Amber Ruffin | Film Festival Today

SXSW Review: “Basic”

March 17, 2026

SXSW Review: “Basic”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
March 17, 2026
Basic (Chelsea Devantez, 2026) 4 out of 5 stars Basic, writer/director Chelsea Devantez’s feature debut, starts out as one kind of film and then, delightfully, becomes something else entirely. Throughout, it is consistent as a raucous comedy and celebration of female empowerment and agency. It’s also a clever rom-com that never forgets that, at our most “basic” level, many of us just want to be happy in love. ... >>
SXSW Review: “The Peril at Pincer Point”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
March 17, 2026
Тhe Peril at Pincer Point (Jake Kuhn/Noah Stratton-Twine, 2026) 3½ out of 5 stars It’s the strangeness of it all that makes The Peril at Pincer Point work. From the opening scene where a crab mysteriously appears in a London apartment to the choice of an overly eager movie sound recordist as protagonist to the hodgepodge design of the remote, titular island, and so much more, directors Jake Kuhn and Noah Stratton-Twine (Two Big Feet) craft a ... >>
SXSW Review: “Chili Finger”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
March 15, 2026
Chili Finger (Edd Benda/Stephen Helstad, 2026) 3½ out of 5 stars Co-directors Edd Benda and Stephen Helstad, who previously collaborated on the films The Kids Table and Superior, clearly love the work of Ethan and Joel Coen; their latest effort, Chili Finger, is very much an homage to the 1996 Fargo. For good measure, they even include the actor John Goodman, a longtime partner of the Coens (though he was not in Fargo). The new movie is more ... >>
SXSW Review: “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
March 15, 2026
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (Daniel Roher/Charlie Tyrell, 2026) 3½ out of 5 stars Although there is a high likelihood that artificial intelligence (or AI) will lead to the end of humanity (or at least the human race as we know it)—whether by the systems developing consciousness and eradicating us, the algorithms making such quick decisions that cataclysmic events occur too quickly to stop, or the less dramatic slow-drip of ... >>
SXSW 2026 XR Experience: “Lacuna” and “Lesbian Simulator”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
March 15, 2026
XR Experience Spotlight @ Fairmont It’s impossible—unless that’s all one intends to do—to catch all the different XR (“extended reality,” the umbrella term for AR, VR, and MR) exhibits at a festival like SXSW, but during the press preview yesterday, I was able to sneak in a few hours to experience two of them. Those were Lacuna, from co-directors Maartje Wegdam and Nienke Huitenga Broeren, and Lesbian Simulator, from Iris van der Meule. Both ... >>

SXSW 2026 XR Experience: “Lacuna” and “Lesbian Simulator”
March 15, 2026
XR Experience Spotlight @ Fairmont It’s ...>>
5 Films to Watch at SXSW 2026
March 10, 2026
I didn’t travel to Austin, Texas, last year for SXSW, ...>>
10 Films to Watch at Sundance 2026
January 20, 2026
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival runs live and ...>>
Chris Reed’s Top 10 Films of 2025
December 31, 2025
It always amazes me how different a given year’s ...>>
Hannah Tran’s Top 10 Films of 2025
December 29, 2025
Whether in narrative or documentary, few years have ...>>