Posts by Christian Long

It’s hard to be critical of a movie that was made with such earnestness and heart. In Fallen Stars, which had its world-premiere at the Austin Film Festival, writer/director Brian Jett crafts an uncomfortably empty world, focusing on the abyss that lies between listless, 30-something bartender Cooper and listless, 20-something Daisy, whose purple highlights meets […]

Coming hot on the heels of last month’s Fantastic Fest, Austin, Texas is bracing for another onslaught of cinematic mayhem this week as the 22nd annual Austin Film Festival kicks off. More informally known as “The Writer’s Festival,” AFF focuses on the contributions of a good script and what it means to make a great film, […]

[rating=7.00] “Thank You” It’s hard to muster the same enthusiasm for a program when it’s been spoiled multiple times over, not just by a cousin I’m no longer friends with on Facebook or a handful of people I no longer follow on Twitter. There’s also the fact that the outpouring of emotion over a fictional […]

[rating=9.00] “J.S.S.” The most amazing thing about this week’s The Walking Dead, “J.S.S.,” is the fact that it’s not the show’s season premiere. As I remarked last week, following the exceptional first episode of the sixth season, the show’s forte has always been strong season premieres. From the pilot episode all the way up to […]

[rating=9.00] “First Time Again” “I know this sounds insane, but this is an insane world,” we hear against an all-black screen, before cutting to a shot of Rick overlooking a quarry full of walkers. Clearly the show looks to be wasting no time after the excellent season five finale, complete with the Lord of the […]

With each passing year, Hollywood seems more and more prone to shoving new faces and stars down our throat, and too often it becomes harder and harder to keep up. While some of these modern stars are gifted with immense talent (we love you, Jennifer Lawrence!) more often than not, many of these new actors […]

[rating=5.00] “The Good Man” Well, that was… certainly a TV show. The final installment of the first season of a TV show, in fact. All the right pieces were moving, and it was tense (at least the music told you it was), as all the characters abruptly decide to flee their safe zone, retrieve the other […]

Here we are at the very end, after eight days and more than two dozen movies, and a host of other shenanigans, Fantastic Fest closed with a bang, presenting two of its more anticipated films as final screenings its last two nights. These nights brought about a lighthearted video game documentary, a descent into madness, […]

Inching past the halfway point of Fantastic Fest’s eight-day movie marathon celebrating all things genre, it gives dedicated attendees such as myself a chance to catch up on films that were missed during the opening few days, mostly because I was in another theater, furiously scribbling notes while having my celluloid-loving mind blown. As we […]

[rating=7.00] “Cobalt” Here’s the real problem with Fear The Walking Dead—you can package it with competent acting, camera work, and overall production values, but in not showing us anything new, it’s simply feeding us leftovers. Despite the fact that things seemed to be back on the kinetic side after spending three episodes wasting time with […]

Fantastic Fest is the kind of film festival that is unafraid of pushing the boundaries of style and taste. It’s the sort of place where you can expect sensibilities to be tested for the love of film. Fast approaching the festival’s halfway point, Sunday brought with it a bit of this mindset with the screening […]

The third day marked fewer people in animal costumes (at least at first), and a few more attendees pacing their steps with hungover deliberation. Day three consisted of animation, a VHS autobiography, a dramedy about God’s defiant daughter, and a cathartic study of the confines of civilization. Here’s how the movies in day three stacked […]

The second day of the world’s largest genre film fest, brought with it a longer schedule and an increasingly varied choice of events to Austin, including some held off-campus, away from the festival’s bustling headquarters. It was filled with subtitles, man-children, intergalactic beings bent on the destruction of our planet, gallery exhibits, and one incredibly […]

It was a day filled with genre-film fun and lots of Christmas cheer (no, really) at the kickoff day for Fantastic Fest 2015. People from all over the world crowded together in and around the theater’s lobby to wait out the collective interims between everyone’s own personal viewing marathon. Day one’s marathon, for me, consisted […]

Austin and festivals go hand in hand. Each spring, the eyes of the world turn to the Texas capitol in search of the next big thing as SXSW takes over downtown. Music is, of course, never in short supply in Austin, but in recent years movies have gained a higher predominance in this bustling college […]

[rating=3.00] “Not Fade Away” I was glancing at Twitter while watching The Emmys last night and I ran across someone criticizing the use of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” in an ironic context due to its overuse. While I agreed, I also thought “what program is possibly airing against The Emmys that’s ALSO using a Lou Reed […]

[rating=9.00] Bandleader Stuart Bogie’s pseudo-rock pedigree is an impressive one. Having stints with the likes of David Byrne, TV On The Radio, and Arcade Fire under his belt, Escape Velocity plays like some kind of lush, organic techno that mixes strong pop sensibilities with its syncopated backbeat. The opening track “VHS,” a title alone that sets […]

For those worried that the first trailer to the Point Break reboot gave away all the best moments, consider your suspicions confirmed. It turns out, they didn’t even have enough material for a decent second trailer. Storywise, we get the slightest bit of insight, as new semi-European Bodhi and his semi-European gang are correlating robberies […]

[rating=7.00] “The Dog” One wouldn’t normally associate the word “subversive” with a standard zombie/survival drama, especially one that’s followed so closely in the footsteps of its parent series, but this week’s Fear The Walking Dead managed to do just that. It had followed all the necessary steps, and done them impressively well, but what was built […]

[rating=5.00] “So Close, Yet So Far” So far the pace of Fear The Walking Dead seems to swiftly alternate between a loud, shout-filled panic and long, silent shots that leer over the subjects. We’re told the world is ending, but we only see it on the margins, though those margins are steadily moving inward, and […]