A Queer Review of the Austin Film Festival (2023)
Highlighting the many ways in which AFF 2023 illustrated that the queer experience is not a monolithic one.

Alarm has been sounded that the hydrogen bomb is about to be dropped. In this atmosphere of panic and fear a cross-section of humanity has been huddled together for safety in an experimental shelter. But even in this crisis the old attitudes and behaviour patterns do not change. FTII Diploma film for acting students of 1964-65 by Ritwik Ghatak.
Highlighting the many ways in which AFF 2023 illustrated that the queer experience is not a monolithic one.
After We Collided is a sequel to last year’s After, which itself was based on Anna Todd’s 2014 novel of the same name, and which was originally published as a Harry Styles-centric fan-fiction on WattPad (a similar path as E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey series).
Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing is a gritty, darkly funny thrill ride through 1998 New York, with Austin Butler delivering a raw, magnetic turn as Hank Thompson—a washed-up ex-ballplayer turned bartender whose life implodes after cat-sitting for his punk neighbor drags him into a violent underworld of gangsters, crooked cops, and chaos. Brutal yet unexpectedly hilarious, the film blends noir grit with midnight-movie absurdity, proving Aronofsky can reinvent himself while Butler cements his status as a true movie star.
Gritty and bleak are the best words to describe this film. There’s nothing happy about it.
She is being made to justify why she doesn’t believe he’s a feminist, instead of him having to justify his choice to claim he is one.