Your August Watchlist: All Independent
When You Can Watch: Now
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: Lena Dunham
This dark dramedy, which is writer-director Lena Dunham’s first feature film since receiving the Film Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay for 2010’s Tiny Furniture, was influenced by her own widely publicised hysterectomy four years prior. Sarah Jo, a certified home assistant, is still a virgin at age 26 and still acts and looks like a teenager, in part because of ongoing health concerns brought on by the hysterectomy she underwent at the age of 17. She works for stay-at-home parent Josh and expectant wife Heather caring for their crippled son while they live in Los Angeles with her party girl mother Marilyn and sister Treina. She comes on to Josh one day as she longs to escape her prepubescent “cage,” starting an uncomfortable journey of physical awakening.
When You Can Watch: August 5
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: Halina Rejin
A group of seven wealthy 20-somethings choose to host a weekend house party at a distant property to wait out an approaching hurricane in the Dutch director Rejin’s black-comedy slasher movie. Fresh out of rehab, Sophie stops over at David’s opulent rich-kid BFF’s mansion unannounced with her new girlfriend Bee. The atmosphere is a touch weird since Sophie’s friends start to think she may be hiding something. The fighting and backstabbing soon start. Everyone thought that playing the murder mystery party game “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” which is named after them, would be a great way to pass the time because evidently none of them had read an Agatha Christie book or seen Knives Out. However, things quickly go awry.
When You Can Watch: August 5
Where You Can Watch: Peacock
Director: John Logan
“I wrote this movie because I wanted my favourite genre to celebrate who I was.” It was John Logan, a homosexual filmmaker who wrote Gladiator, Skyfall, and The Aviator among other films, who made this statement to the audience during the 40th Outfest in Los Angeles. They/Them, Logan’s debut picture as a director, was the festival’s Closing Night film. The Blumhouse-produced slasher movie, which was only available on Peacock as the streaming service’s first original picture, tries to deviate from conventional horror tropes by focusing on LGBT heroes. A Christian-focused gay conversion camp is managed by Owen Whistler (Bacon; nominated for a Spirit Award for 2004’s The Woodsman) and his wife/vicious therapist Cora (Preston).
When You Can Watch: August 12
Where You Can Watch: Theaters (limited)
Director: James Ponsoldt
The mellow coming-of-age movie from writer-director James Ponsoldt, another one of our Fast Track Fellows, has been compared to the famous 1980s classic Stand by Me (hmm, what an interesting idea). The final days of summer are spent in the woods by four pre-teens' closest friends who are about to start high school. In contrast to calling the police after making a horrifying discovery, they opt to work the case out on their own. It is the initiator that will abruptly shock them out of their naivety for all time and launch them headfirst into the harsh realities of adulthood? Seems possible! Producer Peter Block and executive editors Andrew Karpen and Kent Sanderson are members of Film Independent.
To all our fellow Indie Filmmakers, at WFCN we have more than 400 handpicked film festivals where you can submit your precious work of art. You can also showcase your film by making a portfolio in WFCN.
When You Can Watch: August 12
Where You Can Watch: Netflix (Season 3)
Creators: Mindy Kaling, Lang Fisher
The ground-breaking Netflix series has been heralded as a watershed moment for South Asian portrayal in Hollywood. It is partly based on creator and Indian-American actor-comedian Mindy Kaling’s early years growing up in Boston. Devi (Ramakrishnan), an Indian-American Tamil teen, momentarily loses the use of her legs after her father passes away suddenly owing to the emotional toll of her loss. The series, yet another BIPOC-focused drama set in the Sherman Oaks neighbourhood of Los Angeles (here’s looking at you, Black-ish! ), follows the daily problems of a teen wanting to blend in, crushing on boys, and navigating the perilous high school environment while still grieving the death of her father. Most of the program is narrated by tennis legend John McEnroe.
When You Can Watch: Aug 12
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: John Patton Ford
The first full-length screenplay by writer-director John Patton Ford also serves as his directing debut. Aubrey Plaza, a two-time host of the Spirit Awards (and winner), plays the lead in Emily the Criminal. Due to a prior felony assault conviction, Emily (Plaza) is locked in a dead-end job and has $70,000 in student debt from an art degree she never finished. In a desperate attempt to escape her predicament, she is seduced by the intriguing possibility to earn $200 per hour with no prior experience… (Yeah, I know!) and soon discovers herself caught up in a credit card swindle that drags her into Los Angeles’ criminal underground. One of the movie’s producers, Tyler Davidson, has been nominated twice for Spirit Awards for the movies Take Shelter (2011) and Cryptozoo (2021).
