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Just when Twitter appeared to be losing its lustre for the mainstream media elite, along comes an account that has got Britain’s biggest newsroom talking.

Enter Nero’s Slacker, an anonymous sh*tposter who is roasting BBC News bosses and presenters one X update at a time — and getting a flurry of attention.

“I thought the days of good old-fashioned snark accounts were dead until Nero’s Slacker,” laughed one BBC News journalist, the 94th person to point out the account to Deadline this week.

Set up in October, Nero’s Slacker is a reference to the Caffè Nero coffee shop that overlooks the revolving doors of New Broadcasting House, the BBC’s London headquarters.

Sipping on a black Americano and wreathed in cigarette smoke, they are posting acerbic observations about colleagues and newsroom skulduggery.

Nero’s Slacker’s identity remains a mystery for now. Deadline’s attempt to...

Gregory Maguire's novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" was first published in 1995, a time when teenage Gen-Xers were having a ball deconstructing pop media and riffing on the inherent absurdities of previous generations' entertainment. This was an era when Richard Linklater's "Slacker" joked about the Smurfs, and when Kevin Smith's "Clerks" amusingly overthought the details of the Death Star. In 1995, there was a feeling that all media was coming to an end, and it was easy to make a sport of tearing old stories to the ground. 

Maguire, as such, wrote a tale about how the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" -- as well as from Victor Fleming's 1939 film adaptation -- was actually a misunderstood sorceress who was forced into wickedness by a vapid schoolmate version of Glinda...

With just three features to his name, Tyler Taormina has cemented himself as one of the most perceptive chroniclers of small-town America. His 2019 debut, Ham on Rye, tracked a gaggle of high school seniors as they geared up for prom night and life away from home. Shot by Taormina’s regular cinematographer, Carson Lund, the film heralded two motifs that would haunt the director’s cinema. On the one hand, an interest in immortalizing perfectly anonymous stretches of US suburbia as dreamlike, surreal terrains; on the other, an unresolved tension between our need for communion and the forces that inevitably pull us apart.

Everyone longs to connect in Taormina’s films, but few ever manage––a tragic state of affairs that was basically the plot of Happer’s Comet (2022), a nocturnal snapshot of a US town and a few of its residents, all of them captured as they wait, alone,...

To celebrate the release of The 4:30 Movie, which is available to rent on digital platforms now, we had the pleasure of sitting down with the legendary Kevin Smith to find out more about it. As the film celebrates cinema and the cinemagoing experience, we chatted about some of the favourites of his youth.

Chatting to Smith, we talk about his early days with friends and former partners at the cinemas watching such classics as Poltergeist 2, Batman, Slacker, Raging Bull, The World According to Garp, Masters of the Universe and many more and how, in one way or another, they impacted his life and career now his tackled superheroes, the He-Man legend on his Netflix animated series, and mixing his unique brand of humour with the more moving and melancholic tales of life. We also chat about his future plans, his thoughts on the cinema experience the impact of...

Athina Rachel Tsangari, the Greek director with roots in New York and Austin, Texas, does not need any convincing when an actor or crew member proposes an offbeat idea.

Her new film “Harvest” is based on Jim Crace’s interior monologue of a novel and set in the unspecified past. It feels like the middle ages, apart from the occasional anachronism. On the ramshackle set in Scotland, most of the characters were wearing wooden clogs, but Tsangari’s lead actor Caleb Landry Jones (best known to audiences as the brother in “Get Out;” he also won a Cannes prize in 2021 for the drama “Nitram”) strolled up in contemporary hiking boots.

“I loved it,” the director tells TheWrap of Jones’ footwear. “I’m open to stuff like that. It has nothing to do with what people were wearing in medieval times, but it works. Especially in a film like this one,...

When Kevin Smith made "Clerks" in 1994, he was only 23 and ignorant of the ways of filmmaking. Smith was inspired to make a movie by Richard Linklater's "Slacker," figuring he could write a fun screenplay based on the way he and his friend conversed. Made for only $27,575, "Clerks" was about witty but directionless twentysomethings as they struggled through their romantic angst while trapped at their dead-end jobs. "Clerks" struck a nerve with Gen-Xers, introducing a certain type of pop culture chatter that hadn't really been heard in movies before. It was a huge hit.

Smith returned in 1995 with "Mallrats," another single-day movie about twentysomethings wrestling with their romances and emotional immaturity. His 1997 film "Chasing Amy" was an unconventional romance about a straight man who falls in love with a lesbian, and how the lesbian may be developing feelings for him in exchange. Ultimately, however, the straight man's sexual insecurity causes their relationship to implode.

Clerks and Mallrats director Kevin Smith makes his most personal film yet with The 4:30 Movie. Here’s the trailer.

