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Of all the films opening this weekend at the specialty box office, all eyes will be on Judy, the biopic about Hollywood icon Judy Garland. The film made its premiere at Telluride and played the Toronto Film Festival to a great ovation, prompting early awards contender buzz for star Renee Zellweger.

Joining Judy in a trip for the box office rainbow this weekend: A24’s The Death of Dick Long from Daniel Scheinert; Samantha Buck & Marie Schlingmann’s Sister Aimee; the gripping documentary Always In Season; and the satire The Day Shall Come.

Judy

Roadside Attractions/Ld Entertainment

Written by Tom Edge and directed by Rupert Goold, Judy showcases Zellweger in the title role in a biopic that’s not cradle-to-grave but rather focuses on a specific, significant piece of Judy Garland’s life.

In 1968 London, Garland is set to perform a five-week sold-out run at the nightclub The Talk of the Town.

A cringe-worthy movie of Alabama backwater haplessness that could easily earn a promotional tie-in with the annual excellence-in-stupidity honors known as the Darwin Awards, “The Death of Dick Long” may be a made-up story, but inside this crisis management suspense-comedy is a weirdly down-to-earth humanity about the ripple effects of out-of-nowhere recklessness.

Native Alabamian Daniel Scheinert — one half of the directing duo the Daniels (with Daniel Kwan) — might have a tough time selling his home state’s citizens on what exactly he’s saying with screenwriter Billy Chew’s “Fargo”-esque yarn of one good ol’ boy’s very bad demise. But indie moviegoers looking for an off-road excursion likely to trigger more than a few exhortations of “oh no” — as both laughs and gasps — could turn this “Death” into something with cult life.

The titular victim (played in its brevity by Scheinert himself) is one-third of a redneck trio of garage-band bros,...

There’s a certain breed of scuzzy inept criminal yokel — he’s the sap trying to hide what he did, but doing it in such an amateur way that his scheme devolves into a shambolic mess — who has become inseparable, in movies, from a kind of downscale heartland-of-America hipster satire. The Coen brothers, in a number of their films, have been the smirking poets of this genre — “Fargo,” without a doubt, is the “Citizen Kane” of the form — but the Coens aren’t alone. One thinks of the hillbilly noir of “A Simple Plan,” or the out-of-their-depths druggie thieves of “Killing Them Softly.” “The Death of Dick Long” is a scruffy mongrel of an indie thriller made very much in that tradition. The distinguishing quality of its jokey, can-you-believe-this? tone is that the two millennial hayseeds at its center are so richly incompetent that they seem to be inventing a...

Where to begin here? Sometimes, a film can paint itself into a corner that it never quite gets out of. Such is the case with The Death of Dick Long, which opens this week and is hiding a hell of a reveal midway through. With no exaggeration, it’s one of the most unexpected moments in cinema this year. However, that’s the point where the tale begins to crumble, ultimately proving ever so slightly unworthy of the time investment. A boldly unique work, it sadly can’t quite stick the second half, preventing one from actually embracing it as audiences might otherwise have. The movie is a self proclaimed backwoods noir, one tinged with some black comedy. Zeke Olsen (Michael Abbott Jr.), Earl Wyeth (Andre Hyland), and Dick Long are buddies, who spend many a night practicing with their band. Or, at least they spend some portions of the evenings practicing,...

After filmmaking duo Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert launched their wacky debut “Swiss Army Man” at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, they went through the usual routine of fielding offers. The directors, who have gone by the collective moniker “Daniels” since their music video days, announced their surreal and playful style with the story of singing castaway (Paul Dano) and the farting corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) he befriends. That may not sound like the most commercial idea, but the film eventually grossed $5.8 million in release, along with rave reviews for blending outrageous toilet humor with poignant storytelling.

It also made them wary of studio properties that came their way. “My dad was so upset that we didn’t take the meeting for ‘Deadpool 2,’” Scheinert told IndieWire recently, and laughed. “I’m sure they took meetings with tons of people. But we were like, ‘We’re not right for that,’ and didn’t take the meeting.

Swiss Army Man, directed by Daniel Scheinert and Dan Kwan, went on to become known, in shorthand, as the "farting corpse movie." Granted, it's much more than that, but that's one heck of a hook, especially when that corpse is played by Daniel Radcliffe. Now, Scheinert is back and flying solo with his latest movie, The Death of Dick Long. While the hook for this one is entirely different, it's safe to say that this truly shocking, totally wacky whodunnit will similarly be discussed with a few-word shorthand for years to come. That said, there's a whole lot going on here and, not to overstate it, but this is one of the most surprising movies I've personally ever witnessed.

The Death of Dick Long centers on a couple of bandmates and longtime friends, Zeke and Earl (Andre Hyland). They, unfortunately, find themselves trying to cover up the death of their friend and bandmate,...

The Death Of Dick Long A24 Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Daniel Scheinert Screenwriter: Billy Chew Cast: Michael Abbott Jr., Virginia Newcomb, Andre Hyland, Sarah Baker, Jess Weixler Screened at: Technicolor, NYC, 9/3/19 Opens: September 27, 2019 “The Death of Dick Long” was filmed on location in […]

The post The Death of Dick Long Review: A basket of deplorables appeared first on Shockya.com.

We’ve got a red-band trailer to share with you today for a dark comedy called The Death of Dick Long and as you’ll see, things get crazy and weird!

