#shorts first

[devinjford]

Shorts First: 2- Murder, Huntington's Disease, and Alzheimer's

The three films that touched me the most were The Murder Ballad of James Jones, The Lion's Mouth Opens, and A Marriage to Remember. The first movie is an account of a man who murdered a rival blues player, told by the murderer himself. The pacing is very good and the narrator was a wonderful storyteller. It was as enjoyable as it was brief. The Lion's Mouth Opens is a story of a young woman who's family has a history of Huntington's Disease. Huntington's is a rare degenerative disease that takes an individuals control of mental and bodily functions. The main character is waiting for test results to see if she is a carrier of the gene that is responsible for the disease. It is a sobering look into the struggles involved with awaiting life changing information. Lastly, A Marriage to Remember is a solemn look into the dynamics of a couple and how it changes when a disease like Alzheimer's gets in the way. It is a powerful observation of the strength that love has when two people really care for one another. 

[devinjford]

Shorts First:1 - Short, Sweet, and Wildly Good.

                      (The relatively uninhabited city of Ordos)

Okay, not all of the shorts were quite to my liking, but I will not talk about those here. I would love to talk about the shorts that I liked very much, the top three to be precise. Those shorts are Cathedrals, Vegas, and 3 Acres in Detroit. The first is a very creative narrative about the dogmatic faith that modern humans have in money and economic systems. The film visually makes its way through the Chinese city of Ordos. One of many cities in China that were developed based on wild real estate speculations, that are full of large high rises and generally devoid of  life. The audio is a narrator telling the fictional story of a city of people who are constructing a building out of money and burning candles. An outsider tries to stop them from their foolish acts and pays a terrible price for his heresy against the almighty dollar. Cathedrals is a wonderful allegory for the economic times we find ourselves in today. Vegas is a story of the facade that the city of Las Vegas puts up to attract people to it's slot machines, nightly shows, and cheap strip clubs. It shows the city for what it really is, a heaping pile of homelessness, evicted tenants, and crushed dreams; using three different people to show the sad reality hiding beneath the lights and noise of the party capital of the U.S. The last film I would like to talk about is 3 Acres in Detroit. This documentary follows one Detroit residents struggle to expand his garden indoors by buying an abandoned building and renovating it into a grow house. His determination to supply the people of his city with healthy food is inspiring to say the least.