international brightlight film festival Archives

Mar112025 by cineverseNo Comments

How Trans Coming-of-Age Comedy ‘She’s the He’ Plays on Locker Room Hysteria to Tackle the ‘Fear Around Every Corner’ of the Trump Era

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By Adam B. Vary According To The variety In the indie comedy “She’s the He,” which premiered at SXSW on Sunday, high school seniors Alex and Ethan decide during the last week of school to pretend they’re trans so they can sneak into the women’s locker room. If that sounds like a premise lifted right out of MAGA-era attacks on trans rights, it’s because it is — that’s the point. First-time writer-director Siobhan McCarthy dreamed up the idea just over a year ago, in February 2024, after discovering online that the one high school comedy that spoke to them as a teenager — the 2006 Amanda Bynes comedy “She’s the Man” — was just as formative for many other trans kids. That led to a conversation with their friend, Will Geare (who co-edited “She’s the He” with McCarthy)...

Mar112025 by cineverseNo Comments

Drop’ Review: A Paranoid Tech Thriller Set During a Nerve-Wracking First Date

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By Siddhant Adlakha According To The variety A silly, pulpy mystery entirely sure of its own conceit, “Drop” combines tech paranoia and the looming specter of abuse to create something surprisingly taut and entertaining. Directed by Christopher Landon — best known for his involvement in the “Happy Death Day” and “Paranormal Activity” movies — the film’s complicated setups are executed with a deft and capable hand. Although set in a fine dining establishment, it’s a junk-food thriller fried to near-perfection, balancing the tensions of kidnapping, conspiracy and murder with those of a nerve-wracking first date. It’s crisp and delicious. After a hair-raising prologue involving a couple pointing guns at one another (a scene whose purpose clicks into place much later), “Drop” g...

Mar102025 by cineverseNo Comments

Hallow Road’ Review: A Confined Car Ride Transforms in Head-Spinning Ways

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By Siddhant Adlakha According To The variety Set almost entirely during an urgent car ride, Babak Anvari’s “Hallow Road” begins as an intensely performed, deftly minimalist family thriller about two parents driving to the scene of their daughter’s accident while keeping her on the phone. That’s all you need to know going in, and all you should really learn beforehand, given how this race-against-the-clock premise unfolds, before swerving in completely unpredictable ways. Few films have ever induced such immense tonal whiplash while exhibiting such tight formal control over their transformations. There’s a very clear boundary separating the kind of movie “Hallow Road” starts out as from what it eventually becomes, which all but cements its place as a fascinating artifact of this ...

Mar102025 by cineverseNo Comments

The Age of Disclosure’ Review: A Documentary Claims to Offer Proof that Alien Spaceships Are Visiting Us. But Does It Really?

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By Owen Gleiberman According To The variety The Age of Disclosure,” which premiered today at SXSW, is a documentary that millions of people are going to want to see. It’s a movie that purports to offer incontrovertible evidence that spaceships from other worlds are visiting us. And if you attempt to argue — as I will do in this review — that what you’re seeing in the film isn’t what you think you’re seeing, you’re likely to be attacked as a heretic and a denier of reality, someone who turns a blind eye to the proof that’s sitting right in front of them. The evidence, if you truly look at it, isn’t all that compelling: blurry black-and-white U.S. government video footage that shows tiny objects zipping forward over the surface of the water. It’s the footage of aerial phenomena wi...

Mar102025 by cineverseNo Comments

Matthew McConaughey on Returning to Acting After a Six-Year Hiatus With ‘The Rivals of Amziah King’ and Why His Season of ‘True Detective’ Is the Best

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By Brent Lang According To The variety On the first day shooting “The Rivals of Amziah King,” Matthew McConaughey, his right eye swollen from a bee sting, walked onto the set, raised his hand and asked, “Is anybody else nervous except for me?” The cast and crew let out a collective laugh. “Alright, alright, alright, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one,” the actor said, sounding like a mixture of a preacher and a surfer with his signature drawl. But McConaughey wasn’t joking. He admits he felt creaky returning to the screen after a six-year hiatus, during which he wrote a memoir, “Greenlights,” recorded a few voice roles in films like “Sing 2,” spent time with his family and kept a lower profile. “I needed to write my own story, direct my own story on the page,” M...

Mar92025 by cineverseNo Comments

A Terrified Jenna Ortega and Psycho Killer Unicorns Make SXSW Scream With the Gory ‘Death of a Unicorn’

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By Adam B. Vary According To The variety Eviscerated bodies. Purple blood. And killer unicorns. That’s the recipe that made “Death of a Unicorn” one of the surprise discoveries at the SXSW Film & TV Festival, where it premiered on Saturday to a raucous reception. The film follows father and daughter Elliot and Ridley Kintner (Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega), who are visiting Elliot’s billionaire boss Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) at his lavish mansion deep in the Canadian wilderness. To their utter shock and disbelief, they accidentally hit a young unicorn while en route. Because they’re in the middle of a nature preserve, they pack the body into their rental and bring it with them, hoping — in vain — to keep Odell, his smoothly unscrupul...

Mar92025 by cineverseNo Comments

Michael Bay’s Thrilling Yet Emotional Parkour Doc ‘We Are Storror’ Receives Howling Standing Ovation at SXSW

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By Emily Longeretta According To The variety Michael Bay‘s “We Are Storror” begins with a warning on screen: “Don’t attempt anything you see here.” It’s safe to say the audience at SXSW, the first to see the documentary on a big screen on March 8, was extremely impressed and a little bit scared, but definitely not jumping to attempt any of the wild stunts front and center in the documentary, which follows parkour team Storror. Instead of wires, green screens and editing tricks that Bay fans are used to, this time, it’s all real. Making his debut as a feature documentary director at the film and television festival, Bay received a loud applause — and audience members chanting his name — when introducing the movie. During the screening, the audience squirmed in their ...