The movie is being directed by Daniel Scheinert, co-director of Swiss Army Man, and if you’ve seen that movie, then you know you can expect this next film to be completely off the wall. I think it looks pretty funny, but you might have a different reaction to the trailer.

Here’s the synopsis:

Holy Crap. Dick is dead. Died last night after band practice, and his bandmates, Zeke & Earl, don’t want anybody finding out how. That’s too bad though, ‘cause news travels fast in small town Alabama, and these guys suck at covering their tracks. The authorities haven’t ID’d the body just yet, but Zeke’s wife (Virginia Newcomb) and his daughter are suspicious already.

A24 has unveiled the first trailer for The Death of Dick Long. This comes from director Daniel Scheinert, one half of the duo behind Swiss Army Man, the "farting corpse" movie starring Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano that went on to become something of an indie hit. Scheinert co-directed that effort with Dan Kwan, but is flying solo this time around. Scheinert's latest is a bit different, though it still involves a dead body that is central to the plot, and is said to explore the "heartache of what happens when dark secrets are dragged kicking and screaming into the light." Based on this first trailer, we're in for a pretty unique ride.

The trailer kicks off by not wasting any time. We see a trio of bandmates getting "weird" after practice one day. Chugging Natty Ice, shooting guns and setting off fireworks. Things take an ugly turn as one member of the trio,...

Sundance Institute and Picturehouse announced today the programme of feature films, short films and panel discussions to take place at ‘Sundance Film Festival’ London between 30 May – 2 June at Picturehouse Central.

The festival will present 12 feature films from this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, U.S.A., selected for London by the Sundance Institute programming team in collaboration with Picturehouse. The festival will open with the European premiere of Late Night (Nisha Ganatra), written by and starring Mindy Kaling alongside Emma Thompson. The festival will close four days later with the UK premiere of Penny Lane’s Hail Satan?.

Alongside the opening and closing night films, the festival will present a selection of fearless filmmaking: The Nightingale, a striking revenge drama starring Aisling Franciosi and Sam Claflin, marks Jennifer Kent’s anticipated follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut, The Babadook.

Time Out gala film, Animals (dir. Sophie Hyde,...

What do the Daniels do in between, well, being the Daniels? Daniel Scheinert, the self-proclaimed redneck half of the duo, answers this question with his solo project, The Death of Dick Long. This corpse-centric caper Set in Scheinert’s Alabama hometown, Dick Long follows two bumbling band-mates (Andre Hyland and Michael Abbott Jr.) as they fail miserably at covering up a friends’ death. Part Coen-brothers, part Dumb and Dumber, Billy Chew’s goofy script has a few major twists up its sleeve.

As Scheinert tells it, Dick Long is a homegrown film, made for therapeutic purposes: he needed some old fashioned R&R with friends & family.…...

When the directing duo known as Daniels brought Swiss Army Man to Sundance in 2016 they took audiences aback with their peculiarly original vision, involving fart-propelled, jet-skiing corpses and boner compasses. Daniel Scheinert, one-half of the directing team, has now returned with The Death of Dick Long, a more naturalistic but also funnier (and more disturbing) follow-up. A butt rock epic built on bad decisions with plenty of affectation for its idiotic characters, the deeply dark comedy does for small-town Alabama what Fargo did for Minnesota.

We’re introduced to Zeke, Earl (Andre Hyland), and Dick (Scheinert) at their weekly band practice, which quickly devolves into a night of beer-chugging, weed consumption, fireworks, and another activity which is best left unspoiled. On this particular night, something goes gravely wrong as we soon find Dick bleeding out in the back of Zeke’s station wagon for undisclosed reasons. Zeke and Earl lug...

For its first hour, “The Death of Dick Long” is a derivative and clunky black comedy that cribs from “Fargo” and trafficks in crass white-trash stereotypes, but that’s only part of a larger agenda. With the arrival of a kinky twist, the movie undercuts its lowbrow humor with real emotional stakes. The story of two close friends contending with the secret of their mutual buddy’s accidental death seems fairly straightforward — until it subverts expectations with gratifying results indicative of shrewd storytelling at work.

That’s no surprise given that “Dick Long” is the first solo directing credit for Daniel Scheinert, following his co-directing on “Swiss Army Man” (aka the “farting corpse movie”) that managed to turn its toilet gags into a surreal tone poem. “Dick Long,” which stems from Billy Chew’s script, lacks the same abstract weirdness that made “Swiss Army Man” such an indelible cinematic delight.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center today announced the lineup for Convergence, its highly anticipated immersive storytelling program, which will run October 1–4 as part of the 54th New York Film Festival. It includes two U.S. premieres and one world premiere amongst the nine interactive works, as well as five panels from innovators of the field.

Read More: Nyff Reveals Main Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Manchester By the Sea,’ ‘Paterson’ and ‘Personal Shopper’

“The art of immersive storytelling is continually evolving,” said Nyff Convergence programmer Matt Bolish in a press release. “Our mission has been consistent from our first year to this, our fifth: bringing the best survey of interactive work to the Nyff audience.”

Virtual Reality highlights include the world premiere of acclaimed Indian work “Priya’s Mirror,” which fuses augmented reality with a comic book to tell the story of a rape survivor-turned-superhero. Returning for a second...