Critical Funhouse

My thoughts on short- and full-length films.

[criticalfunhouse]

Critique for Daniel

First, I feel as though, as angry as the character is in the beginning, he would be listening to more intense music.  Mood usually affects what we're listening to.

I also think the voice-over is unnecessary, which is something we discussed in class.  We'll know how Riley's feeling based on his expressions, actions, and what's going on around him.

Favorite part of the entire script was the stepdad's dialogue to the mother.  Not sure if it was humorously written, or if Alex just performed it well, or both, but it was hilarious and got the point across.

Something I didn't like—the fact that the old man was lying in the form of a cross.  It came across as ridiculous and super over-the-top, plus unrealistic if he was just in a car crash.  You're going to reveal the man's beliefs in the ensuing dialogue, so this is unnecessary anyway.

I also feel the whole interaction between the man and the kid should be reworked a lot, for several reasons:

-The kid is seventeen, but he's being spoken to as if he's never heard of Christianity.  Furthermore, whether he's a Christian or not, he would know the answers to many of the questions he asked already.  Unless the character's retarded or six, he'd also ask better questions.

-There's no way the kid would immediately be so interested in Christianity, either.  There would've been plenty of opportunities leading up to that point in his life for him to find out more about it, so for him to suddenly want to know everything and more about Christianity and the bible, et cetera, just wouldn't happen.  He would've already researched those questions.  As it stands the main character just isn't believable.

-Another problem I had was with the old man.  If Riley just saved the man's life and was taking him to a hospital and the man immediately starts talking about Jesus and nothing else and continues on as such for the rest of the ride, Riley would take everything the man said with a grain of salt.  He would think he was a crazy old religious proselytizer.  Which would be true.

-Also, being forced into things was what made him leave home, so I highly doubt he'd immediately be so receptive to someone trying to force him into any religion.

-The dialogue between the man and Riley is meant to be very heavy and have a profound effect on Riley, but the answers the man provides are pretty pat answers and wouldn't really convince a non-believer.

Overall I think it would help if you had a clearer idea of a message you were trying to get across, or a main goal.  Or, if you have one, just try to make it clearer.  Approach fewer grand ideas, instead choosing to focus on a couple small ones more in-depth.  Try to put yourself into the eyes of Riley or ask someone else how he'd react in the same situation and use that as Riley's initial reaction before gradually becoming more receptive to the ideas of the old man.  Have the old man portray his views in a more convincing manner, and in such a way that they would genuinely interest someone instead of in a way that would have the listener dismiss him completely as obnoxious and crazy.

[criticalfunhouse]

Best of the Best

Alright, so we've seen a lot of short films at this point. But which ones have been the best so far? Now that they've had time to seep in, I'm ranking the five best we've seen. [Note: Manhattan Film Festival shorts are included] 1. Morning Fall 2. The Strange Ones 3. Dik 4. The Incident 5. Legend of Beaver Dam (I'm including two more that aren't from the festival) 6. The Big Shave 7. The Sigur Rós music video

[criticalfunhouse]

Doodlebug

Disappointment was the biggest emotion I felt after watching this film.  Not because it was bad, because it wasn't—it just wasn't as incredible as I've come to expect from Chris Nolan.

In fact, I really enjoyed the main idea, I just think it could've been directed a lot better.  The man's actions clearly indicated how frantically obsessed he was with catching the bug, but the man himself didn't seem to convey the same sense of urgency.  His motions seemed forced, like he was acting.  Which, obviously, he was, but you shouldn't be able to tell.  It also seemed like he was just really shitty in general at trying to catch the bug, because it wasn't small.

I did, however, like the overarching concept.  And I loved the image at the end of him killing himself, then the bigger him's face appearing behind medium him.  It was a very interesting idea tackled before Chris Nolan had mastered his art, and the fact that it was him is making me bump up the score a bit simply because you can see how he began.

6.5/10

[criticalfunhouse]

Bean Cakes

Bean cakes was harmless enough I guess.  I just didn't really like it.  Anything about it.  I thought they were too old for the girl to be so friendly so quickly.  The other kids were bitchy to him for no real reason, which seemed too easy for me to buy it.  The teacher seemed to automatically have a problem with Uchida for no reason.  The kid seemed like he was freakin' narcoleptic or something, too.  And just stupid.  I get that you love bean cakes, kid, but you know what country you live in, so if you wanna stay in school, get over it.

3.5/10

[criticalfunhouse]

Post-it Love

I thought this video was adorable.  Was it shallow?  Probably (although a case could be made for a deeper psychological connection between the two shy office workers than appears at the surface due to their shared traits), but sometimes that's okay.

