropriate in some moments — but are only saying “me,” “you,” “I.” I’m trying to refrain from that and get more into the abstract.

    POPDUST: Speaking of doing the unexpected, I heard you studied mime for your performances. How did you get into that?

    AKIRA: It was around the time I wrote “Virtual Eyes.” It was during that period when I was in a really dark time. And I was like, Okay, I need to perform and I need to be intentional about it. So I looked at mime classes in LA and found this guy, Lorin Eric Salm, who’s part of this thing called Mime Theater and he was taught by Marcel Marceau for years in Paris. So he’s the real deal. Initially, we started by just doing core mime stuff. A lot of it was kind of just the way that you stand. It’s called suspension. It’s about how you hold your placement of every part of your body. I think a striking performance can be in the subtlest details, like the way that you look at the audience. It can be in your eyes. It can be in just the way you stand there. But it’s important to have intention. People want to come to a show and see something interesting, They want to try and understand what you’re trying to convey to the audience, even more so than just the song. So, I think that’s what I wanted. How do I express what I’m trying to say to the audience in the most real way?

    Watch the “Virtual Eyes” video here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvp5nShIJXU

    Stream What’s Inside You HERE:

    https://open.spotify.com/album/2MuLsccIzQmcny5aMtpNM3?si=tr66ELGXSwK6tVZiwbWWsg

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    Jai Phillips

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  • Rolling Stone Future of Music Recap: Meet the Artists Shaping The Music Scene Today

    Rolling Stone Future of Music Recap: Meet the Artists Shaping The Music Scene Today

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    It seems like there’s a new “emerging artist” every day. TikTok viral hits become international earworms overnight, propelling artists to instant, but fleeting, fame. It makes sense then, that artists with staying power have often toiled away for years before achieving mainstream success.

    It’s easy to believe that, these days, the music industry values virality above all. But the artists shaping music as we know it rarely emerge from nowhere.

    Just look at the
    2024 Grammy Award Winner for Best New Artist, Victoria Monét. Monét released five EPs before her debut studio album, Jaguar II (2023), and its lead single, “On My Mama,” gave her commercial success. But before Monét’s solo career took off, she was a frequent collaborator of Ariana Grande. She’s also worked on songs and albums for artists like Nas, Travis Scott, Blackpink, Fifth Harmony, T.I., Lupe Fiasco, Chrisette Michele, Brandy, Coco Jones, Chloe x Halle, and more. Over a decade in the industry prepared her to become the verifiable star she is now.

    Some of our other
    artists to watch for 2024 have experienced similar tenures in the industry before finally garnering long-term success. Sabrina Carpenter started her career with Disney and has finally become the popstar she was born to be with Emails I Can’t Send — her fifth studio album. Same with queer trailblazer Renee Rapp, who starred in Mean Girls: The Musical on Broadway before landing the role in the film adaptation and bursting onto the music scene with her debut album Snow Angel.

    What sets these artists apart from the bright but brief flames sparked on TikTok is their dedication to their artistry and self-image. Years of learning how to perform, sharpen their sound, and crafting their public persona prime them for impact and longevity. It takes time to hone lasting talent. And time makes it more satisfying when a musician or a band finally punches through to the mainstream.

    Many artists thrive in niche subcultures playing to curated crowds. Those are some of my favorites — there’s nothing like a basement show packed shoulder-to-shoulder with a small group of people who share your private music obsession. But the artists that shape music as we know it today are coming from all genres. They manage to transcend their niches and add to the collective conversation in a fresh way. But how do they do it? And how do we know which artists are changing music in real-time?

    What is the Rolling Stone Future of Music Showcase?

    Everyone fancies themselves a music critic these days. I’m not immune to this. I watch deep dives on my favorite artists on TikTok, curate my
    Spotify playlists like they’re museums, and wax poetic about why my favorite albums deserved Grammys.

    Here at Popdust, we know a thing or two about emerging artists. Which is why we went down South to Austin, Texas for SXSW to catch some of this year’s most exciting acts in person.

    SXSW 2024 was bigger and better than ever. Its crowning jewel is the Rolling Stone Future of Music Showcase, which brings together the buzziest and best music acts across genres. The four-night event caps off each evening at SX, bringing an array of artists and audiences together in Austin, Texas.

    What an ideal compliment to the dive bar shows and daytime music showcases. But this high-octane event is more than just a flashy festival. It’s a great predictor of the artists who will prove themselves influential in the coming years. “Artists of tomorrow,” as
    Rolling Stone likes to call them.

