Top 8 Movies From Noah Kahan Doc to ‘Over Your Dead Body’

It’s been 11 and a half years since “The Comeback” blessed us with its existence, but for those of us who love it, that’s too long. But watching the first two episodes of Season 3 at its premiere on March 16th at the Paramount Theater felt like it was worth the wait. Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King’s brilliant work, “The Comeback,” is like a comet that comes around every 10 years, and now it’s orbiting the Earth one last time when Season 3 premieres on March 22 on HBO.

As always, the show finds Kudrow’s Valerie Cherish, an aspiring sitcom star who never quite gets what she wants, spiraling into a state of obsession. Now, she has been offered the lead role in the first TV comedy completely scripted by AI. Valerie is worried about this… just a little bit. But then her ambitions take over and she enters the race. (Read the full premiere here.)

Olivia Colman’s performance as the voice of a talking fox in this absurd Australian indie comedy should be enough to draw you in, but if not, check out Dario Russo’s excellent satire on the role of (heterosexual) marriage in modern society and what men and women expect from each other. When a man (Jai Courtney) devoted to his fiancée (Emily Browning) discovers that she is cheating on him, he follows the advice of a fox played by Coleman and throws her into an impossibly deep magical pit in the forest. By the way, no one doubts the fox’s conversational abilities. This attack was supposed to mend their relationship, but surprisingly, strange and hilarious complications arise. Told like a folktale, “The Fox” was one of the festival’s most humbling and fun surprises.

Boots Riley is back, and according to some, he’s gotten better. The director of “Sorry” and the outspoken communist’s second film won two major honors at this year’s SXSW. It earned him a coveted opening night premiere slot and was the subject of Variety magazine’s first-ever SXSW issue cover story. This sci-fi comedy stars KiKi Palmer in the lead role, with a tightly packed ensemble that also includes Demi Moore, Naomi Ackie, Taylor Page, Eiza Gonzalez, Will Poulter, and Don Cheadle, all contributing to the candy-colored critique of capitalism that launched the Paramount Theater. See it in theaters on May 22nd via Neon.

It’s no wonder “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star Charlie Day is once again excellent at playing a hot guy in a new indie film. Still, he adds depth and complexity to that flow on “Kill Me.” In the film, Jimmy, played by Jimmy, wakes up in a bloody bathtub with a torn up suicide note, and has no memory of when he got there. Both the police and his family are convinced he attempted suicide, so Jimmy begins an investigation into the so-called attempted murder and suicide of himself, with little evidence other than a filthy apartment full of takeout containers. Kill Me, from debut director Peter Warren and boosted by a warm and sensitive supporting performance from Allison Williams, joins a growing wave of projects about mental health and self-harm that actually have something new to say.

While many of this year’s SXSW headliners were gory and fun, Netflix’s Noah Kahan documentary “Out of Body” gave viewers a reason to shed a tear. Director Nick Sweeney followed the Vermont singer-songwriter over nearly two years, chronicling his rise from a small venue to a Fenway Park headliner. The film depicts Kahan’s tumultuous moments as he faces extreme fame, depression, and body dysmorphia. But don’t worry. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, too, as Kahan plays the role of a charismatic and unassuming guide to his own life. Catch it on Netflix on April 13th.

One of the main themes of SXSW was horror-comedy films, and Samara Weaving and Jason Segel’s “Over Your Dead Body” pulled it off with flying colors. It was the perfect combination of horror and gore, and by the way, it included hilarious and great supporting performances from Juliette Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Paul Guilfoyle, and Keith Jardine, although there was a lot of gore. There’s also a surprise cameo in the finale scene that no one expected. Was it outrageous and over the top? 100%. Was there a lot of laughter in the theater from beginning to end? That’s also 100%.

Written by frequent SXSW filmmaker Mark Duplass, directed by his wife Katie Aselton, starring his daughter Ola Duplass, and several other family members on the credits list, “Their Town” is a small-scale indie drama with a lot of heart. The film, which follows two teenagers (Duplass and Chosen Jacobs) over the course of 24 hours as they reluctantly perform in a high school play, serves as a spinoff of “Before Sunrise” aimed at a generation of socially anxious, coronavirus-traumatized youth. And 21 years after the term “mumblecore” was coined at SXSW in 2005, this subgenre’s newest gem culminates in a truly moving final sequence that reminds us why we go to film festivals.

In a 10-minute speech introducing the horror-comedy headliner to the audience at its SXSW world premiere, co-writer and director Kirill Sokolov called lead actress Zazie Beetz “a warrior goddess, a force of nature in female form, a demonic slayer, a queen of tears and pain, and the coolest samurai.” Is it excessive? of course. But after the screening, the audience agreed. From “Atlanta” to “Joker,” Beetz has had strong supporting roles over the years, but with the gory cult weirdness of “They Will Kill You,” released March 27 by Warner Bros., she’s finally been given the leading role she deserves.