{"id":29554,"date":"2018-11-16T16:40:57","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T21:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=29554"},"modified":"2018-11-16T16:40:57","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T21:40:57","slug":"shorts-round-up-for-the-week-11-16-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/16\/shorts-round-up-for-the-week-11-16-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Shorts Round Up for the Week (11\/16\/18)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Most of the time we get such a backlog of short films and feature length indie films that we work hard to take them all on and review them before the year is up. In what we hope will become a new feature, \u201cShorts Round Up of the Week\u201d is a column where we\u2019ll be reviewing a round up of short films of varying quality.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to submit your short film for review consideration, submissions are always opened to filmmakers and producers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Coin Operated (2017)
\n<\/strong>Written & Directed by Nicholas Arioli, \u201cCoin Operated\u201d is an independently made and very good, often sweet short animated movie that evokes ideas about life, and the mixed feelings about wanting to achieve our goals. Mostly a silent movie, \u201cCoin Operated\u201d centers on a young boy who dreams of going to space and one day stumbles upon a coin operated rocket ship ride. With a nickel he makes his dream come true, but only in a small dose. Seeking to fulfill his biggest dreams, he saves up his money with the help of a lemonade stand, and in a seventy year span, seeks out the rocket ship once again.<\/p>\n

The rocket ship is of course a metaphor for our goals, and the lemonade stand is how we work and suffer for what we want, for a personal goal that we possibly can never really fulfill. When we see the main character in the end, he\u2019s reached the end and it\u2019s ambiguous on whether he ever really achieved what he set out to do. All we know is that we\u2019re all this child, seeking our rocket ship in to space, it\u2019s heartbreaking a lot of us never get to see the stars and reach for the universe.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dark Roast (2017)
\n<\/strong>Written and directed by Topher Hannson, \u201cDark Roast\u201d acts more like a proof of concept short film than an actual short film. Apparently Hannson has a feature film in mind for \u201cDark Roast\u201d but had to shrink the entire premise in to a short. I hope Hannson gets to transform this premise in to a feature very soon, because it could be a great Halloween dark comedy if approached well. Set on Halloween night, two workers for the coffee house the Grind Haus end up bearing witness to a series of horrific accidents involving customers and deadly weapons. As the body count rises and they scramble to figure out how to explain these weird circumstances, someone keeps calling them harassing them and threatening to murder them. \u201cDark Roast\u201d is a fun dark comedy with a ton of great gore and grue, as well as a demented sense of humor that could grant it an audience. Topher Hannson and Kati McCarron are hilarious together and their approach to these seemingly ridiculous events is a lot of fun. I look forward to more from Hannson.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Greta Fragments (2018)
\n<\/strong>I could have watched \u201cThe Greta Fragments\u201d if it were a three hour movie, so I was sad when it was just nine minutes. Nic Barker hits it out of the park with a fascinating and candid character study about a young girl named Greta who is seeking her identity, and doing so by doing things in her life that she\u2019d never done before. Honor Wolff is fantastic as the titular Greta, who recounts a lot about her sudden awakening through three people she likes and trusts. With her best friend she discusses her exhaustion with her old relationship and pursuit of a new one, with her maternal older friend she speaks around what her intent is with the new direction in her life.<\/p>\n

What begins as a conversation of sheer disapproval gradually transforms in to a discussion about how Greta might have done the wise thing. There\u2019s also the third relationship with her friend who she hopes to turn in to her new boyfriend. Their relationship is told through non-verbal communication, and a lot of what Greta says with glances and smirks. Wolff is enormous in this short film and as Greta, she\u2019s a flawed but fascinating protagonist who was lucky enough to realize she needed to change course in her life, before she was too old to accomplish such a desire. Barker\u2019s direction is gritty and engrossing as he sucks us in to this short but top notch adult drama without fail.\"\"<\/a>Here Lies Joe (2016)
\n<\/strong>Mark Battle\u2019s drama\/dark comedy is a gem of a short film that deserves the feature film treatment. Not only is it a wonderful slice of life, but it\u2019s an excellent tale about two people that find one another in dark circumstances. Dean Temple is fantastic as Joe, a man who begins attending a support group for folks that either want to commit suicide or attempted suicide. When he meets a very abrasive and rude woman in the group named Z, he slowly begins to realize he has a lot in common with her.<\/p>\n

Andi Morrow is a bonafide scene stealer and as Z, she\u2019s great as someone who changes over the course of \u201cHere Lies Joe.\u201d When we first see her she\u2019s this awfully rude and irritating persona. Once we learn more about her, its tough not to root for her and Joe. Battle\u2019s direction is top notch as he presents a world that feels very big and dark for the pair of characters. I was almost immediately sucked in to this premise as Morrow and Temple garner a great chemistry that makes \u201cHere Lies Joe\u201d a great look at the beauty of life, and how we\u2019re all fighting personal battles inside.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What Jack Built (2015)
\n<\/strong>Matthew Mahler\u2019s short horror film is disappointing and that\u2019s a shame because it has a good idea. It\u2019s build up, and build up, and build up and then absolutely zero pay off for the audience. It\u2019s too bad, too, because I was very interested in the character Jack\u2019s journey and what he was trying to accomplish. \u201cWhat Jack Built\u201d is a silent short starring prolific actor Timothy J. Cox as the titular Jack. Jack is spending most of his time in a basement or bunker preparing a humongous trap that is made of wood and steel and we spent about eleven minutes in total watching him produce plans and building the ultimate trap.<\/p>\n

When we finally see the unveiling of the big device, it\u2019s an interesting turn of events, but then Mahler pretty much gives us nothing about what this thing is that Jack is trying to catch. What is it? And what is Jack\u2019s motivation for trapping it? Is he a hunter? Did said monster or animal murder someone he loved? Is he just some kind of paranoid monster hunter? What was on the tape Jack installed? With at least five more minutes and some kind of back story for Jack, \u201cWhat Jack Built\u201d just might have been salvaged. Timothy J. Cox is very good in the non-speaking role, but in the end it\u2019s just anti-climactic, tonally uneven, and makes promises it really can\u2019t fulfill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of the time we get such a backlog of short films and feature length indie films that we work hard to take them all on and review them before the year is up. In what we hope will become a new feature, \u201cShorts Round Up of the Week\u201d is a column where we\u2019ll be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[99,219,302,349,477,501,938],"class_list":["post-29554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-list-junkies","category-movie-reviews","tag-animation","tag-comedy","tag-drama","tag-fantasy","tag-horror","tag-indie-film","tag-short-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29554"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29589,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29554\/revisions\/29589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}