I thought the music was good.  Not perfect, but certainly above average.  The acting added to the cuteness, too.  My favorite part, though, was a tiny but hilarious detail:  After Shy Girl gets a metric fuck-ton of post-it notes from the supply closet to make pictures with, there's a sign to the side that says stationary is only to be used for work-related reasons.

All in all, even if there wasn't much to this film (on the surface), I thought the cute storyline coupled with the film's brevity made it a worthwhile viewing.

8/10

[criticalfunhouse]

Cashback

This film was an interesting one.  It took an interesting idea, and executed it very well.

The film starts with a boy who cleans up messes at a grocery store.  At first it seems like he might be a womanizer, as he stares a customer up and down as she walks by; but then it is discovered that his reason for checking this woman out is the point of the film—it's his escape.  His mental departure from the eight-hour shift.  And it's not sexual—he simply finds the contours of the female figure beautiful.  He pictures them all in varying degrees of naked, and pictures drawing them.

Other mental departure methods are shown as well, such as the two deli workers who joke around with each other.  But the check-out girl's method is never shown, even though she is consistently shown "checked-out."

I like the way we only see this one slice of this kid's life.  There seemed to be some kind of relationship, whether it be one-sided or reciprocated, between the boy and the check-out girl, but we never see much into that, because it's not about that.  We catch glimpses though.  As we catch glimpses of how that same girl could be being harassed by her boss, but nothing is certain.

The ethereal daydream sequence lends itself wonderfully to the theme of mental departure, while still allowing hints of something of a larger scope to be revealed, enticing the audience with the prospect of relationship undertones, but leaving the audience wanting more.

8/10

[criticalfunhouse]

For Our Man

Eeeeeeh.  Meh.  I liked certain aspects of this one, but there were many more things I disliked.

For starters:  Loved the old man.  I thought he did a great job, and I loved his voice.  He didn't necessarily look like a writer, but he made up for it.  I also really liked the fast cuts of ink dipping, splattering, writing, et cetera used when the man was writing something and talking it out in his head.  Then I was very glad that the man in the story didn't live at the end, because I was afraid he was going to.

I also really enjoyed the idea of experiencing a writer's thought process as he did.  But I found some of the ideas he had too silly and/or outlandish to be entertainable to someone of his age.  One such idea was from one of his first causes of death for the man's story's protagonist:  the stray bullet.  Obviously the idea of a stray bullet killing someone is completely plausible, but after hitting the balloons, the hat, the quarter, I feel like it would have either stopped or changed trajectories, whereas in the film it just keeps on goin' straight as an arrow.  I know, I know, it's pedantic, but it's things like that that disrupt suspension of disbelief.  Another example of such is at the end, when the man throws the hammer and it travels, like, 400 fuckin' miles.  It's just... I dunno.  I didn't think it fit with the far more serious subject matter.

Which, speaking of, I also didn't care for.  I get what Sean Ellis was going for and everything, I just thought the way he presented it was overly-long, convoluted, and pretentious.  And I'm noticing as I'm writing this that I'm getting more and more annoyed by the flaws, whereas usually I can keep the good and bad aspects of a film separate.

There were a few other little things that bothered me and I was going to let go, but not enjoying the rest of the film made letting go of the little things a lot harder.  An example of this is the fact that we're given no context under which he is being forced to write.  Is he forcing himself to write? or is it an assignment?  Does the man really have to die? or is that just the creative choice he wishes to uphold, leaving the method of death his next decision?  I'm all for ambiguity, but he even brings up the question of "why" to himself, and he never (satisfactorily) answers it.

At the beginning, this film showed promise.  Then it took a couple of wrong turns, but I thought by the end, maybe the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts.  It wasn't.

4/10

[criticalfunhouse]

Sooner or Later

Sooner or Later didn't really feel like a short film to me; it felt more like a single scene from a longer film.  And because of that, I thought it was lacking.

As a whole I found the film to be well-directed and mostly well-written, but there were too many issues for me to really enjoy it.  I thought the two actors did good jobs, and there were some little details I enjoyed, such as the first time the Gestapo poured the water from the carafe and it ran down the length of it, making it more realistic than if he had poured it perfectly, or the multitude of cigarette butts in the ashtray at the very end.  I also liked the mystery at first when the Gestapo was suddenly dead.  And I even liked it when the man jumped back in time, completely flustered, and the Gestapo realized what had happened.

