{"id":33039,"date":"2020-04-16T19:39:49","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T23:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=33039"},"modified":"2020-04-18T04:23:09","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T08:23:09","slug":"shorts-round-up-of-the-week-quarantine-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/16\/shorts-round-up-of-the-week-quarantine-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Shorts Round Up of The Week: Quarantine Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Happy April! We hope you and yours are doing well during these bizarre times. What with most things slowing down, I thought it’d be a great time to bring back “Shorts Round Up of the Week” once again with some back logs being cleared out from our submissions. This week we have some great short films that you can check out, now including a science fiction drama, a comedy, and a drama about the #MeToo movement.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to submit your short film for review consideration, submissions are always opened to filmmakers and producers.<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Apocalypse Norway (2018)
\n<\/strong>Can Be Seen on: <\/strong>Short of the Week<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Although filmed in 2018, Jakob R\u00f8rvik\u2019s short film is shockingly relevant to everything unfolding in the world at the moment, and he explores what happens when generally apathetic teenagers have their world shaken up. Oda and her small group of friends are spending vacation in an idyllic beach house. While there, the world is seemingly hit and hit hard by an epidemic of sickness that causes almost immediate death. What seems like a very unusual scenario they try to ignore, transforms in to a confrontation of what the world would look like if it ended begins to completely unravel all of them one by one.<\/p>\n

Jakob R\u00f8rvik\u2019s \u201cApocalypse Norway\u201d is a beautiful film, but it\u2019s also a disturbing one exploring how the characters completely lose their minds even when declaring that they mustn\u2019t lose themselves in the outside chaos. Even with their posh lives, they\u2019re all either bound to die from the vicious illness, and it becomes a matter of allowing it to overcome you, or just find a way to go out in a blaze of glory. It\u2019s an upsetting albeit fantastic short about confronting the end of the world and\u2014whaddya know? There\u2019s even a cameo from Leonardo DiCaprio, to boot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Bumbry Encounte<\/strong>r (2018)
\nCan Be Seen On: <\/strong>Short of the Week<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Director\/Writer Jay K. Raja\u2019s science fiction thriller is an absolutely fantastic piece of work that focuses on a very crucial twentieth century paranormal event and uses it as a means of injecting social commentary. Like all good science fiction, \u201cThe Bumbry Encounter\u201d is mainly about humanity and how film\u2019s inherent menace manages to squeeze by thanks to the ugliness of prejudice and racism. Based on the 1961 \u201cHill Abductions,\u201d we meet Jackie and Terry Bumbry, an interracial couple facing a hard road ahead of them socially and emotionally. While driving home, they\u2019re confronted by a white object in the sky that seemingly abducts them for hours, all of which feel like literal minutes.<\/p>\n

Raja twists the narrative to explore the idea of xenophobia and racism, and how the villain in the film transforms from sentient alien beings in to enigmatic government agents. As they struggle to conceal this potential bombshell, it becomes a matter of finding a way to gaslight the couple and within a matter of minutes, we watch Jackie go from a victim to being absolutely victimized. Lauren McFall and Skipper Elekwachi are fantastic in their respective roles, while Ross Turner steals the show as the somewhat conniving Doctor Bancroft. I strongly recommend watching this for the brilliant social commentary, excellent performances and absolutely stunning production quality.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Hot Dog (2020)
\nCan Be Seen On: <\/strong>Short of the Week<\/a>
\nPatrick Muhlberger\u2019s comedy is a hilarious ensemble picture that centers on a group of broadly drawn characters that clash one day in what they assume is a noble intention. While a group of co workers are yammering in a parking lot, they come across a small dog locked in a car. Refusing to leave it during the heat, they all begin to clash with one another over what to do, how to do it, and what\u2019s the most important course of action.<\/p>\n

Director Muhlberger films the entire movie on a continuous take allowing the audience to feel like spectators during such a ridiculous scenario. The whole crisis becomes a means of evoking inner turmoil and insecurities, including Matt who is still feeling emasculated after being dumped by his girlfriend. The entire are hysterical, and every joke and one liner lands causing me to erupt in loud chuckles. \u201cHot Dog\u201d is such a random premise, but it\u2019s a great, simple character based comedy that warrants a watch.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I Know Jake Gyllenhaal Is Going to Fuck My Girlfriend (2016)
\nCan Be Seen On: <\/strong>Vimeo<\/a>
\nDirector Nino Mancuso\u2019s short dark comedy is about how often insecurities about relationships and jealousy can interfere in our lives and sabotage the good things we can tend to take for granted. Although admittedly absurd and silly in a sense, \u201cI Know Jake Gyllenhaal\u2026\u201d is very clever and pretty funny, especially the darker it gets. Mancuso poses Jake Gyllenhaal as a genuine threat against character Sean who feels threatened when girlfriend Suzie responds very enthusiastically to him during a night out at the movies.<\/p>\n

Sean then becomes his own nemesis, as he finds himself questioning Suzie\u2019s devotion and loyalty more and more. I mean what are the odds Suzie would ever meet Jake? Right? Once a gathering is announced, Mancuso\u2019s film takes an unexpected twist that actually quite worked. I don\u2019t know how I felt about the ambiguous final scene, but I liked most of \u201cI Know Jake Gyllenhaal\u2026\u201d for its unusual take on jealousy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Me Tambi\u00e9n (Me Too) (2019)
\nCan Be Seen On: <\/strong>YouTube<\/a>
\n<\/strong>I don\u2019t know if I completely bought in to the final scene of \u201cMe Tambi\u00e9n\u201d completely, but I loved the messaging behind it, and how it symbolized how it\u2019s about time for men to pay for their crimes once and for all. Written\/Directed by and Starring Valeria Vallejos, Vallejos plays Cristina, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who begins watching the child of a wealthy couple. When she\u2019s sexually assaulted by the husband of her boss, she struggles whether to report him or risk being deported.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Monica, a rising executive in her marketing firm endures endlessly misogynistic humor from her co-workers, and has to confront a particularly sexist boss who threatens to ruin her entire career and everything she\u2019s earned. Vallejos\u2019 film is beautifully directed and very well acted, while also exploring the corner many women are pushed in to when they\u2019re sexually violated in almost any situation they\u2019re in. The finale is a bit too convenient for my liking, but I appreciated the overall work put in by Vallejos and think it\u2019s an important film worth pursuing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy April! We hope you and yours are doing well during these bizarre times. What with most things slowing down, I thought it’d be a great time to bring back “Shorts Round Up of the Week” once again with some back logs being cleared out from our submissions. This week we have some great short […]<\/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":[104,219,240,302,367,477,703,906,1087],"class_list":["post-33039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-list-junkies","category-movie-reviews","tag-apocalypse","tag-comedy","tag-crime","tag-drama","tag-foreign","tag-horror","tag-mystery","tag-science-fiction","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33039","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=33039"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33101,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33039\/revisions\/33101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}