"Where's my JAWS?" How Hard Can Retrospective Programming Be?
PLUS SXSW Sydney announces 2025 films; Remembering Harris Yulin; Reviews of F1, THE FOSTERED, SOULEYMANE'S STORY; Toxie is back, in a redband trailer shocker; and, a Bogart classic.
This past week, Steven Spielberg’s toothy masterpiece JAWS celebrated its 50th birthday. It was on June 20, 1975, that record numbers turned out across America to be terrified like no audiences had ever been before.
I know this because my streaming subscriptions were pushing it as the week’s biggest audience pull. From one provider affording the entire franchise it’s own carousel to the National Geographic channel’s pre-selling of their JAWS at 50 documentary, the defining film of the modern Hollywood era was all over my small screen.
But why wasn’t it anywhere on my big screens? Yes, the film is set for a week-long cinema run…in late August, and mostly as a primer for some new physical media. So, instead of celebrating it’s actual birthday, the exhibition sector ceded its importance as a landmark motion picture to (ugh) television.
It makes me wonder if retro-programming is just too hard an ask for the modern exhibitor? For the past 20 years, cinemas have struggled with the program strategy that the industry calls ‘Alternative Content’, which includes retro slates. Some initiatives work because they bring their own audience, like Andre Rieu concerts or Peppa Pig episode blocks. But Australia’s biggest mainstream chains - Hoyts, Village, Reading and EVENT cinemas - have ebbed-&-flowed in their Alt-Cont commitment. Marketing one-off sessions or niche festival runs is a hard pivot after a century of just screening new release movies backed by studio ad spends.
Instead, a small group of dedicated retro-houses pick up Australia’s film culture slack. Melbourne has two of the nation’s best, in outlier enclave St. Kilda’s Astor Theatre and Carlton’s inner-city hub Cinema Nova. Neither screened JAWS and both are sometimes guilty of ‘low-hanging fruit’ oldies (enough LABYRINTH already!) But in coming weeks, the southern capital’s truest film buffs can thank them for screening Wisit Sasanatieng's TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER, John Waters’ FEMALE TROUBLE, John Boorman’s EXCALIBUR and/or Richard Brooks’ LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR (pictured, above). Sydneysiders got lucky this week, with William Friedkin’s SORCERER on at Dendy Newtown and Tim Burton’s PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE at the Randwick Ritz. For those in Sydney’s greater-west, where the shopping mall multiplex rules, good luck seeing anything older than THUNDERBOLTS*.
Ok, full disclosure - as Festival Director of the Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival, I supply ‘Alternative Content’. Over the course of the festival’s five years, we’ve screened to varying degrees of audience enthusiasm such retro pics as MIRACLE MILE, BRAINSTORM, C.H.O.M.P.S., STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, THE LAST STARFIGHTER, WIERD SCIENCE, FLATLINERS and ELECTRIC DREAMS (pictured, above). It would have been deeply satisfying to have gotten sold-out crowds to films with legacies like this lot.
Or legacies like JAWS.
Simon Foster, Editor: SCREEN-SPACE
SIX FEATURES SELECTED FOR SXSW SYDNEY
SXSW Sydney Screen Program Manager Felix Hubble and his team have secured six of the hottest international indie features for this year’s Australian leg of the American festival giant.
$POSITIONS (Dir: Brandon Daley) Mike Alvarado attempts to save his family from poverty by investing in speculative cryptocurrencies. But as his investment strategy decays into gambling addiction, he sends his life into a nightmarish anxiety-inducing downward spiral.
BOKSHI (Dir: Bhargav Saikia) Traumatised by the brutal disappearance of her mother, Anahita finds comfort in Shalini, her history teacher. On an unconventional school excursion to a mysterious prehistoric site, she confronts her terrifying destiny.
BY DESIGN (Dir: Amanda Kramer) A woman swaps bodies with a chair, and everyone likes her better as a chair.
DEAD LOVER (Dir: Grace Glowicki) A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally finds her dream man, a flamboyant romantic poet who finds her morbid stench an irresistible turn-on.
THE LAST SACRIFICE (Dir: Rupert Russell) Delves into the real-life 1945 witchcraft killing of Charles Walton—the terrifying event that inspired THE WICKER MAN and birthed the folk horror genre.
ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT (Dir: Chalie Shackleton) The true crime boom is put under the microscope as Shackleton describes how his abandoned documentary about the infamous Zodiac Killer would have played out, beat-by-beat.