I did not, however, like when the future version of the prisoner came in, deus ex machina-style, and everything proceeding that.  I don't think it makes sense the way it ended, with the future prisoner sitting down in the chair, preparing for the situation the old prisoner was in,  because, if that was the action that occurred in the temporal arrangement of events, the present prisoner would not have experienced it until he became the future prisoner.  There would never have been a time in which present and future prisoners switched places whilst reversing the timeline to the point at the beginning of the interview.  It's just a pretty glaring plot hole.

I also took issue with the ending, as we never find out what happens.  Not that that is always necessary, but there should be some semblance of closure, twist, return to status quo, or really anything that doesn't make it seem like you're changing the channel in the middle of a scene.

5.5/10

[criticalfunhouse]

Morning Fall

Alright, new favorite.  Everything about this film was perfect.  I loved the pacing.  I loved the acting.  I loved the story.  Just, everything.

The main character, hereto forth to be referred to as Man, awakes injured on the ground with no recollection of the events that transpired to cause the current situation.  He slowly discovers more and more about how he hurt himself (motorcycle accident), also realizing just how injured he is.

He spots a deer, next.  Dead.  Presumably from the same accident, and it makes him realize that he could easily have been killed just like the deer, as well as exposing to him the cause of the accident.  Soon thereafter he walks into the road, looking for a person in a passing car to help him out, but he begins feeling dizzy and falls down, at the time appearing to have possibly died, and probably believing there to be a good chance of dying.

But he does not.  Someone saves him.  A Christian man driving by helps him into his car.  At first I thought the crucifix hanging from the rear-view mirror was going to be misleading and that the man who picked Man up was going to rape and/or kill him, but 'twas not so.

Then, after surviving the accident, surviving the resulting wounds, finding someone to help him, and getting to a pay-phone to call his wife/girlfriend...

She died in the accident.  Her body was near his all along.

10/10

[criticalfunhouse]

Gridlock

Oh wow.  Did not see that coming.

So Gridlock started with a little classic Short Film Irony (SFI)—beach music playing in a snowy scene.  Then it changed gears quickly.  After setting the scene of Tim trapped in horrible rush-hour traffic, the film quickly switches pace and, via Tim's daughter, tells us that Tim's wife is having an affair.  Tim wants to be sure, so he gets Little Girl to go check and knock on the door, then tell him what happens.  The film has us waiting with Tim to find out the outcome, then when we finally do find out, the results are both horrific and hilarious at the same time (black humor for the win).  Both the mom and Uncle Wim die, the latter of whom fell in the pool.

But wait a second... Tim doesn't have a pool.  Uh oh.  I was in such a state of shock and laughter at that point.  So Tim caused this absolutely tragic sequence of events to a family he doesn't even know.  Love it.

My only real complaint (other than the fact that if he always takes pills at that rate, he should be dead by now) is the daughter.  She shouldn't be so fucking calm.  You're mom just died, kid...  I mean, maybe an argument could be made for her being in shock or something, but... I'm not buying it.

Overall, though, great film, and definitely one of my favorites so far.

9.5/10

[criticalfunhouse]

The Lunch Date

I absolutely loved this film.  Everything about it.  It took a story I'd actually heard before that happened to someone I knew (well, a similar one, but it was with a bag of chips) and I still didn't see it coming at all.

To start off, I have to mention I was prepared to dislike this film.  When, as IMDb calls her, Lady acted like such a bitch to Unnamed Black Guy, I thought to myself, "Whatever misadventure she gets herself into by missing the train is going to annoy me."  Then she missed the train and started crying, and for some reason I changed my mind and started feeling bad for her.

Which brings me to a big point I want to point out—Scotty Bloch (Lady) did a great job acting-wise. Even in little scenes, like when she's counting out her money for the salad, her performance was note-worthy.  But she really shone when she sat back down at the table and the seemingly-homeless man is eating the seemingly-her salad.  After a moment of contemplation, she hesitantly takes a bite with her own fork—then another, and another, slowly getting more and more comfortable with it.  She ends up sharing a nice lunch with the homeless man, then gets up and leaves.

I should have seen it coming, because I even thought about the fact that the "homeless" man's hat had a tag and, assumedly, was new, but I didn't—he wasn't homeless.  It was his salad.  He thought she was the weird one.

And when she realizes this, she laughs.

9.5/10

[criticalfunhouse]

The Crush

This video was a lot of fun, and very well-done.  The cinematography was great, and the desaturated palate really helped set the tone of the film.  Overall I really enjoyed it, and it had a good twist, but I did have one problem with the end.