    Last year’s performers included artists like Coco Jones, Remi Wolf, Chlöe Bailey, Blondshell, and others who have only become even bigger stars over the past year.

    After this year’s lineup, wiill
    Rolling Stone’s penchant for successful predictions be proven again? Given the record-level excitement for the event, all signs point to yes.

    Emerging Artists to Watch From the Rolling Stone Future of Music Showcase 2024

    With 40,000 fans RSVP’ing for the ACL Live event, Austin’s iconic Moody Theater was packed. Each night, fans lined up for hours for a chance to make it into the venue — some for over 14 hours — with the line for Música Mexicana superstar Peso Pluma stretching for blocks and blocks. Sponsors like StockX, ~Pourri, and Bacardi also put on activations and events to celebrate the music and the fans.

    With this much fan excitement, the lineup simply
    had to deliver. Genres included urbano, Southern rock, Afrobeats, hip-hop, amapiano, soul, funk, and good old indie-alt.

    Here is each day’s lineup:

    • Day 1 (Tuesday, March 12) — Teezo Touchdown, Veeze, Lola Brooke, and Chase Shakur
    • Day 2 (Wednesday, March 13) — Peso Pluma, Young Miko, Kevin Kaarl, J Noa, and Pink Pablo
    • Day 3 (Thursday, March 14) — Flo Milli, Pheelz, Preacher, Uncle Waffles, Black Sherif, and Flyana Boss
    • Day 4 (Friday, March 15) — Faye Webster, Red Clay Strays, Scowl, Dylan Gossett, and Jackie Venson

    Take note — you’ll be seeing these names everywhere soon.

    Recap: Everything you missed at Rolling Stone’s SXSW Showcase

    While all of the artists highlighted at this year’s
    Rolling Stone Future of Music Showcase are sure to be somewhat influential, we’re most excited to see the trajectory of the headliners who are changing the game right now.

    Here’s a recap of their performances and why, if you’re not already a fan, you will be soon.

    Teezo Touchdown

    Texas’s own Teezo Touchdown headlined opening night. You’ve probably heard him on “RunItUp” by Tyler, the Creator; “Modern Jam” by Travis Scott; or “Amen” by Drake. After years of high-level features, he finally released his debut album
    How Do You Sleep at Night? in September 2023. On stage at SXSW, it’s clear that Teezo’s experience opening for Tyler, the Creator in 2022, and Travis Scott last year has contributed mightily to his magnetic stage presence. Running across the stage brandishing a microphone wrapped in a flower bouquet, Teezo’s energy was infectious. And the crowd ate it up.

    His blend of rock, rap, and pop music is telling of his generation — one who resists genres and embraces the fluidity of form. He also shared a heartwarming story about how he busked at SXSW in 2018. Look at him now! He recently announced a single “MASC” with Doja Cat and A$AP Rocky for Doja’s
    Scarlet 2 Claude Deluxe album. Touchdown’s only getting hotter and hotter.

    Peso Pluma

    Mexico’s favorite rockstar headlined Night 2. After earning the longest lines in SXSW history, his performance proved well worth the wait. Peso Pluma’s signature brand of “música mexicana,” took the crowd to exciting heights. His youthful energy filled the theater — especially when he joined the audience in the pit. It was a sight to behold.

    Dubbed the “Mexican Mick Jagger,” the Gen Z star will release his new album this summer. His undeniable charisma is embedded in his music, earning him a fanatic base of loyal listeners and a chokehold on the music scene. Just wait, he’ll soon transcend boundaries beyond Latinx Pop and hit everyone’s speakers this summer.

    Flo Milli

    Flo Milli had a lot to celebrate as she headlined Night 3 literally as her second album dropped. Iconic behavior. She took the crowd through familiar favorites, her new songs, and premiered a new remix featuring Cardi B and SZA — not bad co-signs for an emerging artist.

    I saw Flo Milli perform in 2020, and watching her on the giant Moody Theater stage was like watching her come alive on a whole new level. After her song “Never Lose Me” got massive attention last year, Flo Milli is poised to be one of music’s next It-Girls. Her versatility is thrilling and admirable, so is her personality and signature tag — if you know, you know.

    Faye Webster

    Like Flo Milli, I’ve seen Faye Webster before. Not once, not twice, but three times. The first was in 2017 — how can it be six and a half years ago? My penchant for “sad girl music” drew me to Webster’s artfully whiny voice and nostalgic yearning. But the Atlanta native is more than another girl whining about her breakups (even though, from Taylor Swift to Olivia Rodrigo, I eat them all up).