Update: Altitude films have now confirmed that The 4:30 Movie, the latest from director Kevin Smith, is heading to UK cinemas for a limited release on 13th September. The cinema release will be followed by a digital release on Altitude.film and other digital retailers from 21st October.

Our original story follows…

30th July, 2024: Just as Steven Spielberg mined his film obsessed childhood for The Fabelmens, so Clerks and Mallrats director Kevin Smith will take a nostalgic look back at his teenage years in The 4:30 Movie.

The synopsis reads as follows:

Writer-director Kevin Smith presents his most personal film to date with this coming-of-age story — set in the summer of 1986 — that follows three sixteen-year-old friends, who spend their Saturdays sneaking into movies at the local cineplex. When one of...

Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn in DaddioPhoto: Sony Pictures Classics

Maybe it’s the metaphor. The transition, the feeling of getting caught in between two places while not really being in either one. Moving characters from Point A to Point B, internally and externally. There is room to grow in the back of a taxi.

Glen Powell is already making an impact in Hollywood with his impeccable projects that well showcased his acting prowess. However, the actor is yet far from achieving one record that Ethan Hawke and Hitman director Richard Linklater will attain with the upcoming project that they’re set to collaborate on.

Glen Powell in Hit Man (image credit: Netflix)

It is quite a great feat as the actor-director duo have already collaborated on numerous projects that even actor-director duo, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese have yet to attain.

Ethan Hawke and Glen Powell’s Hitman director Richard Linklater Will Work on the 9th Project Together

Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater have long been collaborating on projects that produced some of the most critically acclaimed films over the last three decades. From bringing innovative narratives to authentic character portrayals, their partnership has continued to expand the horizon of storytelling on the big screen cinema.

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up all rights worldwide to Richard Linklater’s upcoming Blue Moon starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott.

Production is scheduled to begin in early July in Dublin on the feature, which profiles the final days of Lorenz Hart, one half of the songwriting team Rodgers & Hart.

Blue Moon is set primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement.

Sony Pictures Classics is co-financing with Renovo Media Group and will support the production. Sony will release the film worldwide.

Sony Pictures Classics has nabbed the worldwide rights to Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, which is set to star Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott.

Production is set to start in early July in Dublin on the drama about the final days of Lorenz Hart, half of the songwriting team Rodgers & Hart and set around Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, on the opening night of Oklahoma!

That production marked Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement. Sony Pictures Classics and Renovo Media Group are financing Blue Moon, which is written by Robert Kaplow and reunites Linklater with Hawke in their ninth movie together.

“Robert, Ethan and I have been developing this story for over a decade and are excited and grateful that the time has come to bring this to life,” Linklater said in a statement. Sony Pictures and Linklater have also collaborated...

After making his last two movies for Netflix, Richard Linklater is heading back to movie theaters for his next project, and he’s also reuniting with one of his longtime collaborators for the first time in a decade: Ethan Hawke.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the rights to what will be Linklater’s next film, “Blue Moon,” the distributor announced Tuesday, June 18. Joining the project are Hawke, now working with Linklater for the ninth time, as well as Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and “Ripley” star Andrew Scott.

Principal photography on “Blue Moon” begins in Dublin, Ireland this summer with financing from Sony Pictures Classics and Renovo Media Group.

“Blue Moon” is about the final days of Lorenz Hart, who was half of the songwriting duo Rodgers and Hart. The film takes place largely in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943 on the opening night of “Oklahoma!,” the first project Rodgers would...

Exclusive: Sony Pictures Classics has acquired worldwide rights to Blue Moon, the new film from Academy Award nominee Richard Linklater (Hit Man), on which we were first to report, and which will be his next effort after all, with production commencing in Dublin, Ireland this summer.

Ethan Hawke is set to star, in his ninth collaboration with Linklater. Others aboard for roles include Margaret Qualley (The Substance), Bobby Cannavale (Ezra) and Andrew Scott (Ripley).

According to Linklater, who’d previously hinted at a long-time passion project with Hawke, “Robert, Ethan, and I have been developing this story for over a decade and are excited and grateful that the time has come to bring this to life.”

Written by Robert Kaplow, author of the novel Me and Orson Welles which inspired the Linklater film of the same name, Blue Moon profiles the final days of Lorenz Hart, part of the hit songwriting team Rodgers & Hart.

Hits from the weekend

Streaming movies and shows made up the majority of the top five titles this past weekend, based on traffic to their IMDb pages. That’s thanks to a trio of Netflix titles and the new Star Wars series, “The Acolyte.” In theaters, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence’s fourth installment in the Bad Boys franchise delivered Hollywood a much-needed box office win, while ‘The Watchers’—the mystery-horror film starring Dakota Fanning—drew enough interest to land in the top 10.

