https://independent-magazine.org/2023/05/05/boston-underground-film-festival-2023-recap-and-review/
Obsessed with Independent Film Since 1976
Obsessed with Independent Film Since 1976
I lined up at the little ticket booth outside the Brattle Theatre near Harvard, unsure of what to expect. My mind swam with images from the clean, modern precision of a very official event to the strangeness of mask-wearing, dim halls of an underground group. I guess it was my mind’s attempt to put the… Read more »
“If Catholics are having a crisis of conscience, they go to the church, if Jews are having a crisis of conscience, they go eat Chinese food.” This is what an interviewee of Day’s Lee told her in the documentary “Meet and Eat at Lee’s Garden” when trying to illustrate the idea that the restaurant, opened… Read more »
“Closed for Storm” succeeds at revealing the history of Six Flags New Orleans and honoring it as a symbol of the city’s enduring identity in the face of Hurricane Katrina. However, the film falls short in exploring the park in its current state. Director and YouTuber Jake Williams’ debut documentary feature “Closed for Storm” traces… Read more »
When Director Raphael Sbarge’s “Only In Theaters” premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2021, it was a timely piece, a documentary chronicling the ups and downs of the Laemmle family business, an 85-year-old theater chain in Los Angeles trying to stay afloat—no small feat in the age of streaming. And everything seemed… Read more »
Late Friday afternoon March 13, 2020, Bill Wolf, the preeminent 94-year-old senior critic of the New Directors/New Films press corp, and this writer scurried out of the Museum of Modern Art on West 53rd St. We’d just finished watching Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, a gorgeous 150-minute Chinese epic, the last film of the first… Read more »
What would a person do when they encounter ignorance and discrimination like in today’s post-pandemic world? For Finbar “Fin” McBridge, Peter Dinklage’s character in “The Station Agent,” the answer is isolating yourself in the comfortable world of trains. Fin is a quiet bachelor with dwarfism living in Hoboken, New Jersey. He works away from the… Read more »
“Neon Spring” is a coming-of-age film that follows Laine, played by Marija Luize Melk, a 20-year-old college student who is exploring the world of sex, drugs, and parties. These exuberant, excitement-filled nights are coupled with her “day” life. Her family is facing interpersonal problems, and she is searching to find her footing within the world…. Read more »
The world premiere of “The Stroll,” a documentary from directors Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker (“Transparent,” “The Lady and the Dale,” “Framing Agnes”) at the Sundance 2023 Film Festival offered festival goers an unforgettable experience of walking through New York City as way to acknowledge the trans experience over the last three decades of the… Read more »
Disclaimer: I have not seen the first or second installment of “Magic Mike,” but it was a Thursday night, the boy who flew across the country to visit me was with his friend in Maine, and I had nothing else to do, therefore I had nothing left to lose. “To bridge people together from different… Read more »
It is early in director Pratibha Parmar’s “My Name is Andrea” when its subject comes alive in brilliant, flaming righteousness. In 1963, a young Andrea Dworkin, known as “Poet,” played in this scene by French singer-songwriter Soko, watches footage on television of Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk, setting himself on fire in protest on… Read more »