The Voice in the Head, The Foster Portfolio, Adam, Again, Inside Job, Deirdre, Dive, The Escape, Oh, The Effing Horror, A Dixon Twins Mystery & Foodoo Doll,
Review by Paul Preston
Welcome to Today I Watched…, a series of posts documenting my new challenge – watch a movie a day for the rest of my life. Keep coming back to TheMovieGuys.net to find out what I watch each day…and get my take on it.
When I see a movie that’s a new release in theaters or on demand, I’ll give it a proper review in the “Reviews” or “Home Viewing” categories, otherwise, I’ll write about it here.
May 1, 2017 – The Voice in the Head
“If sanity and insanity exist, how shall we know them?”. With these words spoken early in Cyrus Trafford’s short film The Voice in the Head, you can tell this short won’t be a boob or gore-fest (or the double whammy boob & gore-fest). This is a contemplative short that begins by a young woman…contemplating…this very question. She’s reminded of an encounter with a crazy person on a train. Or…is she crazy? The young woman begins to deconstruct the relationship with the mentally afflicted and the line between them and those of us who are “sane”.
This is a sharp and sober picture, certainly the work of a director with a vision. There are no haphazard shots or themes. The voice over is effective, the CGI snow is not (CGI snow, CGI fire and CGI blood drive me nuts). The ending didn’t galvanize me, leaving me content with the ending, but not blown away. But in a world of an internet full of dopey shorts, here’s one that’s cinematic.
The Voice in the Head from Cyrus Trafford on Vimeo.
May 2, 2017 – The Foster Portfolio
I hate to say it, but here’s another short whose ending didn’t blow me away. Not that I need to have a Sixth Sense-type ending to everything, but I was just hoping for more by the time I hit the finales of The Foster Portfolio and The Voice in the Head. That’s a testament to the quality of film up to the ending. The Foster Portfolio is about a young investment counselor who examines a man’s financial status (Herbert Foster), finds it to be much more lucrative than would be inferred from Foster’s lifestyle, yet Foster doesn’t want to take advantage of the hidden fortune.
This is a Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. story, and the finale feels like one that would have an impact on a 1951 reader. The whole film hinges on the ending, and it was more than competently served up – the re-creation of place and time is impeccable and the photography is excellent, Roe Hartrampf, Joel Nagle and Rebecca Watson all give great performances – but it didn’t resonate as much to this 2017 viewer. The production is a professional job, so it’s worth taking in yourself to field your own opinion should you see it at a festival or when it eventually pops up online.
May 3, 2017 – Adam
Full disclosure – I purposefully looked for the shortest short possible. Not a lot of time today. Work and taping a New Movie Show ate up the day, but I squeezed in Adam, an expressionist art piece by Evelyn Jane Ross. Scroll around Vimeo and you can find all sorts of different styles of short. This one is very artsy and certainly impressive. The description is “In the beginning of them, She created us.”, and Ms. Ross animates clay sculptures to show what could be the beginning of time and clearly there’s a female god. The soundtrack is very odd, but its hypnotic pulse seems to entice the flowing clay, ever-evolving and creating her, then us. If you like the clay sculpting work of Laika or Aardman Animation, see the kind of surreal pieces that can come from being agenda-less and free-flowing. It’s cool:
Adam from Evelyn Jane Ross on Vimeo.
May 4, 2017 – I Am Not Your Negro – catch the review of the Oscar-nominated documentary in the HOME VIEWING category of TheMovieGuys.net.
May 5, 2017 – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – catch the review of the blockbuster return of the misfit superheroes in the REVIEWS category of TheMovieGuys.net.
May 6, 2017 – Again
Again, a short film from writer Bekah Brunstetter and director Alexis Jacknow is a sharp ten plus minutes. Well shot and well acted, it’s all in service to a pretty unique story. A man finds himself watching Groundhog Day over and over again. Oh, the fun you could have with that, ‘cause, you see, that movie itself, you see, is a man reliving time over and over again. A plot like this seems on the fun bus to comedy town, but this short chooses to get deeper, and the performers are up to the task. Morrison Keddie underplays the man to good effect, quoting his favorite lines right out of the Bill Murray classic and Aubrey Dollar plays the woman who brings him his lunch. I’ll let the film take it from here, as there are elements best left undescribed before you sit in front of it. Look for it in fests now. It just played Tribeca and is making the rounds.
