SXSW | The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2025-01-22T13:00:11+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/rss/sxsw/index.xml https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Adi Robertson <![CDATA[The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a Nic Cage meme as a movie]]> https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22975245/unbearable-weight-of-massive-talent-nicolas-cage-pedro-pascal-review-sxsw-2022 2022-03-15T09:23:38-04:00 2022-03-15T09:23:38-04:00

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent may achieve the highest concentration of Nicolas Cage possible in a piece of media without advanced scientific instruments. It's a movie about Nic Cage (played by Nic Cage) teaming up with a possibly criminal fan of Nic Cage to make a movie about Nic Cage (played by Nic Cage playing Nic Cage) while occasionally yelling at and / or kissing a second, imaginary Nic Cage (played by Nic Cage run through a creepy de-aging filter). It features clips from several earlier Nic Cage movies as well as a Nic Cage memorabilia room containing a Nic Cage statue and that sequin pillow with Nic Cage on it. Nic Cage atte …

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]]> Adi Robertson <![CDATA[Everything Everywhere All At Once is charming, sprawling, and completely ridiculous]]> https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/12/22974028/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-review-michelle-yeoh 2022-03-12T14:42:06-05:00 2022-03-12T14:42:06-05:00

Perhaps the weirdest thing about Everything Everywhere All At Once, a film in which a notable plot point involves riffing on 2001: A Space Odyssey to explain an alternate reality where humans evolved hot dogs for fingers, is that it sometimes doesn't feel that weird. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, it lies at the intersection of a frenetic music video marathon, a slapstick martial arts comedy, and a surrealist sci-fi pastiche. But it's anchored in an earnest family drama that's elevated by a series of great performances, particularly from central star Michelle Yeoh.

There's a whole lot going on in Everything Everywhere, but th …

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]]> Kim Lyons <![CDATA[Amazon will feature SXSW films in a virtual film festival on Prime Video]]> https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/2/21205834/amazon-prime-video-sxsw-2020-films-virtual-film-festival 2020-04-02T15:28:35-04:00 2020-04-02T15:28:35-04:00

Amazon Prime Video is partnering with South by Southwest to launch what it's calling a film festival collection, which will include works from filmmakers who had been scheduled to screen at the 2020 event in Austin. Originally scheduled for mid-March, the 34-year-old tech, music, and film fest was canceled by Austin Mayor Steve Adler on March 6th due to public health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Filmmakers were notified today and given the chance to opt in to the virtual festival, slated for a 10-day run sometime later this month, according to a release from the SXSW film press office sent to The Verge. The festival will be fr …

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]]> Kim Lyons <![CDATA[Twitter pulls out of SXSW conference over coronavirus concerns]]> https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161169/twitter-sxsw-coronavirus-employee-travel-jack-dorsey 2020-03-02T10:22:04-05:00 2020-03-02T10:22:04-05:00

Twitter is canceling employee travel to the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, including CEO Jack Dorsey's planned keynote, due to concerns over the spread of the coronavirus. The company announced Sunday it was halting all "non-critical business travel and events", saying the policy was effective immediately and would remain in place until a vaccine was available, or until "the World Health Organization or Centers for Disease Control deem it appropriate to step back from pandemic precautionary measures."

Twitter spokesperson Siobhan Murphy said in an email to The Verge on Monday that the employee travel restriction "unfortunately i …

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]]> Dani Deahl <![CDATA[Electronic music has a performance problem, and this artist is trying to solve it]]> https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/5/18277345/chagall-van-den-berg-performance-sensors-gloves-motion-tracking-suit 2019-04-05T08:00:00-04:00 2019-04-05T08:00:00-04:00

While rehearsing at SXSW last month, Chagall van den Berg ran into an unusual issue: her digital knee shot out in the wrong direction. "My friend laughed and said, 'Wow, that's a problem no SXSW artist has ever had,'" van den Berg tells The Verge.

van den Berg is a musician who performs wearing motion-tracking gloves and a full-body suit covered in sensors, which, during this SXSW performance, not only control a projection of a digital avatar that appears behind her, but also control nearly every instrument and effect in the music and her voice. As she moves across the stage, her avatar, floating in space, moves in sync. When she stretches …

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]]> Adi Robertson <![CDATA[Girl on the Third Floor is a skin-crawling horror movie about home improvement]]> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/24/18264390/girl-on-the-third-floor-movie-review-sxsw-2019-cm-punk 2019-03-24T13:00:00-04:00 2019-03-24T13:00:00-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special-event releases. This review comes from the 2019 SXSW Interactive Festival.

