Central Track Contributor
Five Must-See Films at The Third Annual Oak Cliff Film Festival. Also: A Giveaway!
Though it's only got two years under its belt, the Oak Cliff Film Festival is quickly becoming the Dallas-Fort Worth film event to attend.
Why? Because the boys and girls behind the festival are just as passionate about film as you are. And, this year, film lovers will not only get to an early look at great new films from all over the U.S., but they'll also be treated to special 35mm screenings of kick-ass repertory cinema. (Jonathan Demme’s Talking Heads' documentary Stop Making Sense and Dog Day Afternoon, Peeping Tom are three among the bunch that we're most highly anticipating).
This year's kicks off on Thursday, June 19. With that in mind, here are the films you should be fist-pumping about. And if our below recaps don't excite you to hurry up and buy tickets, maybe this will: Central Track is giving away two VIP film badges to one lucky reader. Enter to win right here.
The Better Angels. To Be Takei. Stop Making Sense 30th Anniversary Screening. Rat Pack Rat. Dog Day Afternoon/The Dog Double-Bill with P.F. Kluge in Attendance. For a full list and schedule of films screening at this year's Oak Cliff Film Festival, clicky click.
Produced by Terrence Malick, The Better Angels stars Sundance Film Festival darling Brit Marling (Another Earth, Sound of My Voice), Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty), Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) and Wes Bentley (American Beauty). This is the first feature from writer/director A.J. Edwards, but with Malick as a producer and Marling as one of the leads, this will surely make waves in the indie scene. The film follows a young Abraham Lincoln during his tough upbringing in Indiana and tells how two women molded him into one of the greatest presidents of all time. This one was previously screened at Sundance and the Berlin Film Festival, which is a good indicator that, if nothing else, it's going to be a lot better than Spielberg's snoozefest on Lincoln from 2012.
Oh my: A documentary about Star-Trek-turned-Facebook-sensation George Takei? Yup. This one follows Takei on his journey from World War II to becoming one of today's most beloved voices in the online world. To Be Takei previously screened at the Sundance Film Festival.
Jonathon Demme was way ahead of his time. Two of his best films were born in the '80s, and Stop Making Sense is one of them, with Something Wild being the other. He went on to make a few more good films that you've probably heard of. One of them features a psychotic Anthony Hopkins who loves to eat human flesh. Heard of it? Then there's this Talking Heads doc. It has a special place in Central Track’s heart because, honestly, who doesn't love the ideas spinning around in David Byrne's head? Stop Making Sense will screen in glorious 35mm.
Rat Pack Rat is a short film starring Steve Little (Eastbound & Down) that was written and directed by the pleasantly odd Todd Rohal (The Catechism Cataclysm, which also stars Little). We've seen it — and, we promise, you will laugh your ass off if your sense of humor is just as skewed as ours. Nothing is sacred or off the table in Rohal's bonkers story about a Sammy Davis, Jr. impersonator that grants a dying and always-farting man's last wish.
Drafthouse Films grabbed the rights to Dog Day Afternoon and is graciously lending the print to the OCFF to screen the film along at the fest in conjunction with the new documentary, The Dog, which is based on the man who inspired the feature starring a young, handsome Al Pacino. As a bonus, that man, Kluge, will be in attendance for both screenings.
