Summer Fun Film Festivals in WNY

With the dwindling numbers of drive-in theaters across the country, independent theaters finding it difficult to compete with huge chains, and the ever-fluctuating national box office needing too many 3D films to turn a profit, certain cities somehow find a way to keep the medium alive. Buffalo is one of them and always has been since I can remember. My days as a high schooler trying to figure out plans with friends for the weekend always ended up being decided between catch the latest blockbuster or hit up the local…

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REVIEW: Red Riding Hood [2011]

“All sorrows are less with bread” Why, in movies, does a thrown axe/sword/dagger/knife always land squarely in the back of one’s opponent as he’s about to maim? Can’t it comically thud to the ground, short the half revolution necessary to inflict injury, allowing the antagonist to look at the camera with a twinkle in his eye before clawing the heroine’s face off? I know its Hollywood and audiences have preconceptions about good versus evil and all, but realistic physics mixed with plausible probability may help something called authenticity. But what…

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REVIEW: Inkheart [2009]

“You are not my God” I must say that I am always pleasantly surprised to watch a film without expectations, or the tiniest shred of knowledge, and be completely immersed in its world. With the new fantasy adventure film Inkheart, I experienced just that. Iain Softley’s cinematic adaptation of the best-selling novel by Cornelia Funke is a fun and endearing trip. Rather than going for a whole “otherworld” feel that most fantasies have since LOTR, this one stays in our world. Whether that makes this commercially more viable than the…

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