By the time ‘Hit Man’ dropped on Netflix, movie fans were probably well aware of who Glen Powell was, but the popularity of the comedic action film brought more IMDb users’ attention to co-star Adria Arjona and director Richard Linklater. If Arjona looked familiar to viewers, it’s likely from several supporting roles in other streaming hits like “Good Omens,” “Andor,” and ‘6 Underground’ with Ryan Reynolds.

It’s not often that directors crack the top five (or even top 10) names on IMDb, but viewers were clearly interested to know more about Richard Linklater, the versatile and irreverent director of indie films like ‘Slacker’ and ‘Dazed and Confused,’ who also found mainstream recognition with ‘School of Rock.’

Also big on Netflix were the French killer shark movie ‘Under Paris’ and the Benedict Cumberbatch miniseries “Eric,” which released all six episodes two weeks ago. Elsewhere in streaming, “The Acolyte” has had no trouble finding its audience on Disney+. According to Disney, the show drew 4.8 million viewers on its first day, making it the streamer’s biggest hit of 2024 to date. Amandla Stenberg and Dafne Keen were in the top five names on IMDb, and both will likely remain popular through the show’s first season, which ends on July 16.

What’s in store for the coming week?

Expect next weekend to be all about “The Boys,” the raunchy comic book adaptation from showrunner Eric Kripke. The first three episodes of Season 4 arrive Thursday (6/13) on Prime Video, with new episodes dropping weekly. Returning cast members Karl Urban, Antony Starr, and Erin Moriarty will likely climb IMDb’s STARmeter, but a few new supes on the scene could put some breakouts in the spotlight, such as Valorie Curry (playing Firecracker) or Susan Heyward (as Sister Sage).

In theaters, Disney and Pixar’s animated ‘Inside Out 2’ is a shoo-in to win next weekend’s box office, though it may not have the same interest on IMDb as the streaming releases. The original voice cast of emotions are returning, but it’s more likely one of the newcomers will spike in popularity, like Maya Hawke (“Stranger Things”) as Anxiety, Ayo Edibiri (“The Bear”) as Envy, or Paul Walter Houser (‘I, Tonya,’ ‘Richard Jewell’) as Embarrassment.

Time is an obsession of Richard Linklater’s. His films, from “Slacker” to the “Before” trilogy to “Boyhood,” have been thorough examinations of its passage on scales large and small, but his latest ongoing project, an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s under-appreciated musical gem “Merrily We Roll Along,” aims to be Linklater’s biggest canvas yet. The musical tracks the deterioration of a 20-year friendship between three creatives with one specific feature: the entire story is told in reverse, beginning with the end and slipping back into the past to show how things go so bad and eventually why they were so good together.

“It’s the kind of thing I’ve thought a lot about my entire life: What could transform me?” Linklater said in a recent interview with The New York Times Magazine. “I was probably more in the camp of we’re fixed, give or take whatever little percentage around the edges.

I am in a fix here with the Ross brothers’ 2023 film, Gasoline Rainbow. Usually, I admire the kind of cinema where nothing really happens; the likes of Richard Linklater’s Slacker (1991) and Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) are what I’m talking about. These movies rely solely on the vibe and the conversations between characters; most of the time, I dig those. Gasoline Rainbow is a coming-of-age road-trip movie, which should remind you of movies like Andrea Arnold’s masterful American Honey (2016), a film I absolutely loved, and Harmony Korine’s super-trippy Spring Breakers (2012), which worked for me despite its erratic nature.

The reason I’m bringing up all these is because, while I thought there was a lot to love in Gasoline Rainbow, the whole thing fell quite short of my expectations. And while I convinced myself that I probably would have loved it if I saw it...

It's hard for fans who remember the original NBC airing of Friends to believe, but "The One Where The Show Turns Thirty" is almost here.

Friends was a ratings juggernaut from its 1994 premiere and ended its ten-year run with the fourth most-watched series finale in television history.

That would have been an impressive note for any show to go out on, but Friends went on to enjoy a charmed (and lucrative) afterlife in syndication for another decade before becoming a recent surprise hit with a whole new generation on Netflix.

So why haven't we seen another sitcom make a similar impact in the past thirty years?

Friends was a reflection of its specific cultural moment, which also laid the foundation for our current comedic landscape, and there hasn't been an equivalent upheaval since.

Friends Is a Victim Of Its Influence

If the show seems amusing but nothing special to indifferent viewers today,...

Richard Linklater’s decade-spanning masterwork Boyhood introduced the world to the concept of a Beatles “Black Album.” In that 2014 film, Ethan Hawke’s Mason Evans Sr. presents a personally curated album of the rock band’s solo tracks to his son on the child’s 15th birthday. Mason Sr. explains the impossibility of picking a favorite Beatle because the beauty of their artistry lies in their balance. The curatorial act of synergizing the sensational, the spiritual, the sensual, and the sentimental elevates them all.

