Blogcritics Category: Video: Film Festivals

DVD Review: Teeth

Mel Odom — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:59:16 EDT

The movie has less bite than horror fans were led to believe, but offers a little more to chew on.
When Teeth first started getting shopped around as a possible film project, the premise raised immediate interest…and eyebrows. No one, after hearing the subject matter, could have been totally comfortable with the prospect of the film. I known when I read about it I had my doubts whether the movie could be successfully made in a manner...

Speed Racer World Premiere at Tribeca Film Festival

Tony Dayoub — Mon, 5 May 2008 19:14:23 EDT

Coverage from the red carpet and a review of the film.
Speed Racer, the new film directed by the Wachowski Brothers, had its world premiere this past Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival. Among the stars arriving via the red carpet were Robert De Niro, co-founder of the festival, and Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst. Also in attendance were the film's producer, Joel Silver, and most of the cast,...

Newport Beach Film Festival 2008: An Evening of Disney Animation Rarities with Roy E. Disney and Don Hahn

El Bicho — Mon, 5 May 2008 02:39:59 EDT

The Newport Beach Film Festival presented Disney Animation Rarities.
The Newport Beach Film Festival not only provides an outlet for new emerging filmmakers, but they also honor the past as well. An Evening of Disney Animation Rarities with Roy E. Disney and Don Hahn presented rarely seen cartoons from the Disney vaults. The two men were joined by animator/producer Dave Bossert, and they all offered revealing...

Dutchess Community College: The 33rd Student Audio-Video Festival, Spring 2008 - Part II

Chris Beaumont — Fri, 2 May 2008 12:13:30 EDT

The sequel to my look inside the student show.
Welcome back. This is part two of my look at the short student films during the 33rd running of the student show at Dutchess Community College in New York. It is a show that I was once a part of, many years ago. It was a fun night that saw the good, the bad, and the ugly. Without further adieu, lets get to it.Com 234: This collection is a sampling...

Dutchess Community College: The 33rd Student Audio-Video Festival, Spring 2008 - Part I

Chris Beaumont — Fri, 2 May 2008 11:47:11 EDT

A look inside a student video show.
Way back in the early/mid-1990's I was a student at Dutchess Community College in New York. It was also known as Harvard on the Hudson and Pendell University. It was a place I spent three years of my life at, going to school, learning, living, searching. It was here that my love for music and movies began to truly take hold. I graduated with an...

Los Angeles Japan Film Festival 2008 - Atagoal's Cat Magical Forest

Purple Tigress — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:47:18 EDT

Can a fat cat save the world from serene conformity?
This 2006 computer animated movie, Atagoal wa Neko no Mori directed by Mizuho Nishikubo, is about a boisterous cat whose morality is suspect, but whose passion for life saves the day. Based on a popular manga by Hiroshi Masumura, this screenplay by Hirotoshi Kobayashi condemns mindless conformity for the sake of peaceful existence. The title...

Los Angeles Japan Film Festival 2008 - Hula Girls

Purple Tigress — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:51:34 EDT

Can young girls and a tropical dance save a small mining town?
What do you do when your small, poverty-stricken town where the major industry is coal mining, is headed for financial disaster as the coal mines slowly close down?In the late 1950s and early 1960s, one town had the answer. They opened the Joban Hawaiian Center in January 1961. It was the first resort facility and theme park to open in Japan and...

Los Angeles Japan Film Festival 2008 - Tokyo Cowboys

Purple Tigress — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:28:52 EDT

Is it really still a white man's world, even in Japan? Saft's documentary is another "white man making his fortune in the Orient" tale.
There's a moment in the rough cut version of Tokyo Cowboys, supposedly a documentary of foreign men in Tokyo, that startled me, causing all my built-up understanding of the situation to come crashing down from the foundations carefully built up by director Daneeta Loretta Saft. Saft comes on the screen and we learn she was married to the guy,...

Los Angeles Japan Film Festival 2008 - Classics and Comics

Purple Tigress — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 17:25:09 EDT

The Japan Film Festival in Los Angeles turns five years old and suffers from some growing pains.
The Japan Film Festival is historically five years old and suffers from some growing pains. Originally called the Chanoma Film Festival, it focused on films that focused on everyday life. Chanoma literally means living room. After all, samurai and geisha movies come over to the US. More recently, anime has become popular here. Films about everyday...

Movie Reviews: The 2008 New Directors/New Films Festival

Randall A Byrn — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:24:11 EDT

Four excellent movies that played at this indispensable annual look at new cinema talent.
New Directors/New Films, the festival that the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center co-present each year in New York (appropriately in the early spring), is often a fantastic opportunity to sample developing cinematic talent. For me, the highlights of this year’s festival fell neatly into pairs: two narrative features...