    Webster was signed to a rap label and takes lyrical influence from hip-hop and blues artists. She has an energetic stage presence that matches her quirky sound that kept the crowd moving all throughout her set.

    From the sultry sweetness of her TikTok viral hit “Kingston” to the high kicks and guitar riffs pulled off during songs like “I Think I’m Funny Ha Ha” and “In A Good Way,” Faye proves herself to be music’s ultimate cool girl. Rockstar and cry-inducing crooner in one? It’s giving Billie Eilish.

    What to learn from the Rolling Stone Future of Music Showcase 2024

    The future of music, according to Rolling Stone, is genre-fluid, youthful, and packed with energy. It also has one important factor: the ability to connect to an audience. Whether it’s on stage of through headphones, all the emerging artists have managed to connect with their ideal audiences and stay there thanks to their dedicated artistry and unique perspectives.

    I’m excited to see what all these acts have in store for us next. And for
    Rolling Stone Future of Music Showcase at SXSW 2025!

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    Jai Phillips

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  • Sorry Oppie – ‘Civil War’ is the Movie That Made Me Believe in IMAX

    Sorry Oppie – ‘Civil War’ is the Movie That Made Me Believe in IMAX

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    Imagine a film about war. Then, imagine a film about journalists. Somehow, Ex Machina’s Alex Garland fashioned one of the most compelling stories of the year by marrying these unlikely premises. Even more unlikely? He convinced A24 to make an action film. Don’t worry, this is not a souped-up Marvel movie. It’s exactly what you’d expect from our favorite indie studio’s first venture into the action genre: subversive, thrilling, and intrepid.

    After wowing audiences with films like
    Ex Machina and 28 Days Later, it’s no surprise that director Alex Garland’s latest dystopian effort is unsettling and awe-inspiring. The highly anticipated film is already rated 93% on Rotten Tomatoes after premiering at SXSW 2024.

    At a SXSW panel, Garland gave some insights into what it means to make a movie about the dystopian future that feels so close to being real. While movies like
    Contagion and Garland’s own 28 Days Later felt prescient at the height of the pandemic, no one could have predicted that. But Civil War feels like a nightmare we’ve all been having for the past decade. It’s comforting, in a way, to know others are experiencing this nightmare too. But it’s dread-inducing to see it play out on screen and think: this is us. This will be us. Soon.

    And that’s precisely the state of anxiety Garland wants us in.

    “Cinema is inclined towards whatever it’s presenting itself, and it’s inclined to not being anti-war,” Garland told the panel at SXSW. “To accurately present the action, it contains adrenaline. And if you add music to that, and you add a certain kind of imagery to that, essentially, it becomes seductive.”

    Garland didn’t want to make a sexy war movie. He didn’t want to give us an easy watch.

    His solution: making it as disorienting as possible. Unexpected musical moments, atrociously violent cuts of brutality, and gore abound.

    “That De La Soul track [that plays during a pivotal scene] had a particular function which was to be jarring and aggressive and speak somehow to the perverse pleasure in what was happening,” Garland explained.

    From the score to the cinematography, Garland has managed to make a war movie that does not, in any way, glamorize war. To do that, he had to keep the audience anxious and tense The product: the most stressful watching experience I’ve ever endured. But my god, it was worth it.

    What is Civil War (2023) about?

    @moviesaretherapy Civil War review #fyp #foryou #movies ♬ original sound – Kit Lazer

    Civil War is set in a not-too-distant future when California and Texas have seceded, and the ensuing civil war has caused chaos across the United States. A team of war photographers and journalists make a dangerous journey to Washington DC with the goal of interviewing the President before American democracy falls.

    It stars Kirsten Dunst in a career-best performance as jaded photojournalist Lee, alongside Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Nick Offerman, and Jesse Plemons.

    It’s a war movie. An action movie. A morbid road trip movie. But above all, it’s a nuanced ode to journalists. “I wanted to make journalists the hero,” said Garland. “In any kind of free country or, let’s say, democracy, journalists are not a luxury, they’re a necessity. They are absolutely as important as the judiciary, the executive, or the legislature, and they are literally as important as a free press that is respected and trusted. Now, journalists have done some of the work to be distrusted themselves. But a lot of other interested parties have been complicit in making them untrusted. And I think it’s unhealthy. And I think it’s wrong. So I wanted to put journalism at the heart of it.”

    Though the characters are complex and flawed, we spend enough time with them in a van to cause us to not just love them, but respect them. We believe in them. We believe in their work. If the film’s action doesn’t manage to seduce us, we are seduced by the characters’ prevailing idealism in such dire times.

