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The Beast Within

Jonathan Foltz — Tue, 22 May 2012 16:19:16 GMT

Transformations Part of the strength of this film is the centrality it gives to its display of special effects, orchestrated here by Thomas R. Burman, the make-up guru who had worked on Planet of the Apes, Paul Schrader’s Cat People and who would go on to do Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf Too. But unlike these slicker productions, in which the scenes of physical transformation are neatly tucked into narrative arcs, in The Beast Within it is as though the visual spectacle of transformation is itself the film’s climax, and that its convoluted story was devised retrospectively in order to make sense of the indeterminate creature that its main character turns into.

The Central Park Effect

Victoria Large — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:42:13 GMT

IFFB The Central Park of this film is idyllic – a defamiliarized wonderland teeming with bright flying creatures – and the documentary has a reassuringly cyclical structure, beginning and ending in springtime. The overall experience is a joyful one, and while I suppose that there was something ironic about the screening that I attended – we’re talking about a bunch of urbanites crowding into a dark theater to watch other urbanites watch birds – The Central Park Effect makes for a delightful vicarious bird watching experience nonetheless.

From Beyond

Jordan Holtane — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:54:42 GMT

Transformations From the creeping dread of the opening sequence to the unsettling ending that sees Katherine, lapsed into insanity by her experience, laughing wildly, madly in the night, From Beyond is faithful to Lovecraft’s assertion that knowledge changes us, that in peeking into the unknown we can never go back to the way we were before.

Under African Skies

Katherine Follett — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:45:16 GMT

IFFB Under African Skies marks the 25th anniversary of Paul Simon’s seemingly immortal album, and it records for the first time the stories and voices of the South African musicians who worked on it. Graceland remains an oddly singular recording, out of step with the fads and waves of rock history, enormously popular yet often very personal to each of its millions of fans. Though the documentary is cinematically standard, its messy and surprisingly untold story is worthwhile.

Rhinoceros

Adam Balz — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:48:18 GMT

Transformations As powerful and relevant as Ionesco’s play might be, even today, the 1974 film adaptation starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel is not. Yes, it’s a promising little film, and at times it seems determined to retain much of Ionesco’s purpose. But certain changes to the play, not to mention the casting itself, render the film version an ineffective, messy, and almost counterproductive interpretation, if that’s even the right word for what it is.

Girl Model

Katherine Follett — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:35:48 GMT

IFFB Americans love the dark side of modeling. Stories about enforced anorexia, sexual exploitation, and cocaine-fueled binges go viral every week. It’s a familiar story of the grime behind the glamour, the insistence that no one can look so perfect without something horrible under the surface. The truth that comes out in Girl Model, the second documentary at the 2012 IFFB from filmmaking couple David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, is more mundane, yet in many ways more horrifying.

Now, Voyager

Briallen Hopper — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:10:48 GMT

Transformations Though it was no doubt made for unhappily married middle-aged housewives (as all Hollywood melodramas allegedly were), Now, Voyager is not about them, at least not in the way that Stella Dallas or Mildred Pierce or Magnificent Obsession or Imitation of Life or All That Heaven Allows are about them. Unlike these movies, Now, Voyager is not a fantasy fulfillment of a thirty- or forty-ish woman’s need for a second act after marriage and children have somehow failed to satisfy. Instead it is a fantasy about what can happen in one’s thirties when the first act never materializes.

Detropia

Katherine Follett — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:57:08 GMT

IFFB This year, the Independent Film Festival of Boston presented two documentaries about the decline of Detroit. Burn focused on the city’s firefighters as they battle an onslaught of arson, neglect, and budget shortfalls while Detroit’s population flees. Detropia filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady choose to view the city through a wide-angle lens, following a range of people who create a haunting collage of an entire American landscape in decline.

That Obscure Object of Desire

Daniel Loria — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:39:12 GMT

Transformations Buñuel cast the Spanish Angela Molina and the French Carole Bouquet in the role of Conchita, two women who don’t look or sound anything alike. The two women alternate scenes in the film haphazardly; while Molina’s fiery Conchita differs somewhat from Bouquet’s more sensual interpretation, their collaboration is more of a surrealist gesture than an attempt at implying a deeper meaning. We therefore see Conchita through Mathieu’s eyes: volatile, erratic, two completely different people occupying the same person.

Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet

Victoria Large — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:46:14 GMT

IFFB IFFB has a history of programming worthwhile music docs, and this one stands out for its compelling subject matter. Vile has a rich story to tell here, but he deserves credit for neither dwelling on what Becker has lost nor milking his latter day achievements – including the release of new music – for sticky sentimentality. Becker’s story gets the sensitive, measured treatment that it deserves.

Aglow

Victoria Large — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:38:32 GMT

IFFB 2012 – “The myth about the muse visiting you is just that – a myth,” artist Paul Chojnowski says in Aglow, a short documentary about his work. Indeed, while I’ve seen a number of films about visual artists throughout the years at IFFB, Aglow offers perhaps the most practical view of the art world. Chojnowski is very much aware of his professional profile and the potential markets for his art, which influence the subject matter and even the size of some pieces. Director Howard Libov takes us inside meetings with art dealers, and Chojnowski voices his desire to “negotiate a poster deal.”