May 7, 2017 – Inside Job
This is one of the worst films of any size I have ever seen. Again, people who make shorts are just tryin’, so I, in turn, try not to crap on ‘em. Spend $150 million, you’re gonna hear from me. But this movie is calling itself a dark comedy, and with that gives itself license to be the basest, crudest, most awful movie of the year. It’s a shame that it shares its name with one of the finest documentaries of the last ten years. If you see this title and it’s a SHORT film, run away.
May 8, 2017 – Deirdre
This film came to me via Patricia Chica and the ChicArt PR Team. Whenever I’m busy like I am these days and my movie-a-day obsession whittles down to short films for a while, the ChicArt stable of films they’re promoting can usually deliver. I enjoyed Night of the Slasher and the Lynchian simplicity of My Father’s Tools, both of which are represented in the March and April 2017 pages of the “Today I Watched…” movies. Dierdre represents more quality filmmaking, but unfortunately this one didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
It’s about a young, quiet, seemingly-put-upon girl in Ireland (Deirdre) who loves a young boy, but everything in her life revolves around her overbearing parent. Isn’t that always the case? (See Carrie or Dead Poets Society). In this case, it’s an overbearing mother (Elaine Fox in a wonderfully unhinged performance), and the film does a fine job of building up Deirdre’s frustration but it leads to an ending that feels totally tacked on, more of a postscript than a finale. Further research shows that this short is a proof-of-concept piece for a feature in development. I think the feature, given more time, will be quite good, but I can’t recommend the short because that ending just feels like they stuck an epilogue on everything rather than wrap it up with details. It’ll be easier to address those details in a feature-length film.
As ever, I look forward to whatever ChicArt PR brings next.
May 9, 2017 – Dive
This short film is gorgeously shot and features a beyond gorgeous lead actress, Luz Edith Casillas. She is nervous in bed next to an equally scantily-clad man. She leaves her ring and a note saying “I’m sorry” next the bed and exits. By seven minutes later, I was hoping to know more of what was going on, but that was never delivered on a level I found wholly satisfying. The biggest inhibitor of my good time was a gross over-use of sound effects. From running fingers over a ring to the lead actress pulling her pants up, sound effects were crashing into the scenes unnecessarily. Also, there’s a subplot (yes, a subplot in seven minutes) involving a valet and I’m still trying to figure out he ties in to anything.
Did I mention Luz Casillas is intoxicatingly beautiful? See for yourself:
DIVE. Short Film. from Benjamin Villeda on Vimeo.
May 10, 2017 – The Escape
This short film is a parade of actors I was happy to see again! Hey, look, it’s Julian Sands! And is that Art Malik from True Lies? And Olivia Williams? Why isn’t she in more stuff? They’re not only in a project again, but a pretty good one, too.
The Escape’s central premise is “What if you could be offered a life of fulfillment, but the cost is everything you own?”. More catch for our lead character – he’d also have to give up ten years of his own life. So, the payoff to live in your fantasies must be bewilderingly fantastic. Most people can appreciate the ups and downs of life, one making way for and affording the other and those lucky enough to have someone to share life with should be even more appreciative, no? Our lead hero, Lambert (Sands) is contemplating the importance of all he’s put together in life as he weighs jumping into a fantasy world at the hands of the negotiator of his pipedreams, a shadowy figure played by Malik.
Director Paul Franklin puts us right in Lambert’s head, fretting over clearly the biggest choice in his life, and he does so with expert pacing befitting the short timeframe. But much like Deirdre (which I wrote about above), this feels like it could be a blueprint for a feature. The difference is that this entertains as a short while making the argument for a bigger budget and an extra hour +. Franklin’s backed by a solid tech team – cinematography, sound, gloomy locations and VFX are all on-point. Julian Sands has such a striking look, it’s interesting to see him so dowdy here, but he pulls it off and the other actors deliver solid work as their reputations would suggest.
No surprise this is making the festival rounds, but to whet your appetite, here’s the trailer:
THE ESCAPE trailer from Paul franklin on Vimeo.
May 11, 2017 – Snatched – catch the review of the Amy Schumer/Goldie Hawn team-up in the REVIEWS category of TheMovieGuys.net.
May 12, 2017 – Oh, The Effing Horror
Here’s where I pull another fast one on just how exactly the movie-a-day thing works. I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, as evidenced by how many shorts I’ve been watching. So this week, I’ve stretched the definition to mean “an average of a movie a day”…! Bear with me here, this ain’t easy!
A short film I made (produced, co-wrote and shot) called Oh, The Effing Horror, played at the Die Laughing Film Festival on the 12th. I saw a number of shorts that night, three of which are going to cover the next three days for me, even though I saw them all in one night. Actually, I saw more than three shorts, but I’ll talk about three because film festivals are interesting. I often find myself sitting in the crowd watching shorts and features thinking to myself, “Christ, what did they reject?”. Start paying attention, a lot of featured movies in festivals aren’t that good. It’s a mystery. Maybe there are too many festivals?
Oh, The Effing Horror was well-received, but I’ll pass on any thoughts or a review because I helped make the thing. But there is one great side-effect that’s come out of this short experience that helps everyone, including YOU! My co-conspirator on this project, and author of many an article here at TheMovieGuys.net, Justin Bowler, submitted our film to fests by reaching out to the festivals in advance of submitting with a letter. The letter was meant to gauge the fest’s filmmaker friendliness. Are they communicative? Do they have ample perks for filmmakers once their film is selected? It’s important to know if your film is getting a fair shake from the people who run fests, and Justin’s reported on all the fests we submitted to and the result is a 40+ week article series. Check it out in the ARTICLES section of our site:
Although I wasn’t a fan of everything they aired the night I went to the Die Laughing Film Festival, they received a positive review for how they treated us. You can read HERE the knowledgeable and communicative responses of fest head Ray Chao:
Here’s the Effing trailer:
OH, THE EFFING HORROR Official Trailer HD from Justin Bowler on Vimeo.
May 13, 2017 – A Dixon Twins Mystery
This was the second year in a row I attended Chapman University’s talent showcase at The Garry Marshall Theatre (aka The Falcon Theatre) in Toluca Lake. The students perform scenes or monologues and appear in an original scene they shot on video to show their stage and screen acting chops. Industry is invited and it’s been a pretty solid night of well-rehearsed and delivered talent both years I attended. This year’s show was May 9th and I saw Matthew Manhard and Abigail Sims perform (among many others). They didn’t perform together, but they were both impressive. I wish the audience that night got to see them perform together in the short film I saw a month later at the Die Laughing Film Festival, A Dixon Twins Mystery, where Manhard and Sims’ comedy skills were on fine display.
A Dixon Twins Mystery is a throwback spoof to the Nancy Drew and Scooby Doo-type mysteries of the ‘60s. Director Wyatt Lake and screenwriter Daniel Hynes take the wise course of making the film as if they have a real affinity for the subject matter while at the same time sending it up, so production and script have a real adherence to the goofiness of the source material. The big switch is that the Dixon Twins (Manhard and Sims) are taking on something never touched by the sweet and innocent Hardy Boys – cult sacrifice. This short is just top to bottom hilarious, and on-point in its satire from shot staging to character reference.
Matthew Manhard is the next coming of Andrew Rannells (I’m sure he’s gotten that before) and Sims is a perfect Daphne/Velma mix. The rest of the cast is good, too, with a nice score in getting Don Lake to be the TV announcer. I don’t mean to sound like the old guy shaking his fist at the clouds, but I’m also impressed that college-age filmmakers would take on this topic to satirize. Twenty-somethings can get categorized about not giving a damn about anything that happened before the day they were born. And there’s plenty of data to back that point up. Lacking that short-sightedness pays big dividends for Wyatt Lake and her team, satirizing this type of frozen-in-time detective story and being so goddamn funny about it. See this as soon as its festival run is over.
Kudos to Nanci Ruby, Theatre Department professor at Chapman University for continuing to nurture solid talent!
May 14, 2017 – Foodoo Doll
“Warning: You can’t un-see this movie.” That’s the Foodoo Doll description on YouTube. And that’s it! Apt.
This is another short that embodies the title of the fest wherein I saw it – Die Laughing. It’s a solid combination of horror and comedy, spoofing the on-going mantra that women feel they must be as thin as possible, downright skinny, and doing it in a gross-out horror fashion. Milly Sanders plays Becca, a young woman who purchases a Foodoo Doll which will grant her desired weight. Of course, she should stop eating, too, and then the Foodoo Doll goes to grotesque work. Jessee Foudray plays a supporting role and voices the doll.
The short is just about the right length, with directors Justin Lee and Matt Thiesen bringing it in just under five minutes so you don’t have to wait forever for the punchline that ties everything up nicely. The tone is almost that of one of those 1950s “Your environment and You”-type PSAs, with Sanders going just to the edge of over-the-top, but as long as you can stomach the gore, the movie never forgets it’s essentially having fun (with a dark comment on society to boot).
And as the first comment on their YouTube page confirms, the Foodoo Doll works ‘cause you may not want to eat after you see this:
