Reviews & Features

Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible
02 Jul, 1:02 PM

The Action Movie – As Mission: Impossible marked Tom Cruise’s first movie as producer and was created at the height of his popularity, having just come off three $100 million movies in a row, one would expect his personality to have commandeered the production. If you look at the surface of Mission: Impossible it may be tempting to write it off as a star vanity project, but if you look deeper you can see just how much of the film is resolutely a Brian De Palma production.

Review by Stephen Snart  /  Comment

Thief

Thief
01 Jul, 1:27 PM

The Action Movie – Bookended by bursts of adrenaline – the first, a nearly silent Melville-inspired jewel heist, and the second a vengeful massacre – the greater part of Thief is conversation. Fraught with hope for a better future, these words are later replaced with furious acceptance for what cannot be.

Review by Jenny Jediny  /  Comments (1)

The Lost Son of Havana

The Lost Son of Havana
01 Jul, 10:39 AM

IFFB coverage – The Lost Son of Havana, which chronicles retired Red Sox pitching star and Cuban exile Luis Tiant’s emotional return to his native country after a forty-six year absence, was easily one of IFFB’s big ticket films, with queues forming early and snaking around the block prior to every screening. It was also the only time at this year’s festival that the experience of attending a screening has threatened to overwhelm my recollections of the film itself.

Review by Victoria Large  /  Comment

Do or Die

Do or Die
30 Jun, 10:43 AM

The Action Movie – This equation between female nudity and strength – not sex – is a key theme of the Sidaris/Speir series of films. Do or Die shows Sidaris making the first moves towards a more pure sexploitation style with the inclusion of Pandora Peaks, however, and later entries into his canon will see a lessened focus on female empowerment in favor of comedy and titillation.

Review by David Carter  /  Comment

Scaramouche

Scaramouche
29 Jun, 2:00 PM

The Action Movie – As in the best of all swashbuckling action films from the era of Douglas Fairbanks to the era of Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp, Scaramouche hops along from scene to scene, providing just enough characterization for us to root for the hero and to hiss the villain, intermingling daring physical feats with a touch of romance and humor, and rooting the plot in history without turning the film into a tedious history lesson.

Review by Matt Bailey  /  Comment

Prom Night in Mississippi

Prom Night in Mississippi
29 Jun, 9:29 AM

IFFB coverage – The immediately stunning thing about director Paul Saltzman’s documentary Prom Night in Mississippi, a chronicle of Charleston High School’s first interracial prom, is that the events in the film take place last year. While Charleston High School itself was integrated in 1970 (lagging behind Brown v. Board of Education by more than a decade and a half), separate “black” and “white” proms persisted at the school into the twenty-first century. Saltzman’s story picks up with the Charleston High School students accepting an offer from Morgan Freeman, a Charleston resident, to fund the 2008 prom if, and only if, it is integrated.

Review by Victoria Large  /  Comment

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