In Progress : 2003 Boston Film Festival
Posted on September 8, 2003 at 8:49 am | No Comments
The annual Boston Film Festival, which kicked off on Friday, completely snuck up on me this year, so I ended up missing a couple of interesting films (like director Campbell Scott’s appearance at a showing of his “Off the Map”, and Ridley Scott’s acceptance of this year’s Film Excellence award with “Matchstick Men”), but fortunately some of the screenings that most interest me weren’t sold out yet.
I was able to catch old-school horror film “Cabin Fever” on Saturday night, a complete throwback/homage to films like “Evil Dead” and “the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” It’s tongue is firmly in it’s cheek, and that cheek probably shows nasty signs of some kind of flesh-eating bacteria. It both referenced and twisted a bunch of familiar horror cliches, and was worth the price of admission just for the joke that bookends the entire film.
Director Eli Roth (a local boy, born and raised in Newton, Mass) introduced the movie and did a hysterical Q&A afterwards. The man knows his way around a curse word, and couldn’t have been more comfortable swearing up and grossing out a storm, even with his family in the audience. They were obviously beaming with pride as he introduced and thanked ’em for helping to finance the film when it ran into money troubles. Roth was as excited as could be, and the crowd was equally into the whole experience.
A standout story was Eli’s trip to a festival in New Zealand earlier this year, where one of the crew from the Lord of the Rings films caught a screening and asked if he could show it to the rest of the LoTR team. Director Peter Jackson was blown away by it (not a surprise, considering his “Bad Taste” and “Braindead”), so he invited Roth to lunch and a tour of WETA, the special effects house that does all the LoTR work. Amazing. Jackson even offered up his own support for Cabin Fever in the form of quotes, which is why you’ll see “Brilliant! Fantastic! Horror fans have been waiting years for a movie like Cabin Fever. I loved it!” on the film’s posters. High praise indeed.
Also very cool were Roth’s David Lynch ramblings (he helped work on Lynch’s expectedly-out-there website), and how he was able to get Angelo Badalamenti to donate soundtrack music to the movie. Quite a score (ouch, terrible pun).
A couple other festival flicks I’m hoping to see …
Friday, Sept. 12th : Casa de Los Babys – A new John Sayles film with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Lili Taylor? Sold. I’ll see anything Sayles does since he directed Lone Star, one of my top five, as if the cast wasn’t enough to seal the deal.
Sunday, Sept. 14th : Shattered Glass – The story of infamous reporter Stephen Glass, with Hayden Christensen, Hank Azaria, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, and Steve Zahn. Another excellent cast (and more Maggie), plus an appearance at the 7:15 screening by director Billy Ray.
Amie’s also trying to convince me to see the Company on Wednesday, although I’m not too sure how jazzed I am to see a ballet movie starring Neve Campbell, who will be at the showing. It is a Robert Altman film, though… I’ll have to think about that one.
Check out the full festival schedule, then hop onto Fandango to grab tickets. I avoid Damnfango like the flesh-eating plague thanks to their ultra-annoying ads, but sometimes ya just gotta suck it up.
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