CIFF

Cleveland International Film Festival
Check it out at clevelandfilm.org
So far I've seen three movies, I plan on seeing at least one if not two more today!

Dark Horse-
Not a bad film. It's from Iceland and has some pretty nifty cinematography. For the first hour of the movie the story is interesting and intriguing, but then it just started to peter off into boredom.

Akeelah and the Bee-
Eh, a strange choice for the opener of the festival. Very family oriented. Probably a great movie for kids. The performances were inspired, but the writing lacked effort. There were a lot of cheesy moments and contrived plot movements. Overall, I would recommend it to anyone interested in spelling bees, but I don't know too many people interested in spelling bees. The other topics broached in this film were white washed out and really didn't have enough grit to learm from them. Some of those topics included: difficulty for young urban youths to get ahead without proper and adequate school funding; urban crime, violence and senseless crime; Fear of oneself preventing achievement; and last but not least just because your momma doesn't seem to care doesn't mean she don't love you. Big kudos to the kid who played Javier. It was interesting to see a latino of wealth and education, and the actor who played the role deserves a lot of credit for saving the charm aspect missing from Mr. Fishburne.

Amu-
I liked watching this picture. It was from India, but was mostly in English with some Bangalese translated with subtitles(the program said there was hindi in there too, but my Indian friend Sundeep suggested otherwise). The film was primarily about an American girl that was born in India and the search to find herself which in this case was finding out who her real parents were. I won't give away the lack of surprise ending, but I will say that while at some points it was slow, the pacing to this movie felt pretty good. The performances were real and believable. The story didn't go in depth enough into the actual politics of the tragedy that overshadows the movie, but I guess it didn't choose to pick sides or argue who was wrong, well except for the government(easy target). I enjoyed the cultural aspects and the way the film was shot. There were good moments where I really was lost in India and enthralled with it's people. I'd recommend this to anyone, but I don't think it has another showing.

More reviews to come!