One more Off the Wall
Nov. 14 — Happy Friday, and happy final weekend to the Off the Wall @ 725 Ponce film series! Phil Solomon’s film “Empire,” which he made in 2012 as a response to Andy Warhol’s eight-hour portrait of the Empire State Building, is playing tonight and tomorrow at 7 p.m. on the Atlanta Beltline. The screening is free, and Off the Wall won’t return until May of next year, so don’t miss it!
Without further ado … Action!
🍿 The extended (final) deadline to submit your film to the 50th annual Atlanta Film Festival is tonight! You can submit here.
🎭 The Alliance Theatre has partnered with the group Theatre for Young Audiences, USA for a new theatrical program aimed at younger audiences.
🌎 In recognition of World AIDS Day, Out on Film and Gilead are hosting a screening of Stephen Winter’s “Chocolate Babies,” followed by a discussion about the depiction of HIV/AIDS in the media, on Dec. 1 at Landmark Midtown Arts Cinema.
☀️ The Sundance Film Festival has announced its inaugural Robert Redford Luminary Award in honor of the late actor and filmmaker. The award will go to actor Ed Harris and Hungarian filmmaker Gyula Gazdag.
📺 Fifteen specialty streamers – including Tubi, Crunchyroll, and Roku – have banded together in an attempt to give smaller streamers a voice in global policy and regulation debates.
🃏 Sally Kirkland, known for films like “The Sting” as well as an Oscar-nominated turn in “Anna,” died at the age of 84 on Tuesday.
🇯🇵 Tatsuya Nakadai, the Japanese actor who starred in films such as “High and Low” and “Harakiri,” died on Saturday at the age of 92.
This week’s newsletter features a recap of my weekend at the Rome International Film Festival, along with a catchup with local actor and producer Kiah Clingman. We’ve also got three movie reviews this week: Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man,” Sepideh Farsi’s documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” and Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague.” Plus, what’s playing at the theater this week, a new edition of Spotlight, and some reading and listening recommendations for your lunch break.
Thanks for reading!
Sammie
A Rome International Film Festival recap
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Rome International Film Festival. I saw some great movies and even had time to fit in some interviews. Here are a few pieces for you to check out:
🦙 I spoke with Jerusha Hess, one-half of the team behind cult classics like “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Nacho Libre,” about her career. Hess was honored by the festival with the Flannery O’Connor Award for Storytelling.
🚗 I was also able to see the new film “On the End,” from filmmaker Ari Selinger and starring Tim Blake Nelson as a Montauk mechanic who takes on small town corruption and falls in love in the process. I spoke with both Selinger and Nelson about the making of the film.
🎹 And last, but certainly not least, I spoke with U.K. filmmaker Paul Romero Mendez about his short film “While It Lasts.” “While It Lasts” follows a daughter (played by writer Katie Sheridan) as she deals with the reality of her mother’s early-onset dementia.
Experience the spirit of Chamblee this holiday season
SPONSORED BY DISCOVER DEKALB
✨ Chamblee invites you to experience both the reopening of Dresden Park and the spirit of the season at Holiday Hoopla.
From new fields and art at the park to festive lights, community warmth, and festive lights something for everyone awaits this season in Chamblee. Step into a place where celebrating and gathering feel natural.
➞ Come experience them in Chamblee and make your own memories.
Actor Clayton Farris talks queer representation in ‘Weapons’
🤡 Clayton Farris feels he got lucky with his role in the 2025 hit “Weapons.” He had seen filmmaker Zach Cregger’s previous movie, the well-received “Barbarian,” and was such a fan that he decided that he really wanted to be a part of Cregger’s next project. It’s almost like he willed himself to be involved.
In “Weapons,” 17 school children from one elementary school class vanish after they run away from their homes at 2:17 a.m. Farris plays Terry, one half of a gay couple partnered with school principal Marcus (Benedict Wong).
While the movie has held appeal for the LGBTQ+ community, there has been some criticism about what happens to the film’s queer characters. For Georgia Voice, Jim Farmer spoke with Farris about queer representation in “Weapons.”
✂️ You can find that interview here.
