“He was choking on Mars” Buffalo, New York hosted its first ever World Premiere showing of a film to be released theatrically in America. The Buffalo Niagara Film Festival’s gold ticket event for 2009 was for the film What Goes Up, a story set in the week leading up to the Challenger disaster in New Hampshire, home of teacher and astronaut Christa McAuliffe. Writers Robert Lawson and Jonathan Glatzer, (who also directed), were in attendance to introduce their work and explain their hope to get audiences thinking about what it…
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BNFF09 REVIEW: Boppin’ at the Glue Factory [Junkie Nurse] [2009]
“I locked myself out of my bathroom” I should have known from the moment I sat down for my second screening at the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival that I was in for a good time. Three of the filmmakers were seated behind me, conducting an impromptu interview about the creative process that drove them to make Boppin’ at the Glue Factory [Junkie Nurse]. With good-natured quips, funny jabs at each other, and an overall jovial demeanor—at one point it was asked how the title was decided on and Hector Maldonado…
Read MoreBNFF09 REVIEW: Roses Have Thorns [2009]
“Japanese sucks, sorry” Some films seem like they will be great in concept, only to let you down in execution. The Buffalo Niagara Film Festival screening of Roses Have Thorns is one such example. An American production, but mostly spoken in Japanese and Korean, Jong W. Lee’s tale of love had the potential of being something very unique and creative. Dealing with four characters in their twenties—Jae Hoon Jeong’s Jay, a Japanese immigrant who has been in the country three years; his girlfriend Rachel, played by Vanessa Scott Lee; Kai…
Read MoreBuffalo Niagara Film Festival 2008 Recap
I give my experience an A for effort, but a C+ for execution. Sure I only went to one screening, but there was just too much that went astray…hopefully it was a blemish on an otherwise top-notch festival, but if not, at least the workings are there and maybe next year can continue to improve. I understand that The Natural was the big centerpiece and the Buffalo debut of Run, Fatboy, Run was a close second, but one would hope everything else would get the same kind of respect and…
Read MoreBNFF08 REVIEW: The Cake Eaters [2008]
“What are we, elephants?” Mary Stewart Masterson’s film The Cake Eaters is a very well done piece of cinema. A slice of rural life in a sleepy town, we are privy to a period of turmoil and discovery for two families living there. The Kimbrough’s have recently lost their matriarch and a second family is dealing with the hardships of raising a child with Friedriech’s Ataxia. Both groups are thrust together with some chance meetings, helping each other get through the tough times and remember the good in living life.…
Read MoreBNFF08 REVIEW: Sympathetic Details [2008]
“I could be a farmer” Benjamin Busch’s Sympathetic Details showed here at the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival as the “short” film of a double-header bill with a feature length work. It is tough to call this film a short because its 57 minute runtime puts it on the cusp of being more. I don’t think anyone would ever release a movie under an hour, however, so I guess it becomes a short by default. As is, I think Busch did the right thing in not trying to expand on it…
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