    It’s prescient, too, to be celebrating war journalists — people with nothing to protect them but cameras and press vests — in the current global climate. Garland could not have anticipated
    Civil War would be released at a time when many of us are quite familiar with the names of press journalists across the world — Motaz, Bisan, Plestia. Outfitted with far less ego and equipment than the journalists in this film, the reality of journalists in Palestine is impossible not to recall while watching Civil War. It adds another thread of reality to the film that makes it all the more effective.

    Is Civil War (2023) good?

    Civil War pulls off Garland’s intended feat of creating an unequivocally anti-war war movie. But it’s by no means flat or didactic. The tapestry of scenes the characters encounter keeps the film moving. With each stop they make and each new character we meet, we learn something new about this world — and about ourselves.

    This is perhaps the most impressive accomplishment of Civil War. It tells us about ourselves.

    Garland shows us ourselves in the characters, in the polarized nation, and in the scenes of atrocity, the film never shies away from. “The first season of
    The Handmaid’s Tale did something very interesting, which was it had bits of imagery that would seem shocking. But as you’re watching them, you realize there was a real-world allegory or parallel. We basically did the same thing,” revealed Garland.

    “The scenes are referencing moments from the real world. But not, it’s important to say, exceptional moments. Moments that you would expect in any war. And in a way, that’s part of the point. I think it was necessary to do that if one is going to be anti-war. Some of the sanitizing might pollute the message.”

    The film is also tremendously evocative emotionally because it is so immersive. The film offers the audience the chance to feel like it’s
    behind the camera by following the photographers and revealing the shots the characters “take” during the film. And to get the shot, we go with them into the line of fire.

    This is where I make my plea: you must watch
    Civil War in IMAX. Wrapped in the giant screen and surrounded by the full power of a fantastic soundtrack, this was the most immersive watching experience of my life — even more than any 3D film I’ve ever seen or Oppenheimer … sorry, Christopher Nolan. As if we needed the movie to feel more real, IMAX puts you right in the thick of it.

    Ultimately,
    Civil War isn’t really a warning — it doesn’t make political moralizations. But it’s a call to action. Or a call to remembering. It urges us to appreciate, above all, perspective and truth.

    Civil War has its wide release on April 12, 2024. Prepare your nerves. Watch the trailer here:

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    LKC

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  • ‘The Gutter’ Review: Susan Sarandon and Shameik Moore Face Off in a Boisterous Bowling Comedy

    ‘The Gutter’ Review: Susan Sarandon and Shameik Moore Face Off in a Boisterous Bowling Comedy

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    AlleyCatz, an unassuming bowling alley in a fictional California town, isn’t compelling to passersby or potential customers from the outside. The venue run by Mozell (Sister Sister’s Jackée Harry) has a drab brick exterior, a monument to the sad architecture of suburban shopping centers. It doesn’t offer much when you walk inside either. The lanes need waxing, the bar requires tending and the equipment is in various stages of disrepair. Some people might take one look at AlleyCatz and run, but Walt (Shameik Moore), the silly protagonist of Yassir and Isaiah Lester’s boisterous directorial debut The Gutter, doesn’t have a choice. He needs a job. 

    The young man, who prefers to live life without a shirt, has been fired from more gigs than he can count. In a particularly amusing early sequence, Walt recounts his shoddy employment history to Mozell, whose face becomes increasingly disturbed with each revelation. But like Walt, Mozell has no options. AlleyCatz is falling apart and the intrepid entrepreneur needs help. Compelled by glimmers of Walt’s charm and her own desperation, Mozell hires him to tend the bar and de-roach the bowling shoes.

    The Gutter

    The Bottom Line

    A comedic win, if not a perfect strike.

    Venue: SXSW Film Festival (Narrative Spotlight)
    Cast: Shameik Moore, Susan Sarandon, D’Arcy Carden, Jay Ellis, Jackée Harry, Paul Reiser
    Directors: Yassir Lester, Isaiah Lester
    Screenwriter: Yassir Lester

    1 hour 29 minutes

    The Gutter, an exciting feature that premiered at SXSW, is a nervy comedy that follows Walt as he goes from tending the AlleyCatz bar to breaking records as a dynamite bowler. The film is a passion project that riffs on different comedic genres — satire, physical and sketch — to create an absurdist adventure. Even when the narrative falters, demanding more than the screenplay (written by Yassir) can offer in a brisk 89 minutes, The Gutter’s humor rarely misses. The Lester brothers deploy jokes with precision, taking aim at everything and everyone. Their plucky abrasiveness might rub against mainstream sensibilities, but The Gutter — like an early Paul Beatty novel — seems destined to be a cult classic. 

