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Posts Tagged ‘Twin Cities Film Fest’

With more emphasis on big-name stars and early screenings of upcoming Hollywood films, the focus of the new fest feels different from others.

Just beating to the punch next week’s return of the Sound Unseen Film Festival and the week after’ Black Film Festival. The land of 10,000 film festivals has another one: The Twin Cities Film Fest kicks off tonight.

I’m most looking forward to “Nowhere Boy,” which is a tale of the early years of John Lennon and the project that introduced married, then-41-year-old director Sam Taylor Wood to her now-lover, Aaron Johnson, who plays Lennon and was 18 at the time.

Over five days, the festival will include more than a dozen features, many of them locally made, and short films. For the full schedule, go to twincitiesfilmfest.org.

I’ve seen a few of the films in the festival and here’s what I know (all of these screenings are at Block E theaters in downtown Minneapolis):

“Conviction” — It’s a prototypical Hilary Swank role: a plucky, true-life heroine who doesn’t wear makeup. But “Conviction” rises above what sounds like TV-movie origins with great performances by Swank, Sam Rockwell, Juliette Lewis and Minnie Driver and with the powerful story of Betty Anne Waters, whose suicidal brother is in jail for a murder he didn’t commit and who resolves to free him by attending college, then law school and then reprepresenting him. (8 p.m. Thursday)

“The End

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of the Line” — Already available on video, but worth seeing, however you see it, this bummer of a documentary warns us that the day when the ocean produces no fish is not so far off. (2 p.m. Friday)

“Fair Game” — Another true story: What happened to covert CIA agent Valerie Plame after columnist Robert Novak, tipped off by a source inside the White House, outed her. But it’s really the complex story of the uniquely pressured marriage of Plame (Naomi Watts) and former ambassador Joseph Wilson (Sean Penn). (7 p.m. Saturday)

“A Good Day to Die” — It’s not the most beautifully put-together documentary, but it is a valuable, close-up look at Dennis Banks, whose role in the founding of the American Indian Movement has not been given its due. (6 p.m. Saturday)

“Night Catches Us” — Recriminations and betrayal among folks who hover around the Black Panther party in the ’70s. It’s not great, but Kerry Washington — as a woman whose strength holds several men together — is. (7 p.m. Thursday and 1 p.m. Saturday)

“Phasma Ex Machina” — Its low budget sometimes holds back this Minnesota-made chiller (some of the acting is iffy, and it could really use an atmospheric musical score). But the be-careful-what-you-wish-for story — a grieving young man who invents a machine that can bring back the dead — is quietly effective and has a nice little message about appreciating the time we have. (7 p.m. Wednesday)

“Waiting for Superman” — David Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) turns his attention to flaws in our education system in this moving, cogent documentary. (7 p.m. Thursday)

“Secretariat” — Diane Lane stars in another true story, this one about the people behind the horse that won the Triple Crown in 1973. What works best is the stuff that focuses on the horse, particularly in his triumph at the Belmont Stakes. (7 p.m. Friday)