I love this time of year. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas (or Hanukkah) give us something to celebrate. Sports are in full swing with the World Series (congratulations Rangers!) football, hockey, and basketball games. It is also the best time of the year for movies, as many film distributors release their best films late in the year in preparation for awards season. Oh, and it’s also time for the Austin Film Festival.

If you are one of the few people who look forward to a new blog post on the first of every month, then you will have noticed this post is late. But that is because the Austin Film Festival didn’t finish until yesterday, and I wanted to give everyone a full report.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Austin Film Festival. We started going to the festival when we lived in Austin over 20 years ago. And we have gone every year since I retired five years ago. This year, my wife, Janene, and I watched 17 films in eight days, which is less than usual for us, but we had to watch the Texas Rangers play (and win!) in the World Series each night.

There is nothing like watching a film with movie people. They cry unashamedly, laugh boisterously, and cheer loudly when someone rights a wrong. They applaud at the end of every movie and stay to watch the credits.

Films at the Festival fall into several categories. First, there are the shorts, usually made by young, aspiring filmmakers who use shorts to demonstrate their yet unrecognized talent. Then there are the independent films hoping to convince distributors to pay for the rights to the movie. And then there are those films already with distributors who use the Festival to generate buzz before they release the film.

Here are four films from the Festival I recommend seeing. These movies have distributors, so look for them when released in theaters or air on a streaming service.

My favorite film at the Festival was American Fiction,[i] which reflects society’s obsession with stereotypes. In the film, a frustrated novelist (played by Jeffrey Wright) is fed up with those who profit from “Black” entertainment that relies on tired and offensive stereotypes. To prove his point, as a parody, he writes his own novel full of outrageous stereotypes, which, surprisingly, becomes a bestseller. I laughed throughout the film, but more importantly, it made me think about the unfairness of the stereotypes and labels we often are guilty of using. Here is the trailer for the film:

The Promised Land[ii] is a movie out of Denmark, so sit close so you can easily read the subtitles. Based on actual people and events, the film tells the story of Captain Ludvig Kahlen (played by Mads Mikkelsen) who, in 1755, attempts to build a colony on barren land in the name of the King of Denmark and thereby achieve wealth and title for himself. But the area’s ruthless local ruler believes the land is his, igniting a conflict that threatens the captain’s life and the family of outsiders who join him. It is a classic story of love, greed, and power. Here is the trailer for the movie:

As a baseball fan, I loved Bucky F*cking Dent.[iii] In the summer of 1978, a Boston Red Sox fan (played by David Duchovny) moves back in with his ailing father and falls in love with his father’s caretaker. But surrounding the love story and the family dynamics is the 1978 baseball season, in which the Boston Red Sox are trying to exorcise the curse of the Bambino (Babe Ruth) who sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919 for $100,000. The Red Sox hadn’t won a pennant since. In 1978, the Red Sox and the Yankees tied at the end of the season, requiring a one-game playoff to determine which team would go to the World Series. It looked like the Red Sox would finally end the curse, as they led 2-0 in the seventh inning. But Bucky Dent dashed those hopes when he hit a three-run homer. As the ball sailed over the Green Monster (Fenway Park’s famous left field fence), the Red Sox manager, Don Zimmer) reportedly gave Bucky Dent a new middle name: “Bucky F*cking Dent.” The Yankees went on to win 5 to 4. That game has special meaning for me, as I was in law school at the time and watched it with two of my closest friends, one an avid Red Sox fan, and the other an avid Yankees fan. The Red Sox finally broke the curse of the Bambino in 2004 when they came back to win the ALCS against the hated Yankees after trailing three games to none, the first team to do so in a baseball playoff series. They went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.  

I found The Holdovers[iv] quite predictable, but I still enjoyed every minute of it. The film is about a cranky teacher (played by Paul Giamatti) who is tasked to babysit students who have nowhere to go for the holidays and forms an unlikely bond with one of them. Here is the trailer for the movie:

During this most wonderful time of the year, I hope you give yourself a gift of a movie or two. I love what Forrest Whitaker said about cinema: “Cinema and the arts invite viewers to focus on a story and, in doing so, peel away its layers and peer into the depths of the human soul.” Or, as I like to say, “Everything important in life I learned at the movies.”

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[i] American Fiction:

• Production Companies: 3 Arts Entertainment, MRC Film, and Media Rights Capital (MRC)
• Director: Cord Jefferson
• Screenwriters: Cord Jefferson and Percival Everett
• Starring: Jeffrey Wright, Skylar Wright, and John Ales
• Release Date: December 22, 2023

[ii] The Promised Land:

• Production Companies: Zentropa Entertainments, Zentropa International Berlin, and Zentropa International Sweden
• Director: Nikolaj Arcel
• Screenwriters: Nikolaj Arcel, Anders Thomas Jensen, and Ida Jessen
• Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Gustav Lindh, and Amanda Collin
• Release Date: February 2, 2024

[iii] Bucky F*cking Dent:

• Production Company: Yale Productions
• Director: David Duchovny
• Screenwriter: David Duchovny
• Starring: Stephanie Beatriz, David Duchovny, and Logan Marshall-Green
• Release Date: June 10, 2023

[iv] The Holdovers:

• Production Companies: Miramax and CAA Media Finance
• Director: Alexander Payne
• Screenwriter: David Hemingson
• Starring: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa
• Release Date: November 10, 2023