Through a fine tongue in cheek attitude, director Shannon Michaelas explores what life is like as a little person, especially in the midst of the popularity of Peter Dinklage. It’s insane how much one actor has come to define an entire group of people, but lo and behold, “Peter Dinklage” explores how the popularity of the man has helped popularize little people for better and for worse.
Written and directed by Esteban Uribe, “Schlock Fish” really is something else. It’s the kind of movie you look back on with a fond chuckle and an eye roll because it’s just so damn silly. Director Uribe offers up his own twist on “Moby Dick” with a tale of revenge, a big fish, a lone fisherman, and a lot of dynamite. It’s the stuff classic tales are made of!
I’m not going to pretend I enjoyed “Honor Student” if only because the movie is so inexplicable and miserable it’s tough to pinpoint what it’s going for. I watched it twice and spent my time scratching my head as to what it was trying to get across and what in the world the finale meant, if anything.
Director Carlos Andre Stevens’s “The Alchemist’s Letter” is quite an accomplishment. It’s a fairy tale that also works as a cautionary tale about the ills of greed, and the dangers of over ambition. Would you trade memories and family for piles of gold? That’s what the alchemist asks his son when he leaves behind a letter that gives him a stern warning on what putting aspirations over the truly important things can do to a person.
“Up Route” is another fun film from director Jordan Wippell, the man who is becoming full of surprises as his career progresses. With a strong screenplay by Brandon Scott and Brett Chapman, “Up Route” is a visit to the Grindhouse sub-genre that pits two men against each other in a road trip.
I loved Jordan Wippell’s “Meat” if only because it’s the slow unraveling of the inner conscious of a suburbanite that’s been repressed likely since childhood. It’s the inner delving in to the mind of a man who is unraveling before our very eyes and all we can do is watch. “Meat” has a very simple premise, but one that’s effective and suggestive when it closes to its credits sequence.
“Dawn” is an absolutely devastating film which is belied by its unbelievably vivid visual style of its innocent decade. Director Rose McGowan has a keen directorial sense, delivering one truly dark and vicious short film that is made even more gut wrenching thanks to the eerie performances by the entire cast.