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Jason Roberts’
science fiction thriller was a thinker, and by that I mean that I simply
didn’t get it. At all. I sat there in the end dumbfounded, confused, and
ultimately unsatisfied. And then I thought, and thought, and then
figured out that perhaps writer Aretha Donnelly was asking the audience
to decide for themselves what she was trying to get across.
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“10 Seconds
to Midnight” is much cleverer than I gave it credit for
after I finished it, and that’s due to the punch line that
doesn’t sink in until minutes after it has ended. The world
as we individually know it, John insists, will end once
December 21, 2012 arrives, and John is intent on staying
confined to his apartment, constructing a mural, keeping
track of the world through an ambiguous computer, listens to
messages from his friends who call him crazy, and he stays
safely confined in the walls that separate him from the
outside world counting down through an automated alarm, and
prepares. |
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Roberts and Donnelly
really dare to create a thought provoking science fiction thriller that
instead asks us to think of the world we’re in, the personal world that
we inhabit and then calls to attention that perhaps it’s time to change
before something changes it for us. Choose enlightenment, or stay behind
where you were. “10 Seconds to Midnight” is a shockingly well directed
little short film made within forty eight hours and it doesn’t show.
Roberts and Donnelly will leave you in the dust with confusion and
contemplation, but it does the trick once the audience lets it sit for a
while.
One of the
caveats of Roberts film is the unfortunate over the top performance from
Jeffrey Vincent Parise. Roberts attempts to convince us that the man is
simply off his rocker, but most times he was unfortunately comical and
briefly made me question if this was intended as a thriller or a comedic
spin on a thriller. Beyond him, the ambiguous giant computer keeping
track of pollution, war, and global consciousness was an odd and
far-fetched plot device from Aretha Donnelly that I simply didn’t buy.
The fact that it’s the future simply couldn’t convince me to ignore this
pretty blatant attempt to hold our hand through the story while also
trying to keep us in the dark.
The director of
one of the better horror shorts I've seen in a while follows up with a
thought provoking science fiction short that begs debates, and
self-reflection with some top notch production, and an intelligent tone.
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