The same logic that applies to the Fab Four also works as a description for Linklater himself. The Austin-based filmmaker remains one of American cinema’s most versatile artisans, as comfortable helming a mass-market studio comedy as he is a talky indie drama. No matter the form his output takes, it bears his trademark stamp of wisdom and wonder that’s been evident since his 1991 breakout...

First look notwithstanding, details have been few and far between on Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, largely understood to concern the production of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, making notable a new set report from Les Inrockuptibles. It should’ve been obvious from the jump that America’s premier hangout filmmaker would resurrect cinema’s most-influential group as, well, a group, with Linklater describing his film as (in a somewhat contradictory manner) “the story of a personal revolution in cinema led by one man, and all the people around him,” with the implication of actors playing Jacques Rivette, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Demy, Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, and Jean Cocteau.

Fittingly, Nouvelle Vague will not start with Zoey Deutch’s Jean Seberg (admittedly odd combination of words) filming on the Champs-Élysées, but at least stretches back to the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, where, upon The 400 Blows‘ triumphant debut, Godard “succeeded in convincing producer...

Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn headline single location drama Daddio, and the first trailer has landed: more here.

It would be fair to say that Dakota Johnson hasn’t had the best month. It began with a press tour that seemed to be doing more harm than good in trying to promote Sony’s Spiderman spin-off Madame Web, in which her comments during the tour generated a huge amount of press. This was swiftly followed by a slew of vitriolic reviews – we gave Madame Web a firm but fair one star.

Still, Johnson has many films in the pipeline, the next one to be released will be single location philosophical drama Daddio. For reference, this is the film Johnson was talking about when she described Hollywood as “heartbreaking” and “fucking bleak” – a conclusion she came to because Daddio took “a lot of fighting to get made.”

At any rate, Daddio...

When setting out to make his feature directorial debut with Little Death, a surreal genre-bender premiering tonight at Sundance, Jack Begert looked to synthesize “two very powerful influences” — a love of “surreal” cinematic stylings, carried over from his work in high-profile music videos, as well as a much more “grounded, authentic, humanistic” mode of filmmaking.

David Schwimmer in Little Death

Produced by Academy Award nominee Darren Aronofsky for his Protozoa Pictures, the film is visually and, to an extent, tonally reminiscent of the director’s early works, Requiem for a Dream and Pi. A formally experimental feature telling a series of interconnected L.A. stories, which makes memorable use of AI-generated art, as well as visual and practical effects, it hones in on a series of dreamer characters on a darkly comic collision course — a middle-aged filmmaker (David Schwimmer) in the midst of a existential crisis (or breakthrough?), and a...

Created by Ton Ruegger and overseen by executive producer Steven Spielberg, "Tiny Toon Adventures" debuted in September of 1990, marking a sea change in mainstream TV animation. "Tiny Toons," tapping into 1990s trends toward self-awareness, regularly addressed its own status as a cartoon show, and the characters would frequently give side-eyes to the audience, extract scripts on camera, or even exit their animation cels to cause havoc for the animators. The show's regular obliteration of the fourth wall reflected — and guided — the prevailing winking sarcasm of the 1990s, making it (and I am not exaggerating) a vital and definitive text of the decade. It's no coincidence that it landed the same year as Richard Linklater's "Slacker."

"Tiny Toons" was striking, funny, and launched an entire series of notable Spielberg-backed 1990s cartoons like "Animaniacs," "Histeria!," and "Freakazoid!"

The characters on "Tiny Toons" were largely all distaff "youth" counterparts of established Looney Tunes characters.

January is one of the biggest months of the year for independent film, with hundreds of film critics descending upon the Sundance Film Festival to discover the works of up-and-coming directors. But for those of us who can’t make the trek to Park City, Utah, there are plenty of independent movies to enjoy from the comfort of our homes.

This month, there’s a particularly big selection of independent classics to choose from on streaming, particularly if you’re subscribed to the Criterion Channel. In celebration of the approaching festival, Criterion is hosting a massive selection of past Sundance favorites, including the 1968 experimental documentary “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One.” Other favorites in the selection include “Blood Simple,” “Stranger Than Paradise,” “The Times of Harvey Milk,” “Desert Hearts,” “Working Girls,” “Paris Is Burning,” “Mississippi Masala,” “Slacker,” “Hoop Dreams,” and “The Doom Generation.” Other major indie favorites on the streamer this January include...

Jack Black admitted in Rolling Stone’s new oral history of “School of Rock” that he was nervous to act opposite a bunch of children in Richard Linklater’s hit comedy. The film, written by “The White Lotus” creator Mike White, cast Black as Dewey Finn, a down-on-his-luck guitarist who puts together a makeshift band of kid musicians while substitute teaching at a prep school.