One thing I didn't notice until watching it the second time was the words Ms. Purdy wrote on the chalkboard at the beginning:  Reveal, Pretend, and Love, all of which end up turning into major themes in the film.  I always like when films include subtle foreshadowing like that (as opposed to the Rocky conversation in Get that Number), so that was welcomed.

Not so sure how I felt about the kid who played Ardal.  Some scenes I really liked him, but others I felt they could've found someone better.  And, as an aside, but I felt super confident that I had seen him before, but according to IMDb I am mistaken.  He was cute though, and he did a good enough job.  But he seemed too stoic.  I mean, I get that he was in love with his teacher, but the kid seemed fuckin' clinically depressed the entire movie except for that one scene after he gives Ms. Purdy the ring and he smiles.

I did really like the way Ardal reacted to the revelation that Ms. Purdy had a boyfriend, and how sad it is when he crumples up the "marry me" paper and then un-crumples it.  I also loved the boyfriend's reaction when Ardal challenged him to a duel to the death.

My main complaint, however, revolves around the big reveal, when it turns out, oh, I guess the boyfriend is a prick after all.  But that's not what I had a problem with.  I liked the way the film made you think that Ardal's gun was real since you'd seen his dad with it earlier, but even if Ardal had the boyfriend at gunpoint, I don't know if I buy that, upon being urged to say he wouldn't marry Ms. Purdy, the boyfriend would straight up renounce any desire to marry her ever having been there.

But you win some, you lose some, and the kid won.  So I'll accept it.

7.5/10

[criticalfunhouse]

Get that Number

I did not really enjoy this movie.  It had its issues—it had a lot of issues—but for the most part its charm made up for them... until the end.

My main complaint (excluding the ending) is simply how firmly the film's feet are planted in the 90s.  Everything about it screams of that era, from the clothing, to the slang, to the music.  Even the man from the Latoya Janet Jackson video (James)'s best pick-up line can't be used anymore because it's about pay-phones.

Certain parts, I loved.  The shots used when either man is coming onto a girl, the "sun in the eyes" look, how terrible Scotty, the white guy, is at hitting on women.  And, of course, when Scotty is chasing down, as IMDb calls her, Girl Rapper and Scotty grabs the Taxi and convinces the driver to drive him for "a beautiful woman."  I liked the Rocky theme during that part, too.

But what frustrated me was not simply the fact that Scotty ended up sans Girl Rapper's number—that would have been disappointing, but not detracting from the overall experience of the film.  What frustrated me was that, after the obvious foreshadowing talking about Rocky losing, when Scotty is running after Girl Rapper, you have no idea whether he will win or lose.  You're hoping he will win more and more as the suspense mounts for him to find Girl Rapper.  Then he finds her, but Scotty immediately is telling James he didn't get the number, and he seems sincere.  You're disappointed, but think, "Alright, well, at least he tried."  Then you find out he did get the number!  Hooray!  Then he loses the number.  Seriously?  I understand what the film is attempting with the ending, but it's honestly more annoying than anything.  Like instead of tricking the audience for dramatic effect or irony, they're doing it just because they can.

6/10

[criticalfunhouse]

Zen and the Art of Landscaping

Spoiler alert

Well.  Zen and the Art of Landscaping certainly does not go where you expect it to.  And that made me love it.  Such intricate interweaving story lines, supported by little details.  Also, it's hilarious.  The whole video is basically a travesty of soap operas, with more and more connections and twists piling on all throughout the video, and the absurdity of it all becomes funnier and funnier.

It starts with the mother of a household removing groceries from her car while her landscaper, Zen (which, ironically, brings an image of tranquility to mind), works on her yard.  The mother hatches an idea to get back on her husband—who's been cheating on her—by having him walk in on her and Zen having sex (or leading up to it).  The mother has a moment of hesitation when Zen addresses her, but you don't know why (she just got the idea) until later in the video.

Well, once everything's over, you find out the kid the mom is trying to sleep with, Zen, who bullied the mother's son in high school, is dating the girl the father is sleeping with, who the son had a huge crush on in senior year.  Oh yeah, and the parents find out the son is gay and the son finds out he's adopted.

It's great satire of a genre that counts on suspension of disbelief, basically condensing maybe a whole season of a show into fifteen minutes.  I found myself laughing gradually harder as each new twist was revealed, and feeling especially sorry for Zen for getting caught in the middle of that whole clusterfuck of revelations, just having to stand there.