FILM REVIEWS
F1 (Dir: Joseph Kosinski; starring Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies and Damson Idris). F1 is Apple Films’ biggest roll of the dice yet in terms of budget-to-scale filmmaking, and boxes had to be ticked by the content/tech giant to make this a viable commercial undertaking. And they nailed it! An Oscar-winning, four-quadrant superstar (Brad Pitt); a director hot off an adored billion-dollar hit (TOP GUN: MAVERICK’s Joseph Kosinski); a setting that ensures kinetic, giddying words and action (the racetracks and boardrooms of Formula 1); and, a story that all but ensures audience engagement (the underdog sports drama). There’s no pressing need for it to be a good movie (it isn’t), one that’s original (it’s not) or grounded by a logical narrative (which it lacks). It just needs to be marketable, risk-averse content. If you get bored (and you might), count the product placements, from the title down. ⭐️⭐️½
SOULEYMANE’S STORY (L'histoire de Souleymane; Dir: Boris Lojkine; starring Abou Sangare, Alpha Oumar Sow, Nina Meurisse, Emmanuel Yovanie and Younoussa Diallo) In an extraordinary feature acting debut, Abou Sangare plays Guinea immigrant Souleymane, a cyclist delivery guy on the wild streets of Paris. Lacking the documentation needed for asylum status, he lives day-to-day at the mercy of social and cultural forces. Boris Lojkine’s exercise in the anxiety, injustice and unfairness one decent man is forced to endure in a wealthy western city hurtles towards its deeply emotional final moments like an action film for the soul. The narrative ricochets from one existential challenge to another, all over a 48 hour period, each development revealing just deeply honourable this young everyman truly is. There is not an untrue, inauthentic, unaffecting frame of film. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THE FOSTERED (Dirs: Gunnar Garrett, Ritchie Greer; starring Serena Perey, Savina Perey, Robert Palmer Watkins, Brittany Underwood and Robert Adamson) A serviceable addition to the ‘step-ploitation’ sub-genre, in which non-blood add-ons to a family unit bring mania and mayhem (think the Joseph Ruben double THE STEPFATHER and THE GOOD SON, or Jaume Collet-Serra’s ORPHAN). Here, twins Madison and Morgan (identical tweens Serena and Savina Perey) are welcomed into the foster home of apple-pie mom Amy (Brittany Underwood) and trigger-angry douche Kevin (Robert Palmer Watkins), and normalcy begins to unravel. Secrets and lies deftly revealed ensure co-directors Gunnar Garrett and Ritchie Geer’s retro-styled low-budgeter - a film that sometimes resembles an ‘80s Big 3 network’s ‘Movie of the Week’ - scores as a low-key but occasionally gripping psychological thriller. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
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HEADLINE MAKERS
INDUSTRY, FANS MOURN HARRIS YULIN, DEAD AT 87: One of Hollywood’s most recognisable and reliable support players, the actor passed away as he prepared for a new role opposite Kevin Kline. (READ: The New York Times)
WELDED TOGETHER EARNS TOP HONOURS AT SHEFFIELD DOC/FEST: Belarusian director Anastasiya Miroshnichenko’s powerful portrayal of a woman confronting her past turned its world premiere into a competition win in the north of England (READ: Cineuropa)
SCREENX FORMAT SET FOR MELBOURNE AUDS AT HOYTS CENTRAL: A 270° auditorium will be the first of its kind in Melbourne and is the first new concept to be announced as part of Hoyts multi-million dollar refurbishment at Melbourne Central. (READ: Newswire)
PUNJABI FILM FEATURING PAKISTANI CO-STAR DENIED DOMESTIC RELEASE: Leading man Diljit Dosanjh’s SARDAAR JI 3, featuring Pakistani actress Hania Aamir (pictured, above), will only release overseas. The film has been barred from Indian cinemas due to heightened tensions between the two nations following the Pahalgam terror attack. (READ: India Today)
TANDEM DOUBLE-DOWN ON GAME/FILM PROPERTY GREAT NORTHERN: Tandem Pictures is making its first move into the gaming space with GREAT NORTHERN, an in-development project as both a live-action video game and independent film, produced using the same footage and featuring actress Megan Suri. (READ: Variety)
LATEST TRAILERS
What's coming soon to the multiplex, the arthouse, the festival circuit.
VIDEOHEAVEN (Dir: Alex Ross Perry; narrated by Maya Hawke) Socio-cultural hub, consumer mecca, and source of existential dread; the video rental store forever changed the way we interact with movies. Culled from hundreds of sources (from TV commercials to blockbuster films), VIDEOHEAVEN tells the story of an industry's glorious, confusing, novel, sometimes seedy, but undeniably seismic impact on American movie culture.
WEAPONS (Dir: Zach Cregger; starring Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, Benedict Wong and Amy Madigan) When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
THE TOXIC AVENGER | Redband Trailer, NSFW (Dir: Macon Blair; starring Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Taylour Paige, Jacob Tremblay, and Jane Levy) When a downtrodden janitor is exposed to a toxic accident, he’s transformed into a new kind of hero: The Toxic Avenger. Now, ‘Toxie’ must take on ruthless corporate overlords and corrupt forces who threaten his son, his friends, and his community.
WHY WE LOVE MOVIES…
Fool’s Gold - TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948) Two down-on-their-luck Americans (Humphrey Bogart; Tim Holt) in 1920s Mexico convince an old prospector (Walter Huston) to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains. The two gringos think they’ve hit the Mother Lode when they notice rocks, glistening in the sun, until…
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Diamonds. You and me Harry…” - Julie Peters (Mare Winningham), MIRACLE MILE (1988)
And if SCREEN-SPACE isn’t enough Simon for you…:
LISTEN to me co-host the weekly film and TV podcast SCREEN WATCHING with Dan Barrett, of Always Be Watching notoriety;
WATCH/LISTEN Dan and I reflect on the films of 1987 in our fun retro-podcast, BEST MOVIE YEAR (available to watch on our YouTube channel)
FOLLOW my curatorial efforts as Festival Director of the SYDNEY SCIENCE FICTION FILM FESTIVAL.