Sunday, October 9, 2011

Flower City Flicks


The perennial favorite local shorts program- Flower City Flicks begins today at 11am at the Dryden theater. Join us for three great films; Poker Face, It's Just a Community Place, and Born Equal. Lively talk with the actors and filmmakers joining us live this morning will follow the screenings.

4 comments:

Chris Mc. said...

Poker Face - The film has a great set of characters, but is very fast paced. This is one of those cases when I wish it had been longer. I would like to have learned a bit more about these ladies. Becky Lane has a bright future as a film maker!

Just A Community Place - a nice and informative documentary. I had never heard of this area of Syracuse but will make a point of trying to see it for myself someday.

Stefan said...

Poker Face—Definitely not about Lady Gaga, lol... Anyway, I would have liked it to be a little longer myself but I think Becky Lane made another fun film.And what kind of camera did you use? It must have been an expensive one because it looked, really, really, professional. Keep making films because you are really good at it :)

Community place—I so need to go there. Laci's Tapas Bar? Great, I'll look it up? Might be a while before I can get over there though. I don't go to the 'cuse too often. But it's on my list. When the film showed shots of the food coming out (no pun intended) I was like nom, nom,nom,nom nom. Yum Yum!

And Born Equal? I loved learning about various religious traditions and stories—except I had trouble making the connections between that and the family that was interviewed. I couldn't hear some of the dialogue and that might have had something to do with it.

But they were all great. Yay for Flower City Flicks!
They've raised the bar very high!

Anonymous said...

Poker face was a tight vignette, but perhaps a little cute in that it all hinged on the phrase "You should have told me". Great group of actors, and Becky is surely a director to watch.

The two documentaries suffered from the usual problem of excessive length and lack of focus. Community had the benefit of great Upstate characters. We have a distinctive look and culture up here, so great to see that on film. But I would have liked to see a larger focus on the community side of this story, as currently this doc is too close to an infomercial for Lacis (which I totally intend to go visit).

Born Equal had few redeaming qualities for me. The Rochester family were real and charming, especially the kids, and the NYC interviews were OK. But the little gay mythological stories were very awkward. The editing was bewildering, and I was left not really knowing what this doc was about. There is some really good footage, so I'd recommend the filmmakers rethink their narrative and cut this down to half it's current running time.

Flower City Flicks is a great concept, but for me failed to deliver this year. Better luck with submissions in 2012

Woody said...

I liked all three, and thought they were all well done.

Poker Face was short, but very intense. It could easily have been extended into a longer short, but is a gem as it is.

Community Place was an outstanding documentary, and a great view on how we form communities. Well done, if a touch long. :)

Born Equal could have easily been two separate documentaries. One on the family and one on the religious aspects. I liked how the two were intertwined though, and think it could be easily be used as a tool for the community. It's mix could easily place it in several other religious based festivals (the JFF springs to mind), where it could really open the door to new audiences.