It's hard finding new ways to haunt a house. And Girl on the Third Floor, a horror film that premiered at 2019's SXSW Interactive Festival, doesn't make a point of trying. It hits the classic beats of the genre, largely established by Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House: a protagonist with a troubled past moves into a grand but dilapidated old home with a dark secret, then finds a malevolent force dredging up his personal demons.

Instead of trying to push n …

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]]> Verge Staff <![CDATA[SXSW 2019: all the news, panels, and activations]]> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/9/194028/sxsw-2019-updates-panels-activations-movies-gadgets-films-privacy-virtual-reality 2025-01-22T08:00:11-05:00 2019-03-24T13:00:00-04:00

This year’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival has kicked off in Austin, Texas. It’s a big, 10-day event runs the gamut with everything from talks about tech, film premieres, music, and more across a vast schedule of panels, unveilings, and activations. 

The Verge is on the ground at this year’s event, checking out panels, gadgets, films, and more — while also hosting a couple of our own panels and talks.

Follow along for all of our coverage, reviews, and commentary.

]]> Tasha Robinson <![CDATA[Jordan Peele’s Us turns a political statement into unnerving horror]]> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/9/18257721/us-review-jordan-peele-get-out-lupita-nyongo-winston-duke-elisabeth-moss-tim-heidecker-horror 2019-03-22T10:47:21-04:00 2019-03-22T10:47:21-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special-event releases. This review comes from the 2019 SXSW Interactive Festival. It has been updated to coincide with the film's theatrical release.

When Jordan Peele's directorial debut Get Out hit screens in 2017, it was a revelation. Peele was known as an incisive comedian from his racially frank, wide-ranging sketch show Key and Peele, but nothing in his history suggested he had such a talent for crafting mesmerizing horror stories. Get Out is a startling, frightening film, but it's also meticulously crafted to make the audience politically a …

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]]> Tasha Robinson <![CDATA[Why the alien-occupation drama Captive State isn’t a Trump film]]> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18265953/captive-state-interview-wyatt-goodman-chicago-rise-planet-of-the-apes-sxsw-2019 2019-03-14T15:07:21-04:00 2019-03-14T15:07:21-04:00

2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes was an intriguing surprise. At first blush, it looked like yet another tired franchise reboot, but it played out more like a personal drama than an ape-centric action movie, and it led up to a thrilling climax that set the scene for further enjoyable Apes films. It's difficult not to see Captive State, the latest feature from Rise director Rupert Wyatt, as closely related. It's also a surprisingly subdued insurrection movie, a science-fiction feature about revolution and resistance that defies genre expectations and focuses more on a personal story than on big action beats.

Ashton Sanders stars as Gabri …

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]]> Tasha Robinson <![CDATA[I See You is a beautifully crafted puzzle of a horror movie]]> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18265203/i-see-you-review-horror-movie-helen-hunt-sxsw-2019 2019-03-14T10:00:00-04:00 2019-03-14T10:00:00-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special-event releases. This review comes from the 2019 SXSW Interactive Festival.

There's a striking tradition of kid-disappearance movies where a traumatized parent tries to convince authorities that something has happened to their child, but evidence suggests that there was never a child in the first place. A subset of the "Who's crazy here?" mystery, which plays with the audience's sense of reality and understanding of a situation, movies like Bunny Lake is Missing, Flightplan, and The Forgotten rely on the audience to empathize with a protagon …

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