INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL OF BOSTON!!!

The Independent Film Festival of Boston kicks off tomorrow (Wednesday) night at the Somerville Theater in Davis Square. The opening night flick is HALF NELSON, starring Ryan Gosling as a dynamic junior high school history teacher, balancing teaching excellence and student inspiration with longtime drug and alcohol addiction. Perfect recipe for a romantic comedy, no?

Heh. I kid, I kid. About the romantic comedy bit, I mean. Check out the blurb for the real low-down.

Note: When checking out the overall schedule at the festival site, I strongly recommend using the pulldown menu to sort your options! Also check out the IFFB content, clips, and trailers at boston.com.

HALF NELSON kicks off six days of movie madness on screens at the MFA, the Brattle, the Coolidge, and the Somerville theaters. Movies include documentary and narrative features and shorts by the likes of Yuki Shimomura (VERSUS), Luc Besson (THE PROFESSIONAL), and the Brothers Quay (every other creepy music video featuring stop-motion animated miniatures, spasming raw meat, doll parts, and screws you've ever seen), and feature dramatic and comic performances from some little known actors looking to break in to the biz, y'know? William Macy, Jennie Garth, Joe Mantegna, Ryan Gosling, Ed Norton, David Morse (and he isn't an unexpected menacing baddie... or is he? =), Michael Cera (ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT), and Ed Helms (DAILY SHOW, BLACKBALLED). Also, workshops for filmmakers and cinephiles, as well as *conversations* with Chris Cooper and Lili Taylor!

I'm gonna pass on opening night. HALF NELSON looks very good, but I figure that it's gonna make it back to Bostonia in wide release, so I can wait it out and avoid opening night hooha, y'know? Besides, I'll probably need tomorrow night to button up a lot of work so that I can free myself to catch a dozen other movies in the following five days. =)

By my reckoning, CHALK looks to be the must-see of the feature films. Check out the description and decide for yourself that I'm right! =) I've already got my ticket for the Thursday night show (5.30pm) at Somerville. Anyone else want to check it out? It's also playing on Saturday at 3.30.

As of this evening, most films still have at least one showtime (almost all films and shorts packages play at twice over the course of the fest) with advance tickets available for purchase online. Note that even after advance tix have sold out, a decent number of "rush tickets" are available at the venues 15 minutes before showtime.

I'm planning on catching each of the three shorts packages, both "After Dark" offerings - DISTRICT B13 on Friday and DEATH TRANCE on Saturday - and a number of documentaries that promise to anger, frustrate, and educate me on how far from ideal the world is - AMERICAN BLACKOUT, WORKINGMAN'S DEATH, and SHADOW COMPANY. Good times!~

But hey! Keep in mind that the non-fiction pickins are not all so political or such potential downers. That's just me lookin for trouble. There look to be some excellent documentaries on the arts, with films about queer voices in modern Hip-Hop (PICK UP THE MIC), subway station troubadors (DOWNTOWN LOCALS), the Pixies (loudQUIETloud), and Mission Of Burma (NOT A PICTURE), as well as a half dozen legendary grafitti artists (INFAMY).

If you're finding something you're into, but no one to share your popcorn with, feel free to hit me with an email or call and I'll see if I can shoehorn another show into my festival itinerary. =)

Keep on keepin on~