The heads of prominent Dallas and North Texas Film Festivals announced their selections for the Top Ten Films of 2017 during WFAA’s Midday at 8 news broadcast today with Edgar Wright’s BABY DRIVER, Jordan Peele’s GET OUT, and Guillermo del Toro’s THE SHAPE OF WATER taking the top three spots among films released in 2017.
Bible scores with EXIT STRATEGY by remembering two very key requirements that make that film or a film like GROUNDHOG DAY a classic and so many other films a nice try at best: He gives us characters to care about and one character in particular who grows during the course of his impossible journey.
A loving ode to the late 60s/early 70s as well as a delicately drawn coming-of-age memoir about a young woman’s upbringing by a “wild” single mother, Suzanne Racz’s short film WILLOW demonstrates the first-time filmmaker’s sense of style behind the camera as well as her depth as a storyteller.
And that’s the balance I think men need to strike, even when it (as it so often does) go against every instinct to “fix things” and “problem solve.” We need to be ready to stand up and speak out when a loved one, or a friend like Rose or my other film fest friend, or in fact, a complete stranger needs us to do so. But we also, need to never assume we’ve got all of this gamed out, that we’ve got it down, we know the score.
I was wrong and I was wrong because it is so very easy to be wrong as a male in this arena. It is so incredibly easy to think of me first. It is beyond easy to not consider everything that vitally needs to be considered simply because I have a penis. It is a painful admission to make even as I seek to correct it and do better.
Please help me fight for this chance. Help me fight to protect DACA by speaking out and calling your representatives. I promise you that DACA recipients don’t want a free ride. We’ve never asked for that, all we want is a chance to keep contributing to this country in every field, even film.
It actually started as a very different script inspired by a video game. I wanted to write something with a badass female lead, then she evolved into this motorbike riding little red riding hood. I love the esthetic of dieselpunk, so the world was heavily influenced by that. It all kind of evolved from there. The world is big, and even though the short is just a little slice of an introduction to it, I didn’t want to feel half assed just because it was a short.
But this particular version of that stuck in the elevator scenario gets an additional boost because it was written, developed, and stars two women who might as we’ll bring back vaudeville, they’ve got their “act” together so honed – Sarah Adams and Maggie Rieth Austin.
Those films are going to make the “Make America Great Again” crowd (which everyone knows is actually code for “Make America White Again”) stop for a moment and reflect and decide that they shouldn’t be tacitly saying, “We’re okay if you eliminate (read, “kill if you have to, but by all means force to leave the country”) all the blacks and Jews as long as we get those clean coal jobs back like you promised.”
Personally, I don’t think women should ever have to feel ashamed to talk about their abortion stories–it is an experience that so many of us share. But it’s also an experience that can be confusing, sad, heartbreaking, hopeful… I wanted to show that spectrum of emotions.
