“He was choking on Mars” Buffalo, New York hosted its first ever World Premiere showing of a film to be released theatrically in America. The Buffalo Niagara Film Festival’s gold ticket event for 2009 was for the film What Goes Up, a story set in the week leading up to the Challenger disaster in New Hampshire, home of teacher and astronaut Christa McAuliffe. Writers Robert Lawson and Jonathan Glatzer, (who also directed), were in attendance to introduce their work and explain their hope to get audiences thinking about what it…
Read MoreDay: May 8, 2009
BNFF09 REVIEW: Boppin’ at the Glue Factory [Junkie Nurse] [2009]
“I locked myself out of my bathroom” I should have known from the moment I sat down for my second screening at the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival that I was in for a good time. Three of the filmmakers were seated behind me, conducting an impromptu interview about the creative process that drove them to make Boppin’ at the Glue Factory [Junkie Nurse]. With good-natured quips, funny jabs at each other, and an overall jovial demeanor—at one point it was asked how the title was decided on and Hector Maldonado…
Read MoreBNFF09 REVIEW: Roses Have Thorns [2009]
“Japanese sucks, sorry” Some films seem like they will be great in concept, only to let you down in execution. The Buffalo Niagara Film Festival screening of Roses Have Thorns is one such example. An American production, but mostly spoken in Japanese and Korean, Jong W. Lee’s tale of love had the potential of being something very unique and creative. Dealing with four characters in their twenties—Jae Hoon Jeong’s Jay, a Japanese immigrant who has been in the country three years; his girlfriend Rachel, played by Vanessa Scott Lee; Kai…
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