IFF Boston 2017 Reflections

This was my first year experiencing IFF Boston, a festival celebrating independent film across a number of Boston theaters. The fest premieres all sorts of cool movies from features to shorts to documentaries to even student films, often times with the directors there to promote their work. I officially volunteered at this multi-day event, doing whatever odd jobs I was assigned in my required hot pink t-shirt (a real good look for me).

Although scanning people's tickets and handing out flyers got monotonous after a while, I did get to chat with a handful of cool, fellow movie-loving people. To be completely honest, it was this, more so than even the films, that ended up being the highlight of the festival experience for me. As a generally shy, introverted person in real life who thinks "small talk" belongs in the seventh circle of hell, I was surprised how easily I could snake into conversations with people. Now that it's over, my only problem is that I don't remember any of their names (!), and these mysterious movie folk will likely forever fade into obscurity in my memory.

Anywho... because I was a volunteer, when it wasn't my shift, I could see all the movies I wanted - for FREE! I took advantage of this perk, as you may imagine.

Below I've listed all the movies I saw, along with my personal favorites of the festival highlighted!

Summer 2017 Box Office Predictions

Summer is almost here, so you know what that means: sequels, superheroes, and CGI spectacles. And my annual box office prediction game! Since 2013 I've tried to predict the top ten summer blockbusters to varying degrees of success. This year doesn't seem any easier, as it's always difficult to gauge how fatigued audiences are with certain franchises and what little gems could rise to the surface and become surprise hits. This fun prediction game rewards the accuracy with which you can guess where each summer movie will land on the box office charts. If you'd like to play along, read the points system below and leave your predictions in the comments section:

Fast 8, Colossal, Gifted, The Lost City of Z Reviews

The Fate of the Furious
Dir. F. Gary Gray
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This eighth entry into the Fast and Furious franchise begins in Havana, with everyone's favorite bald-headed lead-foot, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), in a street race using a battered, broken-down crap box car. He still wins, of course ("It's not the car, it's the driver"), but it's hard not to read into this first scene as a metaphor for the series as a whole - really how much longer will the motor run on this franchise before it catches fire and blows up? The first Fast flick after the tragic death of Paul Walker, the unwieldy-titled The Fate of the Furious does its best to one-up itself with some increasingly fun action scenes and car stunts, but with an incredibly generic story and meat-headed characters that are alternately annoying and uninteresting, you need to have some serious patience between the big set pieces to enjoy this gloriously stupid movie.

Ghost in the Shell, Life, The Zookeeper's Wife, Wilson Reviews

Ghost in the Shell
Dir. Rupert Sanders
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Even if you've never seen the classic Ghost in the Shell anime from 1995, chances are you're still familiar with the imagery it's inspired. The Wachowskis' Matrix trilogy, James Cameron's Avatar, and Alex Garland's Ex Machina all borrowed from its philosophical sci-fi ideas and dystopic view of technology. Ghost in the Shell is one of those properties held sacred by its fans, and I'm sure many of them were hoping this new film wouldn't repeat the embarrassment of other Hollywood attempts at adapting anime (let's forget Dragonball Evolution ever happened). While I consider myself more of an admirer of the original film than an enjoyer of it, I'm glad to say this live-action remake solidly captures the spirit of its animated counterpart. It's visually spectacular, the lead performances are strong, and even if this story is one that still left me a little cold, I actually found the remake much more approachable and enjoyable than the original film.

Beauty and the Beast, The Belko Experiment, Raw, Kedi Reviews

Beauty and the Beast
Dir. Bill Condon
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Continuing Disney's redundant live action-ing of their back catalogue of animated classics, Beauty and the Beast is yet another remake meant to nostalgically prod audiences into theaters like livestock into a corral. Directed by Bill Condon (Mr. Holmes, Dreamgirls) and starring a post-Potter Emma Watson as everyone's favorite book-reading, yak-loving princess, Belle, this movie sticks extremely close to its beloved source material, slavishly reproducing exact songs, lines of dialogue, and even camera movements and edits as the original Disney film. Because of this, Beauty and the Beast may be the most outright pointless movie of the year, seeming to exist for the sole factor of making easy money for the House of Mouse. But still, Mrs. Potts knows what's up when she sings "Tale as old as Time": despite its unoriginality, I still found myself getting swept up in many of the musical numbers and dazzling set pieces. Despite my best efforts to hate on this movie, Beauty and the Beast is a competent, beautifully-crafted production that delivers the magic, even if it's repackaged magic.

Logan, Kong: Skull Island, The Red Turtle, Land of Mine Reviews

Logan
Dir. James Mangold
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After 17 years and 8 movies in the X-Men franchise, Hugh Jackman's (apparently) final outing as Wolverine pulls no punches - other than literal ones of course. Thanks to the smash success of Fox's R-Rated superhero gamble last year with Deadpool, James Mangold was for once able to make the Wolverine movie fans have waited for; no longer subjugated to PG-13 bloodless battle sequences, we finally get to see the realistically gory consequences of a furious man with 8-inch metal blades sticking out of his fists. Luckily, though, Logan isn't just an excuse for mindless violence - it's also a well-conceived family drama, a dark sci-fi western, a tragic elegy on mortality, and an overall great send-off for an iconic character.

Get Out, A Cure for Wellness, Toni Erdmann, The Salesman Reviews

Get Out
Dir. Jordan Peele
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Meeting the in-laws is always a situation filled with anxiety. In his directorial debut, Jordan Peele (the comedic mastermind behind Comedy Central's sketch show Key & Peele), uses those same relatable discomforts to make a socially-conscious horror film with a lot more on its mind than cheap thrills. In a story that feels like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner meets Rosemary's Baby, Get Out follows a young interracial couple, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams), who are on a weekend getaway to her parents' house. At first, Chris reads her family's overly accommodating behavior to be nervous, "white liberal" attempts to deal with their daughter's relationship, but as the weekend continues, it starts to become clear that something disturbing is going on under the surface of this seemingly "woke" family. This movie not only works as a fun horror flick, but it's filled with layers of social commentary and subtext that makes Get Out one of the most thoughtful and well-written entries into the horror genre I've seen in a very long time. Despite being a "comedy guy" and first-time filmmaker, Jordan Peele has undoubtedly wrote and directed a modern cult classic.