SXSW Film Review: Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ ‘It Is In Us All’

Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi is joining the cast of “Silent Night,” the next film from action movie auteur John Woo — a film entirely free of dialogue. “Silent Night” stars Joel Kinnaman (“The Suicide Squad”) and is currently filming in Mexico City.

much of a movie, but it’s a movie nonetheless.Leto does indeed star as Michael Morbius, a world-renowned physician — talented enough to invent an artificial blood substitute, iconoclastic enough to turn down the Nobel Prize he won for the invention — who has grappled with blood-borne disease since childhood. With the financial support of lifelong friend and fellow patient Milo (Matt Smith), Michael has become a leader in his field, even as he branches out into morally questionable territory, exploring the possibility of grafting vampire-bat DNA with human DNA.Like “The Wasp Woman” and countless other cinematic mad scientists who tampered in God’s domain, Michael tries the experiment on himself, discovering both a cure (he’s strong, buff and can hang from the ceiling) and a curse (he transforms into a fanged creature starved for human blood).

Phil Connell’s Jump, Darling (★★★☆☆) is perhaps most notable for featuring one of the last performances of Cloris Leachman’s career.The legendary actress, who passed away at the age of 94 in January 2021, offers a quietly profound, poignant look at Margaret, an elderly woman for whom life no longer has a discernible point. Lonely and isolated in her spacious home in Prince Edward, Canada, Margaret is more than ready to leave these corporeal confines for what lies beyond.When her 30-year-old grandson Russell (Thomas Duplessie) arrives on her doorstep, following a breakup with his boyfriend (the narrative’s weakest storyline), she finds temporary reprieve from her pain.Russell, however, has his own agenda, and as loving as he is, he can be curt and dismissive.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterCatalina Sandino Moreno and Harold Torres have been cast in “Silent Night,” an action-thriller starring Joel Kinnaman.Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo (“A Better Tomorrow”) is directing the film, which is currently in production in Mexico City. The story centers on Godlock (Kinnaman), a father on a mission to avenge his young son, who was tragically caught in the crossfire of gang violence on Christmas Eve.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticFor 20 years, ever since Gilbert Gottfried made the tasteless crack that inspired it just a few weeks after 9/11, “Too soon” has been the mantra we use to jokingly suggest someone is making a joke before the time is ripe for it. But the phrase could also be applied to certain music documentaries.

X directed by Ti West, is a new love letter to the slasher film genre. This movie within a movie that aims to tackle the strict relationship between sex, violence, desire, and the rage that manifests when one’s life lacks all of those things. West employs all the tropes involved with pornography and horror and tries to inject personal hints of creativity and originality into the narrative. Will it age well if I watch it again in five years? Probably not. But it provides enough fun and excitement in the current moment to keep audiences engaged.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAfter “Parasite” and “Squid Game” struck planet-wide notes with their critique of elitism, Trevor Choi’s “Smashing Frank” is a timely Hong Kong twist on the revenge-against-the-rich theme. It is being pitched at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) that this week runs alongside the FilMart rights market.“This is a comedy-drama about four millennials who form a squad to rob the rich. During the course of the crime, they are outraged as they gradually realize that the older generation will never change their ways.

Vivienne Chow After a film career spanning more than three decades, production-costume-art designer Tim Yip has achieved plenty, including winning an Oscar and a BAFTA award. But he is only now launching his most uncompromising production, which he calls a “living film project,” and which he hopes will challenge the tradition of cinema.“I want to make a film that is infinitely long,” Yip told Variety.

Jessica Kiang Early on in David Cronenberg’s “Crash,” two characters lock eyes across the crumpled hoods of their cars after a head-on collision. A strange transference occurs, partly sexual and partly about a different kind of intimacy, one that comes from a shared proximity to death.

young Houstonians with aspirations of fame, fortune, and artistry decide to have a go at making “The Farmer’s Daughter,” a low-budget dirty movie aimed at boosting the cast and crew’s dreams of fame and fortune.Maxine (Mia Goth), a coked-up stripper working at Bayou Burlesque, thinks this is just the ticket to international stardom. Her boyfriend, Wayne (Martin Henderson, “The Gloaming”), acts as the archetypically gung-ho executive producer who talks a great game.

Richard Linklater’s periodic forays into animation (Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly) have been distinctively imaginative, and that goes double for Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood. A nostalgic but not in the least sentimental look at Texas life when the American space program was at full thrust, this highly personal but entirely accessible account of growing up in a culture both historically momentous and banal has something to offer all audiences in terms of its vivid portrait of a very specific place and time. But most receptive of all will be viewers in their 60s and beyond who have personal memories of the July 20, 1969 moon landing and a of milieu both memorable and banal.

The Cow is a film about a mystery that comes with many mysteries of its own, chief among them being the question of why Winona Ryder’s career is so shaped by her past. Stranger Things may have brought her back to the public eye, but it seemed to claim her as an ’80s icon when Ryder only had a walk-on part in that decade’s final reel. Her role in Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 ballet psychodrama Black Swan likewise came with a sting in the casting, pitting Ryder as the outgoing grand dame against Natalie Portman as an ingenue snapping at her heels. And here again, much mention is made of her age when Sandra Bullock—seven years her senior—could lead a bigger movie without a peep.