Movie Reviews

by Alicia Glass

Twist Shorts

 Appassionata
Director: Mirko Echgi-Ghamsari
Based on a WWII legend, the fighting in Stalingrad is escalating and a German soldier finds himself drawn to a piano left in the snow. The idea that music is a universal language that can reach across all boundaries comes to life when an enemy soldier (missing some fingers) sits with our protagonist and they both play Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata’.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

Distrust
Director: Josh Mann
A drug-dealing newly-made husband who suspects his wife of treachery sets up a test with his best friend to catch his wife in the act, when it all goes horribly wrong. Based around the question of how far you would go to determine the honesty of your signifigant other.
Personally, I thought it had a good premise and if properly expanded could make an interesting feature-length film.
Review Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Final Journey
Director: Lars Zimmerman
An animated short, about a character who desires nothing more than to go on a dream vacation to escape the monotony of his own life. But, when an opportunity presents itself to get ahead of the other workers in a contest to win that dream vacation, Jake Waylon learns that shortcuts in life have serious consequences.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

I Own You
Director: Gary Anthony Williams
An adorable romp, involving a black man who married a white woman, only to find out that somewhere in her past, her family owned his. The black man in question goes through a series of hilarious identity crises, only to be reminded of what’s really important by his wise, if not blunt, mother.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

Stolen Youth
Director: Leon Chambers
A very young thief (he looks no more than 12 at the oldest) goes on a destructive rampage in a rural neighborhood while looking for things to steal. Picking at random a fine house of a single man, our thief discovers a horrifying secret in the basement: a young woman locked away. And when our thief tries to rescue her, he learns about the consequences of theft of property from a whole new angle.
Review Rating: 9 out of 10

Local Love – San Diego Shorts 1

 Short Term 12
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
A story about the trials and tribulations of both the troubled youths who live in a halfway house, and the adults who attempt to tend and care for them. The short seemed, to me, to convey the beautiful idea that simple undemanding companionship can help humanity overcome many of its ills.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

Johnny on the Spot
Director: Tony Baldridge
Johnny is one of those unheard-of hardworking teenagers, saving his money from his job to go to the school he’s always dreamed of and sharing his dreams with his girlfriend. Trouble is, the deadbeat father doesn’t seem to care about that at all, and the worst night of Johnny’s life begins with the father stealing the $6,000 that Johnny had saved for college.
Just a teeny tad predictable, but still quite enjoyable nonetheless.
Review Rating: 9 out of 10

Mystery Box
Director: Ian Robertson
Inspired by J.J. Abrams of Lost fame, Mystery Box is a cute little short about a simple brown-wrapped package bearing the warning “Do not open til tomorrow” that shows up on our protagonists doorstep.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

The Perfect Frame
Director: Ross Ching
It was difficult for me to discern the actual plot of this one until I attended the Q&A after the films and the directors explained the idea of, what would you do if you saw color for the first time. I think I’d prefer a bit more of a seamless transition from black and white to color, but maybe that was the directors’intention.
Review Rating: 7 out of 10

Local Love – San Diego Shorts 2

 2012: The Day the World Forgot (read interview)
Director: Chris Engle
Just as it says in the title, it appears to be the last days for most people on earth, and one man contemplates his and the worlds follies before going off to join the rest of humanity, who has apparently migrated…into the ocean. There’s a lot of deliberately unanswered questions in this one, read an interview with the directors here.
Review Rating: 7 out of 10

 Residue (read interview)
Director: Nathaniel Nuon
A story of revenge after the coverup of the CIA involvement in Cambodia in the 1970’s, and vengeance imparted in the most ironic and permanent way possible. Read an interview with the director here, and cackle with me over the tea bags given out as a promotion for the movie.
Review Rating: 9 out of 10

In Velvet
Director: Joseph Bolton
In a post-apocalyptic world overrun by what I think are zombies, a couple inhabiting a bomb shelter underground slowly drive eachother insane and strip away the last remnants of their own humanity by refusing to help others.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

Red, White and You (read inteview)
Director: Chris Engle
Keith Kenworthy is the towns best Marine Corps recruiter, and it encompasses his whole world. Until one day, after recruiting a reluctant young man in the morning, our vigilante recruiter for the cause discovers he has a son approximately the same age and physical appearance of the young man he recruited earlier. Oh, the irony.
Review Rating: 7 out of 10

A Dead Body
Director: Joey Castanieto
A lonely boy enduring a brutal family life at home, finds companionship and comfort in something the least likely to harm or leave him: a dead body. It might seem odd or even gross to picture a young boy curled up and sleeping with a corpse, but he was so lonely and the idea of safety and solace in death seemed a good concept to explore.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

Torn Shorts

 On the Assassination of the President
Director: Adam Keker
A top secret video document on what to do if the president is suddenly assassinated, who to blame it on, and so forth. Quite an amusing spoof.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

Viola: The Traveling Rooms of a Little Giant
Director: Shih-Ting Hung
Done in a rather dreamlike sequence, as far as I could tell Viola is the story of a young girl attempting to reconcile her own loneliness inside herself.
Review Rating: 6 out of 10

