Short Film Reviews
Time travel can be a tricky plot device. Stories can defy their own time travel rules or become so convoluted that you struggle to follow it at all. With the hundreds of movies that feature different aspects of time travel, it can also be difficult to bring a fresh, original idea to the screen.
One of the best qualities you find in the cinephile world is a film that doesn’t take itself so seriously. Truly, what better way to do that than with puppets? Drugged up puppets that rob convenience stores.
What’s on the Menu? The Exit Room is a film written and directed by Todd Wisemen (Improv Island, Manifesto). It stars Christopher Abbott (Martha Marcy May Marlene, All That I Am) as Joseph Michaels, a journalist facing execution in a futuristic America.
I was first introduced to this short film by the director I’m working on a short film with. I showed him Francis, which reminded him of Lights Out, so he showed me. Trust me when I say I’ve already been seeing things when I turn off the lights around the house since I saw the short.
I’m going to preface this article by saying I’m very set in my ways. Taken into a different context that means I’m old, and at the ripe wizened age of 27, I shun your new fan-dangled ideas of what makes a good movie. Furthermore I will use this mindset in reviewing the short film 9 Minutes.
In this animated short film called Francis, a young man tells us about his memories of a camping trip. As he grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, he’d often go camping in the Quetico Provincial Park, up on the border of Minnesota and Canada. However, he won’t be going back there any time soon, not after what happened there to Francis Brandywine.
Room 8, a short film written and directed by James W. Griffiths, takes place in a Russian prison. British prisoner Ives (Tom Cullen) is taken to a new cell, where he meets the mysterious Shears (Michael Gould).
Remember Mrs. Doubtfire? It’s not a spectacular movie, but I remember it fondly, having enjoyed it when I was little.
This awesome short shows you the mysterious disappearance of Private Glenn. His mission is to be dropped on a planet, though we don’t know what else the mission entails. All we see, constantly, is his face – he was recorded by the camera mounted on his helmet, and all we see from his surroundings is what’s reflected on that helmet.
Identity is a short film by KJ Adames. The short film criticizes the dominant cultural norms of identity and the self, and beautifully stylized, suggests we be ourselves instead of try to conform to those norms. Although the use of masks is a tad literal, I found it interesting nonetheless.
Here’s a bit of a darker short film for you (certainly compared to the one I shared last week): the Iranian short film Tonight is not a Good Night for Dying (2011), directed by Ali Asgari. This short is shot from the perspective of a man who just fell from a building.
I came across this animated short film called Wind. It’s a graduation film by a film student, Robert Löbel, of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. I loved this.