“In retrospect, it seems ridiculous [to be nervous], because I’m such an immature idiot that it was a perfect match to be with a bunch of kids,” Black said. “We had a blast — horsing around and making jokes and making fart noises in between takes.”

Cast member Jordan-Claire Green, who played “groupie” Michelle, was just a kid on the set and remembered Black accidentally cursing around his much younger co-stars.

“The only time I ever saw him get nervous was one night we were on set, and he said a cuss word,...

A director who has seen the sunrise and sunset of independent filmmaking many times over, Richard Linklater has some thoughts on where the industry is today. And if you haven’t guessed by now, it’s not terribly hopeful…

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Richard Linklater said the era he came up in – that is, the early ‘90s – could never be duplicated in today’s market. “It feels like it’s gone with the wind — or gone with the algorithm. Sometimes I’ll talk to some of my contemporaries who I came up with during the 1990s, and we’ll go, ‘Oh my God, we could never get that done today.’ So, on the one hand, selfishly, you think, ‘I guess I was born at the right time. I was able to participate in what always feels like the last good era for filmmaking.’”

Richard Linklater went on to brood...

Is it something in the air? At this year’s Venice Film Festival, the unofficial theme appears to be hit men. David Fincher’s “The Killer” is all about an icy methodical professional executioner. Woody Allen’s “Coup de Chance” turns on an act of murder-for-hire. And now, just in time to steal the buzz from both those movies, we have Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man,” a screwball philosophical thriller comedy noir about the world’s unlikeliest undercover agent. He’s a one-of-a-kind movie hero, though in more ways than not he’s just like us.

The movie, which is based on a 2001 Texas Monthly article, tells the tale of Gary Johnson, a part-time college teacher who works for the New Orleans Police Department as a tech consultant, helping to make recordings of sting operations. Then he’s tapped to go undercover himself. Why would this even happen? The film...

On a recent day at the beach, actress Nikki Reed was basking in the California sun when a 15-year-old girl approached her. “I would love to take a picture with you!” the young fan exclaimed. Her interest in Reed, however, had nothing to do with her role as vampire Rosalie Hale in the mega-popular Twilight movies.

“Thirteen is my favorite film in the world,” the teenager said. “It actually inspired me to want to write and I already wrote my first screenplay.”

Although she’d long been conscious of the...

For many, Kevin Smith is a filmmaker who once upon a time made great movies while others have stuck by his side through thick and thin. With the well-reviewed Clerks III wrapping up the story 30 years in the making, it is time we take a look back at one of the most iconic careers in independent film history and we find out just Wtf Happened to Kevin Smith.

But as always we must begin at the beginning and the beginning began for Kevin Smith on August 2, 1970 in Red Bank, New Jersey. Smith has said that seeing his father struggle with his job working at the post office made him vow to never work a job that he hated, but never really thought there was a future for someone like him in the film industry despite his love for movies. Smith would make friends with people such as future Comic Book...

The Butthole Surfers drummer Teresa Taylor and star of Richard Linklater’s 1991 Gen X classic “Slacker,” died this weekend, the band announced on Twitter on Monday.

“Teresa Taylor passed away peacefully this weekend after a long battle with lung disease. She will live in our hearts forever. Rip, dear friend,” the notice on Twitter read.

Taylor, also billed as Teresa Nervosa, joined the band in 1983, but left in 1989 after experiencing light-induced seizures that were due to a brain aneurysm, according to Pitchfork. In 1993, she underwent brain surgery, which allowed her to perform again.

Teresa Taylor passed away peacefully this weekend after a long battle with lung disease. She will live in our hearts forever. Rip, dear friend.

Pictured here with Mark Farner. Photo by @PatBlashill #TeresaTaylor #TeresaNervosa pic.twitter.com/Mn74aqzeK1

— Butthole Surfers (@buttholesurfers) June 19, 2023

In 1991, she appeared in a small role in Richard Linklater’s breakthrough film “Slacker,...

Teresa Taylor, a drummer for the indie rock band Butthole Surfers who had a small but memorable role in the 1990 film Slacker as a “pusher” trying to sell an unusual Madonna souvenir, died Sunday of lung disease, her former bandmates have announced.

Taylor, who sometimes used the stage name Teresa Nervosa, “passed away peacefully this weekend after a long battle with lung disease,” the Butthole Surfers tweeted today. “She will live in our hearts forever. Rip, dear friend.”

Born in Arlington, Texas, Taylor played drums in her high school marching band alongside fellow percussionist King Coffey. After joining the San Antonio-based rock band, Coffey recruited his friend Taylor to join. The two drummers would perform in unison, often standing up, giving the band its early signature sound and visual style.

