How good is this year's Independent Film Festival of Boston? So good we couldn't fit all our glowing
reviews on one page of hard copy. Here are eight more of them.
**1/2
DRAGONSLAYER
73 MINUTES |
SOMERVILLE THEATRE | APRIL 29 @ 9:15 PM
Something between a
hipster extraordinaire and an extraordinary nihilist, Fresno-bred amateur
skateboarder and professional train wreck Josh "Skreech" Sandoval is one of
those ideal drunken degenerate subjects who stays just conscious enough to give
hysterical confessionals. Skreech is gold to watch, with his constant vomiting
of Ramen noodles and futile attempts at impossible skate tricks; but at its best
moments, Dragonslayer
offers a devastating yet subtle critique of the commercialization of the once
free-spirited sport, and shows how the skateboarding world still has a
competitive underground that respects the empty pool-side culture. Filmmaker
Tristan Patterson even does a solid job of partitioning a storyline that has no
obvious beginning or end, but in another sense this is also just a very dope
nostalgic skate video with some deeply personal behind-the-scenes highlights.
_Chris Faraone
**1/2
GOD WILLING
73 MINUTES |
SOMERVILLE THEATRE | MAY 1 @ 5:15 PM
Few topics make for more compelling documentaries than
cults and Jesus nuts in general. In God Willing, director
Evangeline Griego flips the script on that age-old set-up, telling the story of
self-styled messiah Jim Roberts and his elusive "Brotherhood," but through the
eyes of friends and family members who lost loved ones to this separatist clan.
God
Willing is beyond sad and even painful; in their cross-country pursuit
of this nomadic tribe, moms and dads become full-time detectives, even
memorizing the group's scriptures in preparing to hopefully deprogram their
possessed children. Griego's fly-on-the-wall approach falls just short of being
journalism, and she could have gone much further in impugning Roberts. But with
that said, the faces on these parents when their reunification efforts prove
futile may be damning enough.
_Chris Faraone
***1/2
IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT
85 MINUTES | BRATTLE THEATRE | MAY 1 @ 3 PM
The feds call Earth Liberation Front members domestic
terrorists. In reality they're better described as aggressive hippies who got
the full attention of corporate crooks and environmental criminals. Director
Marshall Curry's If A Tree Falls tells the total tale of the ELF's genesis in Oregon, and of the
group's badass campaign of "economic sabotage" that left more than 1200 symbols
of bourgeois excess burned to the ground. But it also zeroes in on one
particularly tragic member who paid dearly for his strong convictions. While
kind to the plights of activists who face hard time for victimless crimes, this
film is balanced - conservative dicks could easily interpret it as validation
of the group's persecution. Progressives, however, will likely walk away with
ideas on how to replicate ELF efforts twenty times over in the Twitter age.
_Chris Faraone
***1/2
PROJECT NIM
93 MINUTES | BRATTLE
THEATER MAY 1 @ 5:30 pm
Once regarded as
cuddly, chimpanzees now seem downright demonic after the incident in Connecticut in which a
pet ape destroyed somebody's face. Nim, the subject of this provocative
documentary by James Marsh (Man
on Wire), won't do much for his species' reputation, and even less for
that of homo sapiens. Four decades ago Herb Terrace, a Columbia University
linguist, took the infant Nim (full name: "Nim Chimpsky") and resettled him
with the well-to-do family of Stephanie, a former student (and lover). The
purpose: to teach Nim sign language and prove that chimps can use it to
communicate. Inevitably, the experiment revealed more about the humans than
about the animal. As he grew older, Nim developed an Oedipal relationship with
Stephanie. "It was the 70s," says the foster mom as she recalls how the ape
explored her body. The story gets more absurd and sadder after that, and though
Marsh's Errol Morris-like style can get glib, it never gets boring.
_Peter Keough
***
PUSH: MADISON
VS. MADISON
105 MINUTES |
SOMERVILLE THEATRE | APRIL 30 @ 7:30 PM
Before his semi-retirement, Dennis Wilson was an assistant
football coach, history teacher, pep squad ringleader, and chief disciplinarian
at Madison Park High School
in Roxbury. If that wasn't enough, he was also head coach of the best varsity
hoops team in Massachusetts,
and a surrogate father to every at-risk kid who passed through his program. The
subtitle of Rudy Hypolite's impassioned documentary is a reference to how the
only team that can beat MP is itself; between homelessness, gang wars, and
domestic violence, the guys on this squad have more than free throw percentages
to worry about. The team profiled, which was upset by Braintree High School in
a 2007 regional semi-finals game, was even plagued by two star players who
refused to pass to one another on account of their ties to different housing
projects. If you ever doubted that life is different on the black side of the
tracks, then look no further than this critical work of local pride.
_Chris Faraone
***1/2
SUBMARINE
94 MINUTES |
SOMERVILLE THEATRE | APRIL 29 @ 9:30 PM
Lindsay Anderson's If... (1968) set the standard
for movies about rebellious teens in stuffy schools, and Richard Ayoade's tart black comedy does credit to the
tradition. Here the eloquent misfit is Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), a cynical
wise guy whose inept horniness competes with his existential anxiety. He's
bullied, of course, but that doesn't stop him from bullying others, especially
if it pleases a girl, Jordana (Yasmin Paige), who's alluring despite her
eczema, morbidity, and possible pyromania. Bullying aside, though, Oliver has a
good heart, and he fears that his mother will leave his depressive dad for an
old flame who teaches a self-help course involving auras. Inevitably, his love
for Jordana and his dread of a broken home come in conflict. A bit contrived,
maybe, but with Oliver's drily hilarious voiceover, Ayoade's eye for
whimsically profound visuals, and music by
Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys, it makes more sense than it should.
_Peter Keough
***
THE TRIP
109 MINUTES | SOMERVILLE APRIL 29 @
7:15 pm
In his brilliant
"adaptation" of Laurence Sterne's Tristram
Shandy, Michael Winterbottom created a self-reflexive parodic movie of
the quintessential self-reflexive parodic novel. He couldn't have done it
without cast members Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, and all three are back for
this less clever and funny semi-sequel. Playing themselves, Coogan and Brydon
go on a tour of British restaurants to research a magazine article that Coogan
is inexplicably. Perhaps
The Trip is intended
as an update of Sterne's A
Sentimental Journey, but more often it resembles a road version of My Dinner with Andre with
numerous competing impressions of Michael Caine and Sean Connery plus
excursions to literary sites like Coleridge's Cottage in Somerset. Nonetheless, if you're going to be
stuck in a car driving on the M-6, you could do worse than having this
ebullient, bickering pair as company, even if it all ends with platitudes about
fame, ambition, loneliness, and family.
_Peter Keough
**
TROLL HUNTER
NORWEGIAN | 103
MINUTES | BRATTLE THEATRE | APRIL 29 @ 9:30 PM
"Dere's trolls in dem dar hills," could be the catchphrase
for Hans (Otto Jespersen), the weary huntsman of title - and it'd have to be muttered in
Norwegian too, as André Øvredal's mythic mockumentary takes place among the
bucolic ravines and forests of Norway where a troll problem exists that the
public is largely unaware of. Øvredal, ostensibly operating on a low budget,
keeps it tight, throwing in a government cover-up (bears are to blame for
attacks) and the Blair Witch
POV device (a shaky hand-held camera operated by a trio of students trying to
find out what Hans is up to). The trolls (and you see them early on) are gaudy
computer FX that tower over trees and bellow with the force of a hurricane. How
the Norwegian government has kept the wraps on something so conspicuous is hard
to figure, however. But if you buy that, Troll
Hunter might appeal to the cult hungry.
_Tom Meek