Kiah Clingman talks juggling acting and producing, season finale of ‘Reasonable Doubt’
📺 When I spoke to Kiah Clingman in 2023, she was less focused on acting and more focused on her production company, KiahCan Productions. Since then, she’s worked as a producer on projects like the short film “Thomasville,” and David Fortune’s movie “Color Book,” which screened at this year’s Atlanta Film Festival.
Now Clingman is trying her hand at acting again. She stars as Kristin, the mysterious sister of Ozzie (Kyle Bary), a former child star accused of killing his girlfriend, Wendy (Rumer Willis). The season finale of “Reasonable Doubt” aired Nov. 13 on Hulu.
Ahead of the season finale, I caught up with Clingman again about her work on the show and how her producing work has evolved since we last spoke.
⚖️ Check out our conversation here.
‘The Running Man’ is a little too silly to take itself so seriously
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
🏃 About a day into “The Running Man” – the titular game show from Edgar Wright’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel – a contestant named Jansky (Martin Herlihy) is about to die. Jansky is one of three contestants tasked with avoiding a murderous crew of hunters for 30 days in order to win $1 billion. Unbeknownst to him, the cashier he’s been hitting on for the last few minutes has reported him to the authorities. One of the other contestants, Ben Richards (Glen Powell), is watching the whole doomed affair play out on television.
Jansky is painted as a fool during his death sequence. In contrast, Richards is all seriousness, quietly urging Jansky to run away, his rage-filled eyes pained at the sound of the gunshot that kills his competitor.
This moment is emblematic of the type of tonal clash that can be found all over “The Running Man,” a movie that’s a little too absurd for how seriously it takes itself. While Wright is a capable action filmmaker and finds the right balance in a few key moments, convoluted plotting and characterization – and a third act that tanks whatever goodwill the film earns early on – drag “The Running Man” down.
✈️ Read my full review here.
‘Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk’ offers a close-up look at the toll of war
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
🇵🇸 “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” features a series of interviews between Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi and Fatma Hassouna, a Palestinian photojournalist living in Gaza who had been steadily documenting life in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attack. After Hamas attacked Israel, Farsi decided she wanted to try and document the ensuing war in Gaza. She was held up in Egypt, but a refugee told her she should speak with Fatma. The two women never met in person – their friendship developed entirely over the phone.
When we think of cinema, we think of the visuals first. It’s a visual medium, after all, and those big, awe-inspiring scenes are usually what draw emotion out of an audience, and what draws them to the theater in the first place.
But Farsi is used to working sparingly. She shot her first documentary, “Tehran Without Permission,” on the streets of Tehran with a Nokia camera phone because of Iran’s restrictions on shooting. And now, with “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” Farsi has proven once again that powerful emotion doesn’t have to stem from big, sweeping visuals. It can come from something as simple as an iPhone.
📱 This is one of the most powerful films I’ve seen all year. You can check out my full review here.
‘Nouvelle Vague’ is light, frothy fun for cinephiles
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
🇫🇷 The filmmakers of the French New Wave rejected the strictures of traditional filmmaking and brought new approaches to writing, shooting, editing, and thematic exploration. But, they also held a deep appreciation for the studio filmmakers of yore. In their eyes, people like Orson Welles, John Ford, and Nicholas Ray deserved more artistic attention than they got. In short, they were kind of the first film bros.
“Breathless,” filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal feature debut and the basis for filmmaker Richard Linklater’s fanboy movie of his own, “Nouvelle Vague,” might be the most French New Wave-y film of them all. It’s improvisational and quick, full of what would become its signature jump cuts that so many would go on to copy. It’s also full of references to American noir films of the 40s and 50s (the main character, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, has an obsession with Humphrey Bogart).
“Nouvelle Vague” is perfectly well made, well acted, and enjoyable – light, cozy entertainment that will most likely delight cinephiles in its exploration of how one of the most influential films of all time came to be. But it’s more interesting as a historical document than a film. That’s the rub with movies made about the making of masterpieces – you can never escape that comparison.
🎥 Read my full review here.
At the Movies!
If you’re looking for a movie to see in theaters this week, here’s what you’ve got to look forward to!
