Festival News

2022 EarthX Film Festival finds perfect new home: Dallas Arts District

The festival will take place over four days in May.

Photo by Nigel Young / Nigel Young/Foster + Partners

The annual EarthX Film Festival returns for 2022 in May for an exciting four days and more than 75 films, including an opening night world premiere of Deep In The Heart, a film by Ben Masters (The River and The Wall) on wildlife in Texas narrated by Matthew McConaughey.

The festival runs May 12-15 and for the first time will be held in the Dallas Arts District, providing easy accessibility to five theater venues. Each night will feature a musical act performing before a showcase screening.

With the theme "A Celebration of the Outdoors," the festival continues its mission to highlight films and emerging media that celebrate nature, outdoor adventure, environment, conservation, climate change, and science. The lineup includes 24 features, 54 shorts, plus music, art installations, and panel discussions.

They're also welcoming a new sponsor, says EarthX CEO Michael Fletcher in a statement: Curiosity, a media company whose streaming service, Curiosity Stream, delivers films, series, and shows on space, history, nature, tech, and lifestyle on demand. The film lineup will include Curiosity's original film Going Circular, exploring circularity.

"We're thrilled to present films this year that showcase our amazing planet and the people dedicated to making a difference," Fletcher says. "It's always been our vision to create a world-class event that celebrates the spirit of Texas and welcomes global citizens to experience the rich arts culture in Dallas."

For more information and tickets, go to earthxfilmfestival.org or download the app available on iOS and Android.

Opening screening
Opening night will be the world premiere of Ben Masters' film Deep In The Heart, narrated by Matthew McConaughey and the first feature-length wildlife film ever produced about Texas. Filmed over two years, it showcases Texas' species and wild places, the connectivity of water and wildlife, and recognizes Texas' conservation importance on a continental scale.

Masters calls it "a love letter to the diverse and vibrant state that we call home."

Festival favorites
Several festival darlings are also in the lineup, including Fire of Love by Sara Dosa; We Feed People by Ron Howard; The Territory, a Sundance Audience Award winner; Bring Your Own Brigade by Lucy Walker; and To The End by Rachel Lears.

A wide range of filmmakers including award winners Jeff Orlowsky (Chasing Ice), Raj Patel & Zak Piper (The Ants and The Grasshopper), young superstar Lindsey Hagen (California Natural), and several newcomers, including two second-grade brothers making their first film with their father called Life In The Slow Lane.

The films cover a variety of important topics, from the healing experience for veterans through nature (Eric and The Bees, Bastards' Road), to female big-wave surfing (Big vs Small), to tiger poaching (Tigre Gente).

Texas stories
This year's Texas films include Battle For The Heart of Texas about property rights in energy production; When It's Good, It's Good, about oil-drilling communities in West Texas; and REI's Slim Pickins about diversity in outdoor culture.

Short Films
Many of the shorts are associated with brands and film companies including Patagonia’s Raised From the Earth about living off the land, and The Monster In Our Closet, which focuses on plastic in our fashion. The Redford Center is presenting two short films on mass transit: Community Power Arizona: En Nuestrxs Manos (In Our Hands) and Community Power Nevada: Unidxs En Accion (United In Action).

The full list of feature films includes:

Bastards’ Road, Director Brian Morrison
Battle for the Heart of Texas, Director John Brown
Before They Fall, Director Cam MacArthur
Big vs Small, Director Minna Dufton
Reel Rock: Black Ice, Director Peter Mortimer, Zachary Barr
Bring Your Own Brigade, Director Lucy Walker
Chasing Ice, Director Jeff Orlowski
Coextinction, Director Gloria Pancrazi, Elena Jean
Deep in the Heart, Director Ben Masters
Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, Director Bill Kroyer
Fire of Love, Director Sara Dosa
Godspeed, Los Polacos!, Director Adam Nawrot
Going Circular, Director Ricard Dale, Nigel Walk
Inhabitants, Director Costas Boutsikaris, Anna Palmer
Learning to Drown, Director Ben Knight
Mountain Revelations, Director Justin Fann
Newtok, Director Michael Kirby, Andrew Burton
Spirit of the Peaks, Director Connor Ryan, Tim Kressin
The Ants and the Grasshopper, Director Raj Patel, Zak Piper
The Territory, Director Alex Pritz
Tigre Gente, Director Elizabeth Unger
To the End, Director Rachel Lears
We Feed People, Director Ron Howard
Zero Gravity, Director Thomas Verrette

Short films are as follows:

80° North, Director Brandon Holmes
All Bodies on Bikes, Director Zeppelin Zeerip
American Scar, Director Daniel Lombroso
An Eye for Detail, Director Matthew Harmer
Bad Boy of Bonsai, Director Juan A. Moreno
Breaking Trail, Director Jesse Roesler
California Natural, Director Lindsey Hagen
Camp Yoshi, Director Faith E. Briggs
Chasing the Sublime, Director Amanda Bluglass
Community Power Arizona: En Nuestrxs Manos (In Our Hands), Director Pita Juarez
Community Power Nevada: Unidxs En Acción (United In Action), Director Nico Cadena
Eric and the Bees, Director Erin Brethauer, Tim Hussin
Finding Gulo, Director Colin Arisman
From My Window, Director Frank Pickell
Humanity Has Not Yet Failed, Director Norma V. Toraya, Jared P. Scott
I am One of the People, Director Cameron Woodle
If I Tell Them, Director Oliver Sutro
Kāhuli, Director Chris Jones
Life in the Slow Lane, Director Sol de Glanville, Ben de Glanville
Like a River, Director Jim Aikman
Listen to the Beat of our Images, Director Audrey Jean-Baptiste, Maxime Jean-Baptiste
Loon, Director Jason Whalen, Chris Zuker
Mission Mountain, Director Kody Kohlman, Andrew Bydlon
Mother of the Sea, Director Nicholas Brown
Mylo, Director Chris Bukard
No Soy Oscar, Director Jon Ayon
Nuisance Bear, Director Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden
One Star Reviews: National Parks, Director Alex Massey
Patagonia Provisions: The Ocean Solution Film, Director Darcy Hennessey Turenne
Raised from the Earth, Director Forest Woodard
Rebirth of a Reef, Director Shaun Wolfe
Return to Earth, Director Darcy Wittenburg, Darren McCoullough, Colin Jones
Rockies Repeat, Director Caroline Hedin
Slim Pickins, Director Justin Jeffers
The Captain, Director Gregory Kohs
The Diamond, Director Caitlyn Greene
The Endless Wave, Director Tom Attwater
The Interconnectedness of all Living Things, Director Jenn den Broeder
The Land of Griffons, Director Riccardo Soriano
The Last Last Hike, Director Celene Francois
The Monster in Our Closet, Director Kathryn Bays, Nicole Gormley
The Seeds We Keep, Director Gabriel E.W. Carter
The Seeker, Director Lance Edmands
The Wilderness Within, Director Jason van Bruggen
They Carry Us With Them: Gabriel Frey, Director Jeremy Seifert
Thomas Deininger. Trash Artist., Director Gnarly Bay
To Live Here (sống ở đây), Director Melanie Dang Ho
Wastewater: The Tale of Two Cities, Director Sarah Franke
We Decided to Become Farmers, Director Rob Herring, Ryan Wirick
What Remains, Director Paavo Hanninen
When It Comes from the Earth, Director Katalin Egely
When it's Good it's Good, Director Alejandra Vasquez

downtown festivals movies

Movie Review

Much-anticipated film sequel Gladiator II tells a very familiar story

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II.

There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.

The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).

Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.

Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.

Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.

The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.

Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.

Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.

---

Gladiator II opens in theaters on November 22.

movies film