http://independent-magazine.org/2017/05/iffboston-2017-review-city-ghosts/
Obsessed with Independent Film Since 1976 
Obsessed with Independent Film Since 1976
Evan Crean is a film critic in Boston and a founding member of the Boston Online Film Critics Association (BOFCA). He is co-author of the book Your ‘80s Movie Guide to Better Living and co-hosts the weekly movie podcast Spoilerpiece Theatre. He is also a Contributing Editor for NewEnglandFilm.com and the marketing director for Boston Reel, a site dedicated to Boston’s independent film culture.
City of Ghosts, Matthew Heineman, 2017, USA, 90 min. Public executions, decapitated corpses, heads on spikes—these images form the backdrop, not of a grisly horror film, but of the bleak reality facing citizen-journalists in Raqqa, Syria—the center of Matthew Heineman’s horrifying documentary City of Ghosts. “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—the subject of City of Ghosts—is a Syrian… Read more »
For Ahkeem, Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest, 2017, USA, 90 min. Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest’s documentary, For Ahkeem, is a commentary on race, class, and the inequities of the educational and criminal justice systems for people of color in the United States. The filmmakers are never hyperbolic or overly-sentimental. Instead, they offer… Read more »
La Barracuda, Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin, 2017, USA, 100 min. La Barracuda is one of the promising, yet ultimately disappointing movies of the festival. It cannot seem to decide what genre it belongs in. Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin’s film is partially country music tribute, partially family drama, and partially psycho-stalker thriller. In trying to… Read more »
The Hero, Brett Haley, 2017, USA, 93 min. Life is a cyclical affair in Brett Haley’s dramedy The Hero. Like the ocean’s tides or the phases of the moon, it presents a seasonal model of time that proves healing. The film takes the position that these cycles, rather than limiting us, offer a daily opportunity… Read more »
Letting Go of Adele, Melissa Dowler, 2017, USA, 86 min. Melissa Dowler’s documentary Letting Go of Adele is a heartwarming, tearjerker of a film with the perfect local angle for Independent Film Festival Boston (IFFBoston). Dowler’s chronicle of a Boston dog owner’s struggle to retire her service dog of nine years, while she finds and… Read more »
Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive, Eric Stange, 2017, USA, 84 min. Discussing his attitude as a literary critic in Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive, the acclaimed nineteenth-century author (played by actor Denis O’Hare) declares, “I will not put up with, what I can put down.” Poe’s intolerance for books that couldn’t keep his attention sums up… Read more »