Movies releasing this weekend:
🪄 “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” (pictured)
👟 “The Running Man”
🇵🇸 “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk”
🫣 “Keeper”
🪚 “The Carpenter’s Son”
👀 “Blue Eyed Girl”
Special Events:
🤌 8½ in 4K @ The Plaza (Friday-Thursday)
🇹🇼 “Yi Yi” in 4K @ The Plaza (Saturday-Wednesday)
🕵️ “The Spook Who Sat By the Door” in 4K @ The Plaza (Saturday)
✝️ “The Exorcist” in 35mm (Theatrical Cut) @ The Plaza (Saturday-Thursday)
🐉 Soul Cinema Sundays: “The Last Dragon” @ The Plaza (Sunday)
🥷 “American Ninja” with Sam Firstenberg & Gideon Amir Q&A @ The Plaza (Sunday)
👰 “The First Wives Club” @ The Tara (Friday-Sunday)
🎨 Exhibition on Screen: “Caravaggio” @ The Tara (Saturday-Sunday)
💒 “Father of the Bride” @ The Tara @ (Saturday-Tuesday)
🧹 “Wicked” Movie Party @ Springs Cinema & Taphouse (Saturday)
🐈 “The Cat in the Hat” @ Springs Cinema & Taphouse (Saturday-Sunday)
Tonatiuh in ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’
🕷️ If you know anything about me, you know I love an old Hollywood movie musical. There is something extremely comforting to me about the colors, the movements, the emotions they’re able to evoke together. There have been few modern movies that have really captured that 1950s sensibility in all its glory. But “Kiss of the Spider Woman” is one of them.
I could write for hours about the production design, the musical references, and the fact that somehow, Jennifer Lopez has NEVER been cast in a movie musical before (you can read all about that stuff in my review!). But today, I want to devote a few words to an actor I had never heard of before this film, and someone who delivered one of my favorite performances of the year.
Tonatiuh plays Molina, a queer window dresser arrested for public indecency who winds up cellmates with a Marxist political prisoner named Valentín (Diego Luna). They’re an odd couple, but Molina slowly charms Valentín with their storytelling ability – particularly, their ability to recount the plot of movie musicals starring the fictional diva, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez). The relationship between Molina and Valentín grows, constantly teetering on the precipice of something romantic.
Tonatiuh (who uses both he/him and they/them pronouns) has a difficult task. Molina is charming and beguiling, able to worm their way into Valentín’s cold, political heart before he realizes what’s happening. But this version of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” dives into Molina’s relationship with gender in a complex manner.
Molina has no illusions about who they are. While not explicitly labeled as trans or non-binary, they often express their desire to be a woman, their desire to be more like the Ingrid Lunas of the world. But, however strong that belief holds, it’s a fragile thing, a truth that the world could toss aside at any moment. Tonatiuh holds both of those things – Molina’s strength and fragility – in his physicality, whether it be in the confident swish of a robe, or the sudden shyness that appears when romance becomes a possibility. They can switch it up on a dime, moving from smirking indifference to longing within the space of a raised eyebrow. It’s the best kind of breakthrough performance – vulnerable, charismatic, precise, and a complete and total surprise.
Lights, Camera, Action!
🥋 Speaking of breakthrough performances, we couldn’t talk about them this year without talking about Chase Infiniti in “One Battle After Another.” Holding your own against the likes of Sean Penn, Regina Hall, and Leonardo DiCaprio can’t be easy, but Infiniti proves it’s possible – you might just have to do a little face shaving first. To learn what THAT means, read this profile from “The Wrap” here.
🏝️ As a newly minted “Survivor” fan, I have never agreed with an article headline more: “Survivor” needs to bring back the villains. This piece on Vulture from Brian Moylan details the evolution of “Survivor” over the years and clearly explains why getting rid of the reality TV villains we know and love is not the answer (ahem, Jeff Probst). Where would we be with Parvati Shallow? Boston Rob? Sandra Diaz-Twine? Nowhere, I say!
🎧 This week on “The Big Picture” podcast, hosts Amanda and Sean talked about one of my favorite movies of the 2010s, Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird.” It’s one of the best solo feature debuts of all time, and I’ll fight someone about that – if you haven’t seen it, go do that immediately and then listen to this episode.
🖊️ Today’s Scene was edited by Julie E. Bloemeke.
