On Tuesday, the Oak Cliff Film Festival unleashed the full line-up for its 2017 film festival. The OCFF is rapidly becoming Dallas-Fort Worth’s go-to film festival. Why? Their focus isn’t on big movies that are going to release all over the planet in a week or two; no, the passionate and driven team behind the festival focuses on great independent and repertory cinema. Here’s the quick rundown of what’s playing, followed by what we are definitely going to see:
New Cinema
Janicza Bravo’s Lemon
David Lowery’s A Ghost Story
Peter Vack’s A******s
Alex Ross Perry’s Golden Exits
Lauren Wolkstein and Christopher Radcliff’s The Strange Ones
John Carroll Lynch’s Lucky
Bob Byington’s Infinite Baby
Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund’s La Barracuda
Ronnie Garza and Charlie Vela’s As I Walk Through the Valley
Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya’s Cinema Travelers
Mike Ott’s California Dreams
Jamie Meltzer’s True Conviction
Jem Cohen’s World Without End
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Endless Poetry
Trent Haaga’s 68 Kill
Jeff Baena’s The Little Hours
Gabe Klinger’s Porto
Dustin Guy Defa’s Person to Person
Albert Serra’s Death of Louis XIV
Yuri Ancarani’s The Challenge
Kevin Phillips’ Super Dark Times
Radu Jude’s Scarred Hearts
Bret Whitcomb’s A Life in Waves
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre
Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild
Gnarly line-up, right? We want to see all of them. That may or may not be possible, but locking down the most anticipated will be seen. Here they are:
David Lowery’s A Ghost Story
I started a little movie website that did called GordonandtheWhale.com in 2007 (now defunct). I met multi-hyphenate David Lowery, a Dallasite like me, who was deep in making short films. After watching just one, Pioneer, I knew he was going to go on to do big things, and he did: Pete’s Dragon and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (produced by longtime brilliant collaborators Toby Halbrooks and James M. Johnston). Lowery’s back to his indie roots with a smaller film with big scares called A Ghost Story. Simple title that cuts straight to the point. This film comes from a once-small label now killing it you should know by now, A24. Pretty much anything they release is A+, so it makes A Ghost Story even more anticipated. (The simple marketing for A Ghost Story is super effective, too.)
Lauren Wolkstein and Christopher Radcliff’s The Strange Ones
I met writer-director Lauren Wolkstein when I covered the Cannes Film Festival in 2011. She was there for her short Cigarette Candy, and like Lowery, I knew just by talking to her and seeing her short that she is a rare breed — focused and determined on showing a good story. She can do it in a few minutes, and now in a full-length feature. I will always follow this filmmaker because it’s so fun watching her in her element and what she does best: once again, show a good story. The Strange Ones was first a short that played at almost every film festival you can think of, so there’s more proof than my word that she’s got a brain full of talent.
John Carroll Lynch’s Lucky
I saw John Carrol Lynch’s Lucky at SXSW, and it stars the great Harry Dean Stanton as the cranky titular role, so it’s pretty difficult not to love. I mean, look at the poster, how could you not want to see this? For you weirdos out there, David Lynch co-stars as a bar pal desperate to find his pet turtle.
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Endless Poetry
This had me at Alejandro Jodorowsky, a wild filmmaker with chutzpah and guts. He’s got two films playing, the other being repertory and is called Santa Sangre, which we’re going to include as one in this list. It’s a big mistake missing any of this 88-year-old’s films on the big screen, especially you can catch it in delicious 35mm.
Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild
We lost this great filmmaker not too long ago, and the world of cinema wept, rightfully so. He left us with an oeuvre of great cinema. One of his best is hilarious and deranged Something Wild with Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith. This is his finest work to this writer, and Criterion Collection agrees.
Now you know the films we’re not going to miss; how about you tell us yours?
Holy jeez! My friends and I were blindsided by “Something Wild” when it was released, and by that time, I was already riding the Jonathan Demme bus! I saw that four weeks in a row in theaters! My friend Tom and I saw it repeatedly, then took our other friends to see it later. Its gravitational pull was so strong that I only saw “Blue Velvet” in the theaters once, since their release in my area was concurrent. We could not stop going to “Something Wild.” I envy anyone who sees it cold now. What a thrill. “‘Blue Velvet?’ yeah, that’s nice… let’s go see ‘Something Wild’ again!”