Cupcake
Director: Sean McPhillips
Dear Candy is in a love-hate relationship with two things: chocolate cupcakes and her fitness guru, and while attempting to reconcile one or the other, discovers there is a way to have both.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

In the Name of the Son
Director: Harun Mehmedinovic
The near execution of a Bosnian prisoner of war comes back to haunt him after he’s made a life for himself in America. This one is not for the faint of heart, or for the overly religious nutjobs either, as there is a lot of violence and the commingling of religious icons and ideals at the same time. I really enjoyed it though, and the directors even gave me a DVD copy of his short, plus I had the main cast members sign it!
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

 Limpiando Sapos
Director: Vero Shama-Garcia
The story of child soldiers Anita and Pablo, who are forced into training as revolutionaries in a war torn country. Another short very much not for the faint of heart, as this one has many child actors and a lot of implied violence, done both to and by them.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

 The Death Strip
Director: Nicole Haeusser
In East Berlin in 1980, the area between the borders that you have to cross to get to relative safety is known as the Death Strip. One family, with the mother apparently a chemist working on some sort of top-secret formula, makes a break for it when it looks like moms about to be caught.
There’s more than one plot-line going on in this short, I wish some of them had been more pursued.
Review Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Cute Couple
Director: Courtney Moorehead
In the couples night out arena, Kendra and Zach were the cutest couple with everything going for them…until Tim and Tammy showed up. Now it’s a full scale battle for the cutest couple, with hilarious consequences!
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

Crush Shorts

 Just One of the Gynos
Director: Brandon Olive & Alex Ranarivelo
Newly married, Kenny is a successful gynecologist with one little problem: he’s now turned off by his wifes’ womanly parts. After failed attempts at therapy and solutions, surprising insight arrives from the supposedly stoic in-laws.
Review Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Looking Up Dresses
Director: Jared Ingram
Jade Williams, having just been dumped by his hot girlfriend in Church for being “too nice”, spends the rest of the service demonstrating, both verbally and physically, just how not nice he really is.
Review Rating: 7.5 out of 10

The Pawn Layman (Der Pfandlale)
Director: Frank – F. Peter Lenze
A German farce about a pawnshop with a desperate customer who apparently owes a Dominatrix a good deal of money. It turns out, the Dominatrix is a customer of the pawnshop too!
Review Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Sombrero
Director: Nathaniel Atcheson
A gay blind date somehow gets confused with a young man meeting his long-lost twin brother for the first time, all in a Mexican restaurant complete with sombreros for one of the players birthday!
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

Fun On Earth
Director: Jesse Gordon
One of the nerdiest (and probably loneliest) guys on a college campus meets a girl who acts, how can I put it, out of this world! Turns out that’s exactly the case, she’s from another planet, and needs the guys help to maintain her carefully constructed image, plus show her a great time on this wacky planet.
Review Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Borderline
Director: Sam Lembeck
Meredith Cloyd is a mother who can’t seem to let go of her one precious son, especially when he begins dating. Seeing her baby slipping away, Meredith decides to take action, only to overhear just how much mom means to her boy while mom’s hiding in the background, about to commit a murder!
Review Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Struck
Director: Tara Lexton
If there really is a modern-day Cupid who shoots people with arrows, what would you do if you were shot but the right one escaped? Our protagonist goes on, the arrow sticking out of his chest, looking for love everywhere until one day at the Laundromat (of course) love finally finds him, and Cupid sets it right.
Review Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Lullaby
Director: Kevin Markwick
The story of the ghost of the child lost in a miscarriage and how the anniversary of what would have been his birthday leads the mother to reconcile finally letting go.
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

Spite Shorts

 September 12th
Director: Matthew Lewis
A story about the effect of 9/11 the day after, September 12th, told from the point of view of a Middle-Eastern-American girl and her soldier commander father chasing villains out in Iraq. The fact that the commander is a white man, married to a Middle-Eastern woman with a daughter going to school in America, struck me as a bit predictable. And as far as what happens to the daughter at the end of the short, well, it’s not pleasant, but you can’t tell me you didn’t see it coming.
Review Rating: 7 out of 10

The Replacement Child
Director: Justin Lerner
Todd Turnbull has just gotten out of a juvenile detention center, where he spent some time for beating up his stepfather (who, in Todd’s defense, really did deserve it), and came home a deeply religious person ready to change his life around. While Todd may have changed, his family and close friends and surroundings certainly haven’t, at least not their opinion of Todd. So when Todd makes the ultimate decision to save his dying friend from religious hypocrisy, things go awry faster than you can say “Save me Lord!”
Review Rating: 7 out of 10

I Kicked Luis Guzman in the Face
Director: Sherwin Shilati
Just like the title states, this is a short about some idiot who attempts to up his popularity with the myspace crowd by stating that he had indeed, kicked Luis Guzman in the face. Well, Guzman is a genuine celebrity, and when he finds out about the rumor, he goes to confront his slanderer, with disastrous results.
Review Rating: 7 out of 10

The Lutheran
Director: Brad Bosley
Eldrid Elston isn’t your typical Lutheran minister