Taylor left the band in 1989 after experiencing seizures caused by a brain aneurysm. She underwent brain surgery in 1993. The group had an infectious No.

Teresa Taylor, a longtime drummer for the psych-punk band Butthole Surfers, has died.

The news about Taylor — also known as “Teresa Nervosa” — was shared by the band Monday on Twitter: “Teresa Taylor passed away peacefully this weekend,” they wrote. “She will live in our hearts forever. Rip, dear friend.”

Teresa Taylor passed away peacefully this weekend after a long battle with lung disease. She will live in our hearts forever. Rip, dear friend.

Pictured here with Mark Farner. Photo by @PatBlashill #TeresaTaylor #TeresaNervosa pic.twitter.com/Mn74aqzeK1

— Butthole Surfers...

Teresa Taylor (née Nervosa), a former drummer in Butthole Surfers, has died following a battle with lung disease.

Taylor’s partner, Cheryl Curtice, announced her passing on Facebook on Monday, June 19th. “Dear friends and loved ones of Teresa Taylor. I want to let you know the sad news. Teresa passed away clean and sober, peacefully in her sleep, this weekend,” Curtice wrote. “She was so brave, even in the face of her horrible disease. We were all fortunate to have her beautiful, strong spirit in our lives. She will be forever missed. We will have a memorial service sometime in the future. I love you, beloved Teresa.”

“She will live in our hearts forever. Rip, dear friend,” Butthole Surfers wrote in a tribute posted to their own Facebook page.

Along with King Coffey, Taylor was a drummer in Butthole Surfers from 1983 to 1989, appearing on albums including Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac,...

Richard Linklater has thought about making a ‘Boyhood’ sequel that starts when its lead character is 30.The ‘Before Sunrise’ director, 62, famously filmed the epic coming-of-age tale featuring Ellar Coltrane as Mason Evans Jr over the course of 12 years from 2002 to 2013, and said the six-time Oscar winning project still “breathes” for him.He told Empire magazine in an interview to mark the Arrow Video release of the film when asked if there could be a follow-up: “There were things we could have done – it just hasn’t really grabbed.“For all we know, we could just jump in at age 30 or something. Who the hell knows?”But Linklater, also famed for his indie film ‘Slacker’ and ‘Dazed and Confused’, said he already knows what happens to Ethan’s character next as it’s been charted in his series of films about college and his ‘Before’ trilogy about the youthful hunt for love,...

“Where were you in ’76?” The newest entrant in Criterion’s 4K disc club is Richard Linklater’s rowdy but affectionate ode to high school nostalgia, Texas-style. It’s a Bicentennial summer update of American Graffiti and in just 14 years the entire face of America has changed. Youth idealism is dead and the main rule is to avoid plans made by parents. Linklater’s graduation night sticks with kids free to roam on their own and have a wild time. He has a terrific way with performances that include a string of memorable faces that became much better-known, plus a couple of future stars.

Dazed and Confused 4K

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 336

1993 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 102 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 21, 2023 / 39.96

Starring: Jason London, Rory Cochrane, Wiley Wiggins, Sasha Jenson, Michelle Burke, Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp, Matthew McConaughey, Marissa Ribisi, Shawn Andrews, Cole Hauser, Milla Jovovich,...

For Clay, the man at the center of The Civil Dead, there isn’t much happening in life. Portrayed by director and co-writer Clay Tatum, he’s an unemployed LA photographer whose only friend appears to be his wife Whitney (Whitney Weir). When she leaves for several days on a work trip, she asks him to be productive and not just drink beer in the living room. Of course Clay does just that, and in a desperate attempt to get quick cash he pretends to put their apartment up for rent so he can collect application fees from hopeful renters. At first glance he’s a schlubby jerk (with a terrible haircut to boot), but his self-awareness and dry wit makes him affable, even if he’s content to do whatever it takes to avoid doing anything.

That harebrained scheme to steal from apartment-seekers amounts to a lot of set-up...

In the nineties, director Allan Moyle accomplished the rare feat of making two movies that wound up being considered cult classics. At the start of the decade, "Pump Up the Volume" starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis used pirate radio and a killer soundtrack to take down a corrupt high school. In 1995, "Empire Records" took down big business by saving the local record store with a last-minute fundraiser put on by a motley crew of Gen X outcasts. 20 years after "Empire Records" was released to little fanfare, it has become something of a social phenomenon with legions of fans who celebrate Rex Manning day every year on April 8 (the film is set on the same day). 

Richard Linklater's "Slacker" and Moyle's "Pump Up the Volume" captured the malaise of the slacker generation on film, an era that culminated with Stephen Frears' "High Fidelity" starring John Cusack in 2000. Nestled perfectly...