Yet while the above might sound cynical, it’s also an underrepresented reality for many artists. Libov also doesn’t focus strictly on business, capturing Chojnowski at work in his studio, where he creates cityscapes and small narratives using his signature ingredient: fire. The careful planning that goes into each piece is evident, reflecting the methodical attitude that Chojnowski brings to his business dealings. By focusing on all aspects of Chojnowski’s working life, Libov gives us a unique glimpse at art as a profession.

The Love Competition

Victoria Large — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:17:44 GMT

IFFB 2012 – The subject matter of director Brent Hoff’s entertaining short documentary The Love Competition is in itself intriguing: researchers at Stanford ask their human subjects to “love” as much as they can while in an MRI machine. The researchers than study the results to see who has produced the most love – neurologically speaking. The varied choices of love objects on the part of the contestants is fascinating. People think of spouses and significant others, certainly, but there’s also a ten-year-old contestant who chooses to focus on his baby cousin, a young man who opts to think of “the first eight months” of his relationship with his ex, and a twenty-four-year-old woman who plans to meditate on love itself. The results are surprising, and offer viewers a chance to reflect on their own definitions of love.

Face/Off

Glenn Heath Jr. — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:07:50 GMT

Transformations The mortal coil that binds Sean Archer and Castor Troy, with both John Travolta and Nicolas Cage getting to engage the stoic desperation of the former and the manic sadism of the latter, is essentially a dynamic physical tango. As the actors transform, with the normally heroic Travolta turning into a diabolical madman and the usually maniacal Cage turning vulnerable and thoughtful, it almost feels like both performers are trying to deconstruct and amplify the persona each has spent years perfecting.

Time Zero: The Last Year of Polaroid Film

Victoria Large — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:34:55 GMT

IFFB Time Zero’s story doesn’t end with the end of Polaroid film. The latter portion of the documentary traces the evolution of The Impossible Project, an incredibly ambitious undertaking aimed at reformulating and reintroducing instant film. It’s great seeing fans of analog photography turning their outrage into action, and the story largely hits its stride with the introduction of this real-life narrative twist. Indeed, though not perfect, Time Zero is an informative and often quite engaging look at an analog obsession—and its unexpected next act.

The Curse of the Cat People

Victoria Large — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:48:48 GMT

Transformations Irena’s transformation in this film, then, is not the expected shift from human to beast, but rather a change from a supernatural menace to a supernatural(?) comfort. Through Amy’s eyes, Irena becomes the perfect childhood friend: a fairy princess, playmate, and caregiver rolled into one. In that scene where Amy calls out, awaken by a nightmare, and Alice shrugs the noise off instead of checking on her daughter, it’s Irena who sings Amy to sleep. That’s kind of the melancholy heart of the film right there: a rejected child turns to a dreamed-up dead woman; or to read it another way, to her imagination – herself – for help.

Cerro Rico, Tierra Rica

Katherine Follett — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:38:13 GMT

IFFB In the high desert plateau of Bolivia is a mountain, Cerro Rico, that once seemed to be a pure tower of silver ore. After thousands of years of human work, almost all the silver is gone, but a large community relies on the tin, zinc, lead, and lithium that still lies in the mine-riddled mountain and on nearby salt flats. This stark economy is the subject of the documentary Cerro Rico, Tierra Rica.

An American Werewolf in London

Victoria Large — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:55:38 GMT

TRANSFORMATIONS The guilt and anxiety doesn’t dissipate; it just builds to a crescendo, consistently undermining the film’s romantic subplot. After David has gone home with his sympathetic hospital nurse, Alex, and enjoyed a Van Morrison-soundtracked romp with her in the bedroom (and shower), he wakes in the middle of the night and finds his dead friend lurking in the bathroom mirror—a great stinger of a scare that’s been imitated ever since). Of course Jack is there. In the wake of the attack, David can’t simply be a young man enjoying a surprise love affair in London, not without consequence.

Headhunters

Victoria Large — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:17:49 GMT

IFFB The film never approaches the pathos of, say, the Coen brothers’ Fargo, in which Jerry Lundegaard’s speedily unraveling plans carry with them a sobering dash of reality and even banality. Headhunters, adapted from a novel by Jo Nesbø, will win most of its fans with its high style and audacious setpieces. Still, it makes for a worthy diversion to take in—perhaps through splayed fingers.

Teen Wolf Too

Katherine Follett — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:31:12 GMT

Transformations It’s difficult to focus much on Todd’s physical transformations. It’s clear throughout the film that its budget is even less than that of Teen Wolf, or, honestly, that of the Thriller video. Todd’s switch from boy to wolf happens in discrete cuts, switching from non-transformed to fully-transformed with makeup already intact. There is almost no sense of an evolution from one to the other, and the makeup feels cheap and obvious. Jason Bateman can’t help being lovable, but his white-bread boyishness seeps through even full wolf makeup, and once transformed, he acts more like a pet than a wild animal.

Sun Don’t Shine

Katherine Follett — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:46:29 GMT

IFFB Sun Don’t Shine is simple and completely stripped-down. There is a hysterical young woman, a man, an old car, an ominous object in the trunk, and the relentlessly stifling Florida sunshine. Out of these few ingredients, director and writer Amy Seimetz creates a small but haunting and inescapable portrait of desperation.