    On his first day, Walt meets a set of characters that make one wonder if The Gutter might have worked better as a sitcom. Stationed at the bar is Skunk (D’Arcy Carden), a former pro-bowler champion whose alcoholism has all but tanked her legacy. Brotha Candy (Rell Battle), a smarmy “hotep” pulled right of The Boondocks, has made a camp outside, where he spews conspiratorial ideas through a megaphone. And in his brief appearance as a city health inspector, Adam Brody trades his slick-talking producer persona from American Fiction for a more Seth Cohen-coded deadpan. 

    Just as Walt gets comfortable with his newfound employment, which might help him and his mother Vicki (Kim Fields) keep the lights on, he finds out AlleyCatz is at risk of permanent closure. That visit from Brody’s character, who goes unnamed, was a grim sign. If AlleyCatz doesn’t clean up its act and meet the health code, the city will shut down the venue. The transition from this disappointing news to Skunk’s outrageous plan happens in a blink of an eye, and it’s one of a handful of moments in the film that feels overly. 

    After Skunk witnesses Walt’s impressive bowling skills — no matter how he releases the ball down the lane, he bowls a perfect strike — she convinces him to play competitively. The money he wins from each game, she insists, can help Mozell with the AlleyCatz repairs. It’s a sound plan that, against the film’s own logic, Lester sidelines for whatever funny antics demand attention. 

    This isn’t a problem at first. Walt and Skunk hit the road, participating in competitions that yield some of The Gutter’s funniest jokes. Their success rate catches the attention of Angelo Powers (an ace Paul Reiser), a ratings-obsessed new anchor and a hater. He launches a segment called BLM (Bowl Lives Matter), which simultaneously capitalizes on Walt’s increased fame and denigrates the former bartender. Walt’s record-shattering wins also brings bowling champion Linda Curson (an equally sharp Susan Sarandon) back from retirement. Meanwhile, Walt’s friends and family (played by Langston Kerman and Jay Ellis) cheer him on. 

    The Gutter is strongest and most refreshing tracing the early part of Walt’s success. Getting the job at AlleyCatz, winning his first games and scoring a series of hilarious sponsorships fuel the film’s humor and our investment in these characters. But the narrative loses some steam when it’s faced with fulfilling the emotional stakes. Just as Walt is most unstoppable, his winning streak comes to a mysterious end. Here, The Gutter requires a few dramatic turns that the performers struggle to land. The film doesn’t navigate the fallout between Skunk and Walt and other subsequent revelations with the same confidence as it does establishing Walt’s world. This shortcoming doesn’t undo the fine work of these promising filmmakers, but it does mean that The Gutter doesn’t quite hit all the pins. 

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    Lovia Gyarkye

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  • ‘Civil War’ Review: Alex Garland’s Dystopian Thriller Starring Kirsten Dunst Stimulates the Intellect, if Not the Emotions

    ‘Civil War’ Review: Alex Garland’s Dystopian Thriller Starring Kirsten Dunst Stimulates the Intellect, if Not the Emotions

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    The details of American politics do not concern Alex Garland in Civil War.

    Despite the controversy it’s already courted about its supposed prescience, the unsettling feature from the British filmmaker doesn’t predict a future based on the country’s current two-party system. Garland is far more interested in the United States’ self-regarding exceptionalism, its belief in its own safety from executive instability. He is fascinated by how factionalism instigates conflict and how no nation is immune to the results of its violence. 

    Civil War

    The Bottom Line

    A subversive and unsettling exercise.

    Venue: SXSW Film Festival (Headliner)
    Release date: Friday, April 12
    Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman
    Director-screenwriter: Alex Garland

    1 hour 49 minutes

    Premiering at SXSW, Civil War explores these preoccupations from the perspective of a group of journalists as they chronicle life in their war-torn country while traveling to Washington, D.C. We meet the crew in New York, where they are covering a tense confrontation between civilians and police. Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) —  a conflict photographer whose success and abrasiveness are modeled on that of celebrated World War II correspondent Lee Miller — works quickly with her Reuters colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) to capture the scene before the percolating violence bubbles over. 

    When it eventually does, the pair crosses paths with Jessie (Priscilla‘s Cailee Spaeny), a freelance photographer who gets hurt in the police-instigated melee. The young documentarian is eager to express admiration for Lee after the veteran correspondent saves her life and gifts her a neon press vest. Later that evening, Jessie, through a winning combination of will and charm, convinces Joel to let her tag along on the road trip to D.C. This is already after they agreed to let Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a New York Times journalist, join them despite the risks. 

