Okay, so I overslept and missed the first half-hour of this (no more partying during the festival) so I can't give it a proper review but I will say that I had a favorable reaction to it. This film chronicles the treatment of Bobby Sands and other IRA inmates held at Maze Prison in the early 80s. The prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest their cruel treatment that caused Sands and nine others to starve to death. It's a tragic story that illustrates how there are no winners when terrorism is employed to protest colonialism.
A struggling mother gets caught up in a multilevel marketing scheme while trying to provide for her children in this film sponsored by the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival. When the mom is arrested the two young kids are forced to fend for themselves and take a remarkable journey from the suburbs into Boston so they can withdraw birthday money from a bank account and start a business selling inventions. Despite the incredible nature of this story the director manages to keep things grounded. The film is described as semi-autobiographical and that really comes out in the naturalistic tone. It's a down to earth look at a family on the fringe of society struggling to get by.
This movie was proceeded by The Moth and the Firefly, a short film about a moth that is drawn to a firefly during a blackout. It wasn't that interesting.
This documentary tells the amazing story of Herb and Dorothy Vogel who managed to amass one of the world's best collections of minimalist and conceptual art on their middle-class salaries. In the early 60s they realized that Dorothy made enough as a Librarian to support a modest life for the two of them in their rent-controlled New York Apartment. This freed up Herb's salary from the Post Office to be used to acquire art. Over the course of thirty years the couple used their keen eyes to gather over 4,000 pieces in a collection that was conservativly estimated to be worth millions, which they stored in their one bedroom apartment. Eventually, they turned their collection over to the National Gallery (which was only able to handle 1,000 pieces) without asking for anything in return. The gallery did, however, decide to provide them with a small annuity in the event that either of them faced a major health crisis. Herb and Dorothy used this money to begin another collection.
This film is sort of like a modern-day version of "Romeo and Juliet" set against a backdrop of immigration issues or a non-singing West Side Story. The leads were engaging but there was some truly cringe-worthy dialogue about love and a lot of contrived plotting. But seventeen of the filmmakers showed up to the screening and judging by the cheering for every name in the credits it sounded like 80% of the crowd knew someone involved with it personally, so this might be a shoe in for the audience award.
Short programs are always a mixed bag but this one was more consistently good than I'm used to. I'll go through them one by one:
Hair and Diamonds. Episode 9: Shaving - Animation and live-action combine in this dream-like film about a man shaving. Bizarre and sort of wonderful.
Trees - An old-timer tree attempts to pass on knowledge to a young sampling by way of an insane (and hilarious) monologue.
Another Bad Idea - This stop-motion animation follows a man as he attempts to catch a light bulb that appears over his head as he gets an idea. Surreal, amusing and too short to wear out it's welcome.
America's Game - An old-timer human muses wistfully about America's pastime only to discover that baseball players aren't as virtuous as he imagined. Pretty funny but it went on a little too long.
Dead Hooker Theater - Stagehands manipulate dead hookers through a rendition of Tennesse Williams' "The Glass Menagerie". In a word, awesome.
This One Time in Paris - A filmmaker visits the Eiffel Tower and finds one girl sitting alone amidst a sea of lovers but he can't get up the nerve to put down his camera and all he can do is sit and watch while a Frenchman sweeps in to woo the girl. Well, watch and mock. It was pretty cute.
American Terror: Company Man - Adapted from a comic book, this stylish animated short has a stunning energy and visual style.
The Institute of Séance - Delightful spoof of silent horror films.
Clowns Without Borders - About half-way through this film I realized it wasn't a joke.
Amerika Idol - Amazing documentary about a tiny village in Serbia that erects a statue of Rocky Balboa and faces a controversy that mirrors Philly's long conflict regarding the prop created for Rocky III.
No comments:
Post a Comment