Annual Top Films Lists

Top 50 Most Anticipated American Independent Films of 2019: #37. Daniel Scheinert’s The Death of Dick Long

Published on January 24, 2019

The Death of Dick Long

Proving that they are indeed not attached at the hip, while we await their next team effort, one half of DANIELS in Daniel Scheinert appears to have wandered off with The Death of Dick Long for a possible flipside of Weekend at Bernie’s. A solo directing effort backed by the A24 folks and one of those off the radar projects (not unlike how A24’s The Eighth Grade came to fruition), shot by Madeline’s Madeline‘s Ashley Connor (see our Sundance Trading Card profile) this stars Michael Abbott Jr., Virginia Newcomb, Andre Hyland (another Sundance Trading Card alumni) and Jess Weixler from much more than Teeth fame. Production took place in mid 2017, and prior to that, Scheinert gave us flatulence friendly Swiss Army Man (read review) — an unmistakingly silly and serious type of comedy that was both grating and endearing.

Gist: Dick died last night, and Zeke (Michael Abbott Jr.) and Earl (Andre Hyland) don’t want anybody finding out how. That’s too bad though, cause news travels fast in small-town Alabama.

Release Date/Prediction: This was selected for the Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT section.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).