”IFFBoston program director Nancy Campbell and executive director Brian Tamm knew they wanted to do something big for the tenth annual Fall Focus. So, how big did they go? They’ve managed to fit 14 films into the festival’s five days, closing with a special 70mm screening of all 26 reels and 300 lbs. of The Brutalist, literally the most massive movie of the year.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 10/29/2024
””It’s interesting to think about a time when Hollywood made movies for adults,’ explains Tamm. ‘What does it say about the end of the 20th century that 25 years on, we’re not making movies like this anymore? Is that necessarily a good thing? I don’t know. There are some deeper, thornier questions in these films that mainstream movies aren’t asking anymore.’” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 07/10/2024
“’Festivals offer the opportunity to use film as a catalyst so that we can all be in one place, in person, to have a conversation and feel that energy in the room,’ said Simmons. ‘It’s important for filmmakers to screen their films in front of an audience that gets to ask them questions, to see the reactions, to get that feedback. That’s an important part of being an artist.’” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/19/2024
”The festival is about more than just watching movies, it’s about joining a room full of strangers and experiencing our common humanity together. As a culture, we had to get used to staying home alone, and I think there’s considerable evidence that it made people kind of crazy and mean. Events like IFFBoston remind us that we’re part of a larger community.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 04/29/2024
“Killer spiders, pregnant nuns, ex-con Juggalos and humanist vampires, oh my. It must be BUFF season again. Now in its twenty-fourth year, the self-described ‘annual sensory bacchanalia from beyond the mainstream’ is back at the Brattle Theatre to celebrate the oddest and most outré cinematic offerings covering the whole waterfront of weird.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 03/18/2024
My second dispatch from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival includes capsule reviews of Nathan Silver’s Between The Temples, Josh Margolin’s Thelma and India Donaldson’s Good One.
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My first dispatch from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival includes capsule reviews of Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, Michael John Warren’s Lolla: The Story Of Lollapalooza and Theda Hammel’s Stress Positions.
“‘The more you love movies the harder it is to make lists,’ says Tamm. ‘When people ask for my favorite film, lately I’ve been saying Singin’ In The Rain. Since lockdown, I must have watched it a dozen times. To see it in the same canon as Tokyo Story and 2001 is great. It’s a movie maybe some people wouldn’t think of as a foundational film, but it absolutely is.’” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 08/17/2023
“Look beyond the big chains and you’ll find a few precious, old-fashioned independent movie houses committed to bringing the best contemporary art cinema and popcorn entertainment to the community. It’s a thriving scene full of fun repertory programming and more film festivals than one person could possibly have enough time to attend. We’ve tried.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/30/2023
“Welcoming The Embrace provides a crash course in our city’s astonishingly rich Black cultural history. It’s a terrific way to launch a celebration of diverse voices and stories from Boston and beyond, doubling as a mission statement for the festival itself. My only complaint about the fleet, 42-minute documentary is that it doesn’t run twice as long.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/20/2023
SPLICED PERSONALITY 