REVIEW: Greg’s Guardian Angel [2013]
“Get the Cookies! Cookies!” It wears its comedy on its sleeve with an intentionally broad performance from its titular savior along a pretty obvious plot trajectory, but Greg’s Guardian Angel finds a...
View ArticleREVIEW: That Terrible Jazz [2014]
“I’m gonna kick up some dirt” A senior film student at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, Mike Falconi went noir for his thesis short That Terrible Jazz. The piece has an obvious affinity for past...
View ArticleREVIEW: What Jack Built [2015]
It’s difficult not to think about Tom Waits‘ song “What’s He Building?” from Mule Variations while watching Matthew Mahler‘s (co-written with Ross Mahler) What Jack Built. This is both a compliment to...
View ArticleREVIEW: Here Lies Joe [2016]
“There is hope. There’s a way back to your life.” Only dying can bring two people lost and finished with the world back from the brink of death. That may not make sense to read, but it does in my head....
View ArticleREVIEW: Dirty Books [2016]
“Jobs? You’re an after school club.” Print is dead and apparently this isn’t only true in the outside world where magazines and newspapers are shuttering and/or moving to a more robust online presence....
View ArticleREVIEW: Hell-Bent [2016]
“May you write some great pieces on this” For whatever reason, screenwriters Lorenzo Cabello and Shayne Kamat refused to turn their script about an underachieving journalist and his demon acquaintance...
View ArticleREVIEW: Linda LeThorn & the Musicbox [2012]
“She is really good at this job!” There’s nothing generic about Linda LeThorn & the Musicbox, Meg Skaff‘s quirky psychological study delving into the mind of a damaged young woman who left her aunt...
View ArticleREVIEW: Transience [2013]
What is the packet that George (Timothy J. Cox) gives Tom (Joshua Michael Payne) in Tan See Yun‘s short film Transience? This question is running through my mind in desperate need of an answer because...
View ArticleREVIEW: Gary From Accounting [2016]
“I think I left my oven on so I’m going to …” Drinking problems are a serious matter. Alcoholics neglect their families, careers, and their own health as they walk through life in a haze towards their...
View ArticleREVIEW: Night Job [2017]
“People just use the night as an excuse to be someone completely different” Write what you know. These are fortune cookie words of wisdom, but they aren’t wrong. Our own lives are often strange and...
View ArticleREVIEW: Psychic Murder [2017]
“Yes. I realize I look … like the Hamburger Helper.” The idea of a “deal with the devil” tale is to show how—if at all—the victim caught with his/her soul on the line can escape. The fun is in the...
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