For this week’s edition of “Shorts Round Up of the Week” we have a look at pitch for toys involving Italian Turtles, a horror tale about a pale lady, and a comedic spoof of an eighties Christmas horror classic.
If you’d like to submit your short film for review consideration, submissions are always opened to filmmakers and producers.
Hal Barwood’s “Warning Sign” is the example of a movie with a great concept and idea, but with almost no really good delivery of said concept. “Warning Sign” is a surprising pre-cursor to films like “28 Days Later” and “Resident Evil” but never quite manages to reach the level of tension as the aforementioned titles. Instead “Warning Sign” garners a great cast with a fairly uneven and sometimes goofy delivery of a premise that could have been wrought with terror and themes about science gone awry.
2018 was filled with rich dramas and comedies about parenting and parents, and “Tully” is probably one of the best. Director Jason Reitman has gone about developing some of the most unique and interesting tales of femininity throughout his career, and “Tully” is one of his best. It’s a film that certainly begins on a note that many people will assume is nothing but a sub-par set up for a pretty okay drama. But then “Tully” becomes just so much more and ends as a testament to motherhood and the way post partum depression can affect women.
For fans of the legendary playwright, Mill Creek Entertainment brings together a slew of his more interesting dramas and comedies to DVD all for folks that are interested in expanding the collection. I would have loved to see “Barefoot in the Park” included in this set, but for all things considered this is a nice buffer course for new fans that can study up on the late great Neil Simon, who helped re-define films about couples and relationships for everyone.
Back in Theaters on March 22nd for One Week Only.
“Cruel Intentions” is what many would describe as camp, but also high camp–which is probably why I love it so much. For a time where just about everything in the nineties was derived from classic literature only re-worked for teens (“Pygmalion,” “Emma,” “Romeo & Juliet” to name a few), I’m surprised anyone thought it would be a great idea to take “Dangerous Liasons” and turn it in to an erotic thriller marketed for younger audiences. While the movie doesn’t feature teenagers, it’s heavily dominated by a cast of young actors entering their early twenties, along with a lot of intimations toward prepubescent sex.
There’s so much about Chang-dong Lee’s dramatic mystery that I had a good time picking apart. It’s a long and occasionally trying film, I’ll admit, but director Chang-dong Lee slowly but surely takes every single element of his narrative and places them in their proper order, allowing for a character study about class warfare and paranoia that is quite satisfying. I wasn’t really privy to what “Burning” was about when I first stepped in to it, but I had a difficult time looking away from it as it unfolded, as Chang-dong Lee dissects a lot about the haves and the have nots, the idea of love, and obsession.
With America’s opioid crisis, much of the most acclaimed dramas involved stories about family, and two of the most interesting involved drug addiction. While “Ben is Back” completely drifted under the radar, it’s an interesting and often compelling drama about drug abuse, and how often times drug abusers can drag much of their personal demons and past in to the lives of those that they love. I won’t say that I completely loved “Ben is Back,” but I appreciated its inherent tale of a mother racing to help her son, in spite of the odds being stacked against her over and over.