    The group hits the road the next morning despite Lee’s protestations over Jessie’s inclusion. (She, fairly, doesn’t want to be responsible for a stranger and an amateur.) Their roughly 800-mile journey to D.C., where Joel and Lee have been promised an interview with the president (Nick Offerman), takes the journalists through hostile tracts, military checkpoints and makeshift refugee camps.

    These scenes of America as an active war zone are some of Civil War’s most potent images. In a subversive move, Garland, partnering again with DP Rob Hardy, documents these conditions with the distant vérité style found in American films about international regional conflicts. The Ex Machina and Annihilation filmmaker juxtaposes images of displaced Americans, armed resistance fighters and other evidence of war with familiar shots of the nation’s pastoral landscape to create a sense of destabilization.

    As the crew drives south of New York, they come across abandoned and blown-up cars on interstates lined with vibrant, verdant trees. A football stadium is now an aid camp, which adds a melancholic layer to the graffitied messages (“Go Steelers,” one  says) that remind of life before. A winter wonderland dotted with statues of Santa Claus, for example, becomes an active conflict zone, and a small town that feels eerily distant from the destruction happening everywhere else turns out to be manned by an armed militia. 

    These sequences coupled with other nostalgia-loaded gestures — the use of country music needle drops, for example — effectively recast American iconography, implicitly questioning a nation’s tendency toward self-mythologizing. Garland also weaves in the snapshots captured by Lee and Jessie along the road, a technique that not only examines the ethics of war photography but also American expectations of what these images must be. As for the subject of race — the organizing principle of the nation — Civil War gestures but does not explicitly confront.  

    All of these thoughts, considerations and questions — what does it mean to be American is one the film repeatedly asks — are experienced by the viewer on a largely intellectual level. Garland has always been a director of big ideas, and Civil War is no exception when it comes to that ambitiousness. But he’s also reaching for an intimacy here that his screenplay doesn’t quite deliver on. Despite strong turns from the cast, the American journalists at the center of the story feel emotionally sterile vis a vis the dissolution of their country, and their motivations for doing the work register as similarly remote. Of course war hardens, contorts and traumatizes, but Civil War presupposes that the press, in this distant future, can always see the forest for the trees. The film is wise to avoid big, melodramatic gestures, but characters sharing stories might have conjured a better sense of their depth. 

    Dunst makes Lee an incredibly compelling figure whose faith and ability to stomach the demands of the job unravel slowly over the course of the film. But a lack of detail keeps her character in the shadows. The same goes for Jessie, whose youth offers insights into her risky behavior, and Joel, who is Latino and from Florida (a state that here has its own faction separate from the alliance between Texas and California). 

    With the precision and length of its violent battle sequences, it’s clear Civil War operates as a clarion call. Garland wrote the film in 2020 as he watched cogs on America’s self-mythologizing exceptionalist machine turn, propelling the nation into a nightmare. With this latest film, he sounds the alarm, wondering less about how a country walks blindly into its own destruction and more about what happens when it does.

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    Lovia Gyarkye

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  • Dozens of Artists Drop Out of SXSW Over Ties to Military and Defense Contractors

    Dozens of Artists Drop Out of SXSW Over Ties to Military and Defense Contractors

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    Artists and activists alike are boycotting South by Southwest in solidarity with Palestinian people affected by the war in Gaza.

    Austin For Palestine Coalition is an advocacy group that has organized protests on the site of SXSW events and supported artists who have chosen to pull out of official showcases.

    “War Profiteers and Warmongers Out of SXSW,” reads a slogan on the Feb. 21 Instagram post announcing their initiative to boycott the event. “No Platform For Genocide in Austin!”

    Their grievances with the annual festival and conference stem from its ties to both the U.S. Army and defense contractors such as the RTX Corp. (formerly known as Raytheon), which they condemn for “supplying arms to Israel for its genocide against the Palestinian people.”

    The Army is listed as a “super sponsor” of the event, the top tier of sponsorship, which the SXSW website describes as “deliver[ing] the highest visibility possible, the deepest integration opportunities, and provid[ing] seamless promotional exposure by aligning your brand with SXSW as a top promotional partner across the entire event.”

    The Army is also presenting nine events over the course of the event. RTX’s subsidiary, Collins Aerospace, is sponsoring two events at the festival’s tech showcase.

    On Monday, Austin For Palestine received a cease-and-desist letter from SXSW, citing copyright infringement for the group’s use of the festival’s logo. This follows two instances of the group’s Instagram account being suspended because of similar claims last week.