It's difficult to overstate the immediate and overwhelming effect that Wes Craven's 1996 film "Scream" had on pop culture. By the mid-1990s the slasher genre had pretty much come to an end. The most popular monsters of the 1980s were being deliberately killed off, as "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" and "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday" seemingly closed the door on their respective franchises. The slasher series that continued started to die of fatigue, as seen in clunky, underwhelming films like "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" and "Hellraiser: Bloodline." 

Then, in December of '96, "Scream" came out and a new trend was immediately born. The Kevin Williamson-scripted "Scream" was a slasher movie, yes, but it was populated by teenage characters who all knew -- and spoke openly about -- the tropes of slasher movies. Everyone was wry, sarcastic, and understood the metafictional situation they occupied.

A film that rewards patience, The Tuba Thieves, despite its title, is not a quirky heist picture but rather a meditation on the presence and absence of sound framed by both recent and further-removed history. It’s directed by d/Deaf visual artist Alison O’Daniel, who crafts a rich visual and auditory project that’s probably best experienced in an acoustically perfect environment. One might at least need a high-end pair of noise-canceling headphones to simulate the optimal screening venue. Open-captioned by default, The Tuba Thieves is an immersive journey that perhaps approximates the trials of limited hearing with a structure that is either a cinematic meditation or frustrating for those seeking to impose some sense of order over the raw material we’re presented.

Often defying convention, we’re initially told the genesis of the film is a year-spanning string of instrument heists at LA high schools that very likely aren’t related.

Jason Schwartzman in There, There Photo: Matthias Grunsky/Magnolia Pictures American movies are usually so hesitant to depict actors of a certain age as sexual beings that it’s refreshing that the first proper scene in writer-director Andrew Bujalski’s latest relationship comedy There There is constructed around the morning...

Independent movies have been a thing for just about as long as movies have been a popular form of entertainment. But there was a point in the '90s when major studios realized that indie movies could also be good business, and Miramax was at the cutting edge of that movement, acquiring a string of films out of the festival circuit and turning them into hits. Miramax, founded by Bob Weinstein and the since-disgraced Harvey Weinstein (who is currently in prison), was so successful that Disney ended up buying the company in 1993.

Miramax wanted to prove that it could still do what it had always done despite being owned by the Mouse House. So, in 1994, the studio went to Sundance and went on a spending spree. Most notably, it acquired Quentin Tarantino's all-time classic "Pulp Fiction," which went on to become a gigantic hit and perhaps one of the...

Jean-Luc Godard passed away on September 13, 2022 at the age of 91. In a vast and prolific career that spanned seven decades Godard never once shied away from confrontation. Godard was a film brat of the highest order, who used his early New Wave films as a playful, somewhat bitter commentary on the insidious infiltration of cinematic images into our minds. His most celebrated film, "Breathless" (1960), takes place in a world where characters have internalized an ineffable sense of "cool" they learned directly from American movies; in one scene, Jean-Paul Belmondo, sporting a fedora and cigarette, spends a moment to look at a headshot of Humphrey Bogart, a photo he seems to regard like a mirror. 

Much hay has been made by talented and insightful essayists over the impact Godard has had on modern filmmaking. He made movies about people who lived in movies. He was of a generation of French filmmakers...

Twenty-eight years after Kevin Smith made his film debut with the foul-mouthed low-budget comedy "Clerks" and 16 years after the sweet and silly sequel, "Clerks II," the director returns to the Quick Stop to bring the story full circle in "Clerks III." Clerks Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) own the convenience store that brought them together, but they aren't sure if they've achieved their dreams or just fallen into their same old routines. Then Randal has a heart attack and realizes life is too short to waste, so he wants to make a movie.

This is Smith at his most deeply personal: Randal's heart attack is clearly based on Smith's own, and the creation of his film at the Quick Stop is a metacommentary on the making of the first "Clerks." Fans in search of the mile-a-minute crass comedy of some of his earlier work, including the...

For as long as there has been independent cinema, there have been protagonists who aren’t quite ready for adulthood. From “Slacker” to “Frances Ha” to approximately 78 percent of rejected Sundance submissions in any given year, there’s a time honored tradition of filmmakers finding inspiration in those looking to squeeze a few more years out of their adolescence.

But with each passing film about an artsy type who can’t get their shit together, the pressure on the next filmmaker to justify the existence of their belated coming-of-age story increases. When your audience has seen these tropes as often as we have, you have to offer something more than “wow, turns out adulting is really hard!” Unfortunately, “Adopting Audrey” falls short of that standard. M. Cahill’s new film about a woman who puts herself up for adoption in her early thirties is The result is a drab retreading...

In-person and virtual meetings set for September.

New work from Venice Horizons 2019 best director Théo Court and Australian filmmaker Darlene Johnson are among 142 international and US titles selected for the 2022 Gotham Week Project Market.

