REVIEW: Inspired [2015]

“Don’t be late” For a student film, Maggie Kaszuba‘s Inspired is an effective cinematic effort. Depicting the life of a teenage girl dealing with ambivalence at home and tough love at school, the short has a wealth of earned emotion once relationships flesh out and motivation is revealed. Samantha Higgins (Tyler Kipp) is an underachiever not by choice, but circumstance. She’s depressed, sleepwalking through a tired existence that Coach Stafford (Ariane M. Reinhart) makes worse via a refusal to listen to the real causes of her basketball player’s struggles. Only…

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FANTASIA16 REVIEW: Crimson Dance [2016]

“Welcome to the Bloody Burlesque Freak Show” Letting American burlesque dancer Tonya Kay perform an interpretive, sensual dance with blood isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about ways to raise public consciousness about donating this crucial fluid, yet here we are. Writer/director Patricia Chica not only thought it, she filmed it as the 4-minute short Crimson Dance—a document of the performance as it is staged with the addition of a surreally aroused crowd bloodthirsty enough to probably lick the substance off Kay’s skin if…

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REVIEW: Bir Uyku Vakti [In a Time for Sleep] [2016]

“They are all the same except for their names” Writer/director Tofiq Rzayev‘s latest short Bir Uyku Vakti [In a Time for Sleep] appears to have a lot to say beneath its melodramatic plot. I’m just not sure exactly what it is. This could be a “lost in translation” case, but I found it difficult to fully grasp the underlying themes besides an obvious sense of girl power in its characters freeing themselves from the domineeringly despicable man in their lives. I almost want to say that the result of what…

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REVIEW: Mower Minions [2016]

“Chop-ah chop-ah” The Minions used to be adorable little sidekicks—hilarious creatures ripe for slapstick in a secondary role to the film they were in (Despicable Me). And then they became bigger than the franchise that spawned them. Toys were made, companies recruited them to sell products, and their own feature length film was inevitably released in theaters. That’s all well and good because I am the first to say I enjoy those goobers as much as the next person. But why is Illumination transforming them into dead horses? Are they…

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REVIEW: Sound/Vision [2016]

“I continued my studies and the music stopped” Music is a powerful force—a sensory cause leading towards an effect of memory, emotion, and spirit. It brings us together beyond labels of race, gender, or religion with a commonality able to strip us down to our purest humanity. And as Ludwig van Beethoven proved through his timeless classics (some of which he wasn’t able to fully hear due to an onset of deafness), each note has the capacity to hit our heart and soul when our ears fail to comprehend them.…

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REVIEW: Romance [2013]

“Aim low and you won’t be disappointed” With the impending cinematic adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk‘s Lullaby about to swing into pre-production once its Kickstarter campaign finishes, it became time to look into its director Andy Mingo. His filmography includes one independent feature film and a few shorts—the obvious standout on paper being Romance, based upon a story by Palahniuk originating in Playboy magazine. Luckily for me backers were given access to a screener to see where Chuck and Andy’s artistic relationship began as well as anticipate what we can expect…

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REVIEW: Bulldog [2016]

“Who does drugs in their own home?” It can get tiresome watching movie upon movie projecting supposedly authentic glimpses of life’s complexities progress towards having its troubled central character find love, clarity, or redemption with a bow on top. So tiresome in fact that we find ourselves waiting for the moment to come as a rule of inevitability. As soon as the lead starts spiraling we anticipate the epiphany that will change his/her life around once and for all. Writer/director Benjamin Tran understands this bit of Hollywood conditioning and throws…

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REVIEW: Land of My Dreams [2012]

“I want to be gorgeous” The above quote says everything. As do the lyrics to the titular song (originated by Aretha Franklin with Anna Domino providing vocals for the version used in the film) enhancing the melancholic atmosphere presented by writer/director Yann Gonzalez. His Land of My Dreams is just that: a dream. It’s a reunion between mother (Paula Guedes) and daughter (Julie Brémond‘s Bianca) after an unspecified length of time. The first thing we hear the latter say is “I want to be gorgeous,” sentiments that don’t seem to…

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REVIEW: Heir [2015]

“Ain’t nothing like the real thing” It’s not difficult to parse what’s happening after watching Gordon (Robert Nolan) chat online about his son with an as yet unnamed partner. The verbiage is simple and direct: “my son” with photo and a “play date??? :)” in reply. His anxiety and fear is palpable, but he doesn’t stop. He’s ready to take a leap that leaves no room for turning back and his transformation into the monster necessary to do so has begun to take shape with his flesh opening wide. Gordon…

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REVIEW: Dirty Books [2016]

“Jobs? You’re an after school club.” Print is dead and apparently this isn’t only true in the outside world where magazines and newspapers are shuttering and/or moving to a more robust online presence. Of course schools would find themselves facing the same problem. After all, it’s the latest generations’ penchant for using the internet as a source of daily headlines that has more or less catalyzed the transition. So when cost saving measures become number one on the to-do list of middle school principals the nation over, shuttering a paper…

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REVIEW: A Walk Through H: The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist [1978]

“This drawing was probably the one I’d need first” What is “H”? It doesn’t stand for heron or owl keeper Van Hoyten. No, “H” is a place only decipherable when approaching its end—a journey spanning 1,418 miles traveled by following 92 distinct drawings that double as maps until such time comes when they fade into oblivion. More precisely they fade into a crossroads signpost or windmill silhouette, identical iconography left behind as a marker denoting we’ve finished one more step towards finding our destination. Whether or not that end point…

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