    “SXSW supports the constitutionally protected right of free speech and, as always, you are permitted to refer to our SXSW Marks in a factual or editorial manner,” the letter reads. “However, as a trademark and copyright owner, we have an obligation to protect the goodwill and reputation associated with the SXSW Marks and copyright protected art by preventing their unauthorized use.”

    Chicago-based indie rock act Squirrel Flower (a project led by Ella Williams) kickstarted the wave of artists pulling out of official showcases with a statement released on Instagram on March 5.

    “The IDF has now killed at least 1 in every 75 inhabitants of Gaza, including 12,300 children. The International Court of Justice has ruled that this plausibly amounts to genocide,” Williams wrote. “Genocide profiteers like Raytheon supply weapons to the IDF, paid for by our taxes. A music festival should not include war profiteers. I refuse to be complicit in this and withdraw my art and labor in protest.”

    Since then, dozens of artists and speakers have followed suit, including Fort Worth rock band Trauma Ray. Their brief Instagram statement included updated info on other upcoming shows, a call to look to Austin For Palestine Coalition for more information and the phrase “Free Palestine.”

    In a statement to the Observer, Trauma Ray guitarist Jonathan Perez says that the group learned of SXSW’s military ties after seeing Squirrel Flower’s post and immediately felt like it conflicted with their values.

    “As individuals and collectively as a band, we support all oppressed communities, whether that’s at home in Texas or in Palestine,” Perez says. “The idea of playing shows sponsored by or affiliated with the U.S. military or their private contractors, who are directly providing the bombs that are killing innocent Palestinians in Gaza right now, is 100% against what we stand for as a band. If dropping shows or making Instagram posts helps spread information or inspire other bands to do the same, that’s the very least we can do.”

    Perez says that Trauma Ray did not receive a direct response from SXSW regarding their cancellation.

    Other participants who have pulled out of the event have also made it clear that they understand why others chose not to and emphasize that no anger or judgment is directed at them.

    “This was a decision that I was able to fully commit to because in the current situation of my life, this gig is not important to my survival,” Austin-based DJ and producer Lucia Beyond wrote in a follow-up to her announcement that she had dropped out of the festival. “Also, I had opted a while ago to receive a wristband instead of a fee.”

    Others have pointed out that international artists’ visas are contingent on their employment by SXSW, putting them in a situation where they don’t have the option of dropping out.

    Alternative events are springing up to replace canceled SXSW sets. Artists who were in Austin for the festival are keeping their engagements with unofficial showcases. Smash by Smash West, an inaugural anticapitalist counter-summit focusing on community action and resistance, has absorbed anti-SXSW shows happening in Austin this week under its umbrella.

    Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios in Denton put out an open call on Monday for artists who had dropped out of SXSW for ethical reasons to reach out and book a show with them instead.

    “They’re doing the right thing, I believe,” Rubber Gloves general manager Chad Withers tells the Observer. “I wanted to give them an opportunity to still be able to play in Texas.”

    Withers says he’s received several emails responding to his post and is in the early stages of booking.

    On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted a statement regarding the artists who pulled out of SXSW, noting his pride toward the military presence in Texas and sending a direct message to the artists involved: “Bye. Don’t come back.”

    (Abbott’s tweets seem to imply that those who oppose the sponsor are coming to the festival from outside of Texas. This is largely not the case.)

    SXSW broke their silence on the matter by posting a screenshot of Gov. Abbott’s tweet to Instagram as well as their response.

    “We are an organization that welcomes diverse viewpoints,” the statement reads, “Music is the soul of SXSW, and it has long been our legacy. We fully respect the decision these artists made to exercise their right to free speech.”

    The statement goes on to express support for humanitarian causes and also defend the event’s inclusion of military and defense sponsors:

    “The defense industry has historically been a proving ground for many of the systems we rely on today. These institutions are often leaders in emerging technologies, and we believe it’s better to understand how their approach will impact our lives.”

    SXSW and RTX Corp. did not respond to our request for comment. Squirrel Flower declined to expand on its original statement.

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    Carly May Gravley

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  • ‘High Tide’ Review: An Undocumented Immigrant Finds a Reprieve From His Lonely Limbo in Tender Queer Drama

    ‘High Tide’ Review: An Undocumented Immigrant Finds a Reprieve From His Lonely Limbo in Tender Queer Drama

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    A haunting lead performance from Marco Pigossi, steeped in melancholy and raw pain but also in moments of openness, optimism and even joy, helps make High Tide an affecting portrait of untethered gay men seeking meaningful connections. Writer-director Marco Calvani’s sensitively observed first feature draws parallels between the isolation of an undocumented Brazilian, nearing the end of his visa and disinclined to return home, and that of a Black American, secure in his tight friendship circle but very much aware he’s the minority in a predominantly white queer tourist mecca — and in the country at large.

    About that setting — for anyone who loves Provincetown, this film and its enveloping sense of place will evoke fond associations with the historic fishing village and art colony on the tip of Cape Cod.

    High Tide

    The Bottom Line

    Intimate and emotionally involving.

    Venue: SXSW Film Festival (Narrative Spotlight)
    Cast: Marco Pigossi, James Bland, Marisa Tomei, Bill Irwin, Mya Taylor, Seán Mahon, Bryan Batt, Todd Flaherty, Karl Gregory, João Santos
    Director-screenwriter: Marco Calvani

    1 hour 41 minutes

    The physical beauty of the landscape and the caressing softness of the light help both to define and contrast the principal characters’ emotional states. The informally dubbed “Boy Beach” plays a significant role, but so too does the half-hour trek on foot from the bike racks to get there, sometimes called the “gay migration.” Local businesses on or just off the main drag, Commercial Street, opened their doors to the small-scale indie production, from the Red Inn restaurant to Angel Foods deli to popular dance club A-House.

    The well-acted minor-key drama benefits substantially from its full immersion in this very specific milieu. Also lending texture to the film is the characteristic Brazilian feeling of longing known as suadade, present not only in the sorrowful introspection of Pigossi’s Lourenço but also in the poetry of Oswald de Andrade, heard over the opening shots of Lourenço plunging naked into the waters of Cape Cod Bay.

    Lourenço rents a rustic cottage from the kindly owner Scott (Bill Irwin), who lives across the street and is always eager for company. The Brazilian funds his Ptown stay by cleaning vacation rentals and doing temporary jobs for the brusquely unfriendly Bob (Seán Mahon). Lourenço’s heartache is apparent every time his calls to an unseen Joe go to voicemail; we gradually learn that he was dumped earlier in the summer and has been trying, without much success, to figure out his next steps ever since.

    The thematic core of High Tide, which takes place over just a few days, is Lourenço oscillating between despair and hope. The latter is represented chiefly by a friendship that sparks up on the beach with Maurice (James Bland), a nurse in town for the week from New York with his posse of druggy queer friends — which includes Mya Taylor, the revelation from Sean Baker’s Tangerine, as Crystal. Calvani lets the mutual attraction between Lourenço and Maurice evolve gently into romance and sex, allowing breathing space for unguarded conversations on the beach under a full moon.

    But there are factors preventing Lourenço from completely relaxing into the comfort even of temporary intimacy. A house-painting job in Truro brings warmth in the form of Marisa Tomei’s mellow artist Miriam, but also friction with Bob, still angry because she broke his heart. And Scott’s efforts to connect Lourenço with a lawyer that might be able to help with his immigration status, Todd (Bryan Batt), leave a sour taste when the latter’s obnoxious privilege becomes evident over dinner.

    While the narrative is lean but always engaging, Calvani perhaps overstretches by attempting to touch on the shifting economics altering the fabric of Provincetown life. Scott is one of a vanishing generation of gay men who went there “to heal or to die” during the AIDS crisis, which took the life of his partner. Longtime residents like him have little in common with moneyed power gays like Todd who have jacked up the price of real estate, buying multimillion dollar homes that sit unoccupied for all but a week or two a year.

    It’s a subject worth exploring, but too fleetingly mentioned here to carry much weight; Calvani makes only a tenuous connection between that demographic change and Lourenço’s limbo, even if it’s clear which side of the growing divide between the haves and have-nots he lands on. The director’s control also falters a little, late in the action, when Lourenço gets wasted at A-House and rejects Maurice, spinning out after hearing news about Joe that shatters any fragile illusions of reconciliation he has left.

    But the film gets back on track in its satisfying final stretch, notably in the tender goodbye between Lourenço and Maurice, an exchange so nervous but loaded with feeling that it’s easy to forgive the visual cliché of Oscar Ignacio Jiménez’s camera whirling around them over and over in an extended arc shot. It’s a slightly flashy flourish in a film otherwise characterized by the graceful simplicity of its visuals, which are complemented by Sebastian Plano’s elegant string score.

    There’s no big false epiphany, no magic solution to Lourenço’s gnawing visa worries, just an internal awakening conveyed with great subtlety by Pigossi as the character reclaims a sense of himself that was slipping out of his grip. It provides a lovely open ending to a modest but effective movie that speaks from the heart.

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    David Rooney

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