In-person Project Market industry meetings with distributors, financiers, production companies, festival programmers, sales and talent agents and other potential collaborators are set for September 19-21, while virtual meetings take place from September 22-23.

The Gotham Week Conference exploring the art and business of film and media returns and programming highlights include the inaugural Gotham Week Expo, which will bring together partners from The Gotham’s Expanding Communities,...

In-person and virtual meetings set for September.

New work from Venice Horizons 2019 best director Théo Court and Australian filmmaker Darlene Johnson are among 142 international and US titles selected for the 2022 Gotham Week Project Market.

In-person Project Market industry meetings with distributors, financiers, production companies, festival programmers, sales and talent agents and other potential collaborators are set for September 19-21, while virtual meetings take place from September 22-23.

The Gotham Week Conference exploring the art and business of film and media returns and programming highlights include the inaugural Gotham Week Expo, which will bring together partners from The Gotham’s Expanding Communities,...

There was a party at the moon tower, but Richard Linklater got stuck with the bill. Or at least that’s how it felt to the Austin-based writer-director, one of the principal architects of the American independent movement whose work has launched a string of A-list careers.

The creator of Hollywood hits like “School of Rock” and “The Bad News Bears” remake, as well as laid-back prestige enterprises like “Slacker,” “Waking Life,” and the “Before” trilogy, spoke to The Daily Beast while promoting his latest, Netflix’s nostalgia-rich animated delight “Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood.” When the topic of the 1993 classic “Dazed and Confused” came up, it clearly touched a nerve.

“Where’s my money?” he asked. “How come a movie that cost less than 7 million has 12 million in interest against it?”

In addition to giving us a string of quotable lines, “Dazed and Confused” was the ostensible screen debut for Matthew McConaughey,...

“Dazed and Confused” is one of the defining American independent films of the 1990s and one of the most beloved cult classics of all time, but it turns out the film’s enduring legacy has never resulted in money for writer-director Richard Linklater. The filmmaker was recently asked by The Daily Beast if he made money off “Dazed and Confused,” to which he responded, “Fuck no!”

“It’s like… where’s my money?” Linklater asked. “How come a movie that cost less than 7 million has 12 million in interest against it?”

When asked how “Dazed and Confused” can be a cult hit for nearly three decades and counting and not make money for him, Linklater responded, “I don’t know. Ask Universal! Hollywood accounting. I remember really asking for a piece of the soundtrack, because I picked all the songs, and they were like, ‘Oh no…First film, you know?’ N.

This review of “Apollo 10 1/2” was first published on March 13, after its screening at SXSW.

Richard Linklater digs into his own salad days for “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood,” an animated feature that fondly recalls the NASA moment in a way that’s more reminiscent of “Amarcord” or “Crooklyn” than of “First Man.”

As a kid who was born in 1960 and grew up in the suburbs of Houston, like the film’s young hero, Linklater had a front-row seat to the race to the moon. In this delightfully evocative exercise in nostalgia, he captures the way that children will remember historic events in the context of what else was on TV, which siblings got to sit on the couch, and how your favorite song made you feel.

The story here is ostensibly about young Stan (voiced by Milo Coy), a schoolboy recruited by NASA (because of his...

It’s another giant week of television, with many movies and TV sharing an overlapping space theme – Marvel Studios’ “Moon Knight” is about a superhero (Oscar Isaac) who transforms under the cover of darkness; Richard Linklater returns to his youth (and the initial United States space program) in “Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood;” and “Moonshot” features a YA romance that plays out via a voyage to the red planet.

On with the television! To infinity and beyond!

Marvel Studios

“Moon Knight”

Wednesday, March 30, Disney+

Marvel Studios’ latest Disney+ original series (its sixth) is a relatively deep cut character – Marc Spector (played by Oscar Isaac), a man who, depending on the comic book run, is truly inhabited by a deity from ancient Egypt or just deeply unhinged mentally. We are introduced to Spector via one of his alter egos, sheepish British museum employee Steven Grant (Isaac goes full Dick-Van-Dyke-in-“Mary...

Barely over two years ago, the Den of Geek staff was mere days away from heading to Austin when the inevitable happened: SXSW and all its strange and glorious intersections of film, music, technology, games, and more was canceled due to the then only dawning Covid-19 pandemic. A virtual alternative eventually went forward some months later, and there was a virtual SXSW in 2021 as well, but to concede things haven’t been the same in Austin is an understatement.

Which is perhaps why nearly every face, and every person we spoke with, over the last several weeks in the Texas state capital seemed to have an incorrigible grin on their face. Be they fans or filmmakers, actors or music artists, or even just folks walking down the street, the thrill and good vibes was everywhere. SXSW is back where it once belonged.

During that time, we were able to get...