Transformations It’s difficult to focus much on Todd’s physical transformations. It’s clear throughout the film that its budget is even less than that of Teen Wolf, or, honestly, that of the Thriller video. Todd’s switch from boy to wolf happens in discrete cuts, switching from non-transformed to fully-transformed with makeup already intact. There is almost no sense of an evolution from one to the other, and the makeup feels cheap and obvious. Jason Bateman can’t help being lovable, but his white-bread boyishness seeps through even full wolf makeup, and once transformed, he acts more like a pet than a wild animal.
Review by Katherine Follett on 10 May, 4:31 PM
IFFB Sun Don’t Shine is simple and completely stripped-down. There is a hysterical young woman, a man, an old car, an ominous object in the trunk, and the relentlessly stifling Florida sunshine. Out of these few ingredients, director and writer Amy Seimetz creates a small but haunting and inescapable portrait of desperation.
Review by Katherine Follett on 10 May, 10:46 AM
Transformations The solution to all of his problems, of course, is for Scott to turn into a werewolf, which he proceeds to do: a transformation that makes him popular, attractive to the ladies, and excellent at basketball while giving him almost no lupine characteristics. In contrast to its antecedent, 1957’s I Was A Teenage Werewolf, where the title character’s werewolfism is perceived as a problem and implicitly likened to a psychiatric disorder, in Teen Wolf lycanthropy is pretty much a lifestyle choice: Scott seems to retain total control over when he turns, and his transformation is cheered by his fellow students.
Review by Evan Kindley on 09 May, 3:00 PM
IFFB The film is haphazardly put together, with quick editing, a huge load of characters, and cases that weave in and out without resolution. At times, this style is immersive, and I’m grateful that the filmmakers managed to stay away from the reality-TV hand-held-camera technique that seems to have overtaken “naturalistic” US films. On the other hand, the film’s style doesn’t allow scenes and characters to unfold in anything like real time or even narrative time, causing an abruptness that undermines the storytelling.
Review by Katherine Follett on 09 May, 11:34 AM
Transformations Post-transformation, Melvin has mutated from a meek victim into a hulking monstrosity capable of doing whatever he pleases. He becomes a hero by accident, coincidentally being in the right place at the right time to mete out gory, arm-ripping justice. While foiling a restaurant robbery, Melvin saves and later becomes romantically involved with Sarah, a beautiful blind woman. The tragedy of his mutation has become a triumph. Melvin now has everything he desired in his previous life: power, respect, and love.
Review by David Carter on 08 May, 1:50 PM
IFFB It makes sense that gritty, dense, repressed Boston also had a thriving hardcore punk scene, but few people outside New England have probably heard of SS Decontrol, Freeze, Jerry’s Kids, or the F.U.s. Though it certainly shrinks the target audience for All-Ages: The Boston Hardcore Film, this anonymity also ensured that Boston hardcore remained an endeavor of, by, and for the kids. As a result, All-Ages is a documentary less about a music scene and more about what feels like a family.
Review by Katherine Follett on 08 May, 10:48 AMBALAGAN – Screening at the Brattle Theatre as part of this month’s Balagan film series, Nancy Andrews’ experimental short Behind the Eyes are the Ears offers a dreamlike mix of images, blending found footage with animation and live action, with each …
by Victoria Large on 04 May, 6:38 PMIFFB 2012 – The most high-profile of the animated shorts playing at this year’s IFFB, It’s Such a Beautiful Day is the third and final film in the trilogy that animator Don Hertzfeldt began with 2006’s Everything Will Be …
by Victoria Large on 04 May, 12:51 PMIFFB 2012 – Kelly Sears’ animated short, composed entirely of images from 1970s yearbooks, tells the eerie story of a horrific event unfolding at typical high school. It’s an admirably creative effort that unfolds with a wry, satiric sting.
by Victoria Large on 04 May, 12:36 PMIFFB 2012 – Christopher Kezelos’ wordless, splendid-looking stop motion short about an odd creature (who looks something like a rabbit in a Halloween mask) on a mission is enigmatic yet engaging, like a tiny dispatch from another world. To say much more about it would risk …
by Victoria Large on 04 May, 12:25 PMIFFB 2012 – This impressively realized animated short, which won Best Narrative Short Film at the 2011 Ottawa International Animation Festival, is unremittingly bleak. The stop motion film follows the lives of two anthropomorphic starving rabbits who do not speak, but make soft crinkling noises as they move. …
by Victoria Large on 04 May, 12:15 PMIFFB 2012 – Alberto Vazquez and Pedro Rivero’s animated short Birdboy is so Hello Kitty-cute in its opening frames that one can’t help but mistrust it. (There is a twist, and it’s both jaw-dropping and perversely funny.) Yet whether …
by Victoria Large on 04 May, 11:59 AMTeen Wolf Too http://t.co/Jr0icdp1 #ncdc_updates
