Is Aggro Dr1ft the future of cinema? Not in any quantifiable, justifiable sense. Does it have anything to say? I admire Harmony Korine using infrared images and abstract editing to convey anxieties about growing older, being a married man, and serving as father to two children in this violent world. Did I laugh at the angel-winged, sword-wielding, gravel-voiced bad guy saying, “Dance bitches. Dance bitches. Dance bitch. Dance bitches”? Well…
After a contentious fall-festival run where people either had to declare Aggro Dr1ft either pisses on the graves of Eadweard Muybridge and Orson Welles or is an embarrassment for which Korine should be ashamed––I propose it’s sufficient to think “this looks neat” and find yourself chortling across 80 fleet-enough minutes––Korine’s EDGLRD is migrating from initial public venues (L.A. strip clubs) to a proper theatrical release: 17 coast-to-coast theaters between May 10 and 16.
Release dates are below; we think it’s worth the trip out. As Rory O’Connor said from his review out of Venice, “Korine has named this new aesthetic ‘gamecore,’ which seems pretty apt. Even the most casual player will recognize the rhythms and visual cues here: the actors move and converse like NPCs, repeating phrases and gestures, and moving around with all the personality of an avatar in Second Life. A satanic demon is forever appearing on the horizon. It’s like you’ve logged into somebody’s unhinged Twitch stream. For all it lacks in other areas, however, it mostly compensates in the sheer audacity of its ideas. The film’s aesthetic is also genuinely new: filmed in Miami (like much of his recent output), the city hums with the infrared lens’ neon hues. The AI adds a dynamic second skin to the actors that recalls the early images of Google’s Deep Dream. In the moments when everything clicks, it creates something thrillingly novel.”
Atlanta, GA – Plaza Theater
Austin, TX – Alamo Drafthouse Cinema South Lamar
Boston, MA – Alamo Drafthouse Seaport
Chicago, IL – Alamo Drafthouse Wrigleyville
Cleveland, OH – Cleveland Cinematheque
Dallas, TX – Alamo Drafthouse Denton & Texas Theater
Denver, CO – Alamo Drafthouse Sloans Lake
Houston, TX – Alamo Drafthouse LaCenterra
Los Angeles, CA – Alamo Drafthouse DTLA & Los Feliz 3 Theatre (4 nights beginning May 13)
Miami, FL – O Cinema South Beach
Nashville, TN – Belcourt Theatre
New York, NY – Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Lower Manhattan
Portland, OR – Cinema 21
Raleigh, NC – Alamo Drafthouse Raleigh
San Francisco, CA – Alamo Drafthouse Cinema New Mission
Washington, D.C. – Alamo Drafthouse Cinema DC Bryant Street
Brooklyn, NY – Nitehawk Cinema