There are a lot of little details that help support the story in all of its madness.  One such detail I noticed that, I felt, might easily have been missed was the son's hand when he kisses Zen.  He's trying to convince his parents he actually is gay, and when he kisses Zen he caresses Zen's face so passionately it shows he's not faking.  Or, as I mentioned before, the mother's hesitation when Zen first addresses her due to her formulating a plan.

All in all, I really loved this video.  Great little details, crazy story, very funny.  The one problem I had was that I was not a big fan of the ending.  Now, admittedly, I don't know how it could have ended that would have satisfied me, but regardless.  However, I would still highly recommend watching it if you want a good laugh.

9/10

[criticalfunhouse]

The Big Shave

Spoiler alert for this whole review

I absolutely loved this short film.  Everything about it.  The introduction and setting are perfect, as is the music, the pacing, everything.

The film starts with an almost anti-septic feeling as it shows various close-ups of a completely white (and silver where there's metal) bathroom.  Then, a man applies shaving cream and begins shaving, all the while there's upbeat music playing in the background.  Scorsese uses a montage of close-up shots of the man shaving his face as the average person would for about half the video, and, though everything is okay, a feeling of unease settles upon the viewer; the white bathroom, white shaving cream, perfect shaving prowess, happy music—something is clearly going to happen.

And it does.  It happens right when you expect it to, right when your anxiety is at its highest, but that's right when it should happen.  He has an accident, it seems—he cuts himself just a little bit.  And the audience hopes that's all that's going to happen, but they know it's not.

He keeps cutting himself.  Over and over again.  All over his face.  Shocking the viewer more and more as it goes on, his face getting bloodier and bloodier all the while.  Then, at the end, as the viewer looks at the first full-on view of the man's blood-soaked face thinking the shock has reached its pinnacle, the man, completely nonchalantly, takes the razor to one side of his neck and drags it all the way across, causing blood to pour down his neck and presumably killing himself.

An interesting aspect of this film is that you get no background whatsoever on the man, no reason why he wants to kill himself.  You only see the act.  And maybe he wasn't planning on killing himself.  The way he begins by cutting himself up makes me think he might have simply wanted to feel pain—to help deal with some emotions he wasn't used to feeling and translate them into something more familiar, maybe he just wasn't feeling anything, was feeling numb, whatever the reason—and the pain wasn't satisfying enough, so he took it to the next level.  The fact is, you don't know, and that's part of the beauty.

The lead-up, the anxiety, the mystery, the setting, the music, everything came together to create something better than the sum of its parts, and it will stay with me for a long time.

9.5/10

[robertpmann-blog]

The film that I found, Logorama, is an animated film made entirely of corporate logos and mascots.  While it is quite long, about 16 minutes, it really captured my attention due to the Pulp Fiction-esque plot line. I also found it very interesting that the director managed to create a whole short film using mostly recognizable logos. It was really cool how the film managed to incorporate many cultural references, and it also shows us how obsessed we are with corporate branding. 

[criticalfunhouse]

I was gonna post this one at some point! I love it!

[criticalfunhouse]

whatbecomesofus:

Dreams from the Woods

“Dreams From The Woods”, a short film by Johannes Nyholm, is a beautifully directed and composed work of art. The eerie tale of love, friendship, life and death is highlighted through Nyholm’s beautiful work of animation resembling puppetry.  Without the use of words, Nyholm leaves this emotional tale up to the viewer’s interpretation. The characters he introduces are so complex in nature, yet visually simple. As the bird’s best friend and or lover is grasped by the hands of death, the viewer follows the bird through his emotional estrangement due to love lost.

 This haunting short film left me speechless as my mind races to fully comprehend the deep psychological undertones of the story. Its beautiful images and animation echo through my mind. Nyholm’s work is notably somber, organic, touching, and stunning.

 Watch.

You mention things I both agree and disagree with.  For starters, I adore the art style.  In fact the short film I plan on posting next week is in a silhouette style, although that one is animated (maybe this one is animated too, I genuinely can't tell, but my final guess is that it's not).  The music is phenomenal too, giving a great sense of the world they live in.  

What I don't agree with is the assertion that the bird is the girl's "best friend and/or lover."  When he gives her the present, she walks away, ungrateful, leaving him crying.  As you pointed out, much of this film is open to interpretation, so one could argue toward your conclusion, but I believe the bird desperately wants to be friends with the girl and tries everything in his power to do so, but the girl has no interest in being friends with him.  Then he becomes so upset when she dies because of the lost potential relationship (platonic or romantic), not the one they actually had.