According to Michael Haneke, the kids (plus the parents and basically everyone else in the community) are not alright

Over the course of his controversy-baiting career, Austrian auteur Michael Haneke has created can’t-look-away, punch-to-the-gut films that hover somewhere somewhere between the joyous sadism of Quentin Tarantino and the staunch-yet-demented ethicality of the Brothers Grimm. Pore over Benny’s Video, Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher, Time of the Wolf, Caché and the scabrous Funny Games (both the European and U.S. versions) if you’re up for the challenge. Are these upstanding, heavily moralistic tales about sex and violence and the pop cultural worship thereof, or does Haneke simply love a good wallow in mankind’s seedy, rotten shadow? You tell me.

Fill Up on Cinema

The Filling Station, a performance space on south Fourth Street established by Mother Road Theatre Company, is looking to sponsor a New Mexico independent film night sometime in June. If you’re a local filmmaker and you’ve got something you’d like to contribute, the deadline for submission is Sunday, May 16. Send your submission to: New Mexico Indie Film Night at The Filling Station, 1024 Fourth SW, Albuquerque N.M. 87102. Submissions should include genre, length, clips/copy/trailer and a summary of the film. For more information, e-mail fillingstationabq@gmail.com.

Staying or going?

The networks are getting ready to announce their “upfronts”—that is to say, the new shows we’ll be seeing (maybe) this fall. Question is, which shows are going to be canceled in order to make way for this new prime-time product? While we know a few shows that have already been given the hook—“Better Off Ted,” “Defying Gravity, “Eastwick,” “Scrubs,” “Ugly Betty,” “Three Rivers,” “24,” “Brothers,” “Dollhouse,” “Past Life,” “Sons of Tucson”—many are still sitting on the bubble. That’s industry talk for: We might cancel them, we might not—depends on how badly our new pilots suck. So what’s on this precarious bubble and how much danger are they in? Let’s look.

Week in Sloth

The Week in Sloth