Clint Worthington

Composer Christophe Beck talks through the long, fruitful road to scoring Ryan Reynolds’ sprightly video game action-comedy Free Guy.

It's finally fall—the leaves are changing, the temperature is lowering, and it's time for cuffing and pumpkin spice latte seasons to perk up. And, like clockwork, Criterion gifts us with their twice-annual half-off sales. This month, there's a lot to offer, from old-school spookiness for Halloween to long-awaited upgrades of early early spines, to queer classics both old and new. As is our wont at The Spool, we've collected a few offerings you can snatch up during today's sale, which runs from 9 a.m. PST on October 22 to 9 a.m. PST on October 23. Here, you get 50% off 4K UHDs, Blu-rays, DVDs, and in-store merch (like those genre T-shirts I've yet to invest in). Even if you just grab a couple of titles, though, you ought to be well-equipped to weather the tough winters. All of Us Strangers Andrew Haigh is no stranger to mournful laments of queer love intersecting with grief and loss (see his fellow Criterion entry Weekend), and last year's All of Us Strangers is a mighty exploration of queerne

It's a funny thing to be sinking yourself deep into festival season at a time like this, both for the country and the film industry. The new presidential administration heralds unprecedented (and terrifying) new implications for everything from healthcare to immigration to the safety and care of our most marginalized groups; Hollywood is still reeling from the wildfires that have decimated Southern California; and the open question of the future of streaming and AI leave creative endeavors uncertain, both in scope and in quality. But life and art will out, which leads us to the Sundance Film Festival, the prototypical start of film festival season. Running from January 23-February 2nd, 2025 (with a virtual component taking up the last five days of the fest), this year's Sundance features over 90 features and a bevy of shorts and other programs from the most exciting filmmakers from around the globe. Most notably, there aren't a lot of huge names putting their hats in the ring this year: Few of the indie au

Rosalind Chao discusses her early turn in Nancy Kelly’s recently-restored feminist Western Thousand Pieces of Gold, and her career since.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 composers Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann break down the breathtaking challenge of a Trek legend’s swan song.

Composer Emile Mosseri talks about joining Amazon’s acclaimed mystery series Homecoming for its second season and finding the show’s original musical voice.

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Ariel Marx searches for the musical fractures in the suburban idyll of Hulu’s miniseries Candy.

Oscar-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton talks about his thrilling, experimental score for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

The Parquet Courts musician Austin Brown talks about the sparse, but effective score for Ben Hozie’s camgirl drama PVT CHAT.

What if Juliette Lewis switched bodies with a chair? isn't the kind of logline you hear every often. But in the universe of indie filmmaker Amanda Kramer, it fits like hand in glove. Starting her career as a playwright and director, Kramer's work is deeply steeped in artifice and the strange social codes of gender and heteronormativity; 2018's Ladyworld transplanted Lord of the Flies into the small social milieu of a group of teenage girls who must reform society in a basement post-earthquake, while 2022's gender-bending Please Baby Please thrust a bohemian couple into a seedy work of kinky sex, queerness, and sublimated desire. Her latest, By Design, which is finally in theaters after a premiere at last year's Sundance, feels part and parcel with Kramer's aesthetic concerns: Stylized, presentational, and deeply original. Befitting the logline, the film stars Juliette Lewis as Camille, a disaffected middle-aged woman who spends her days brunching with her two friends (played by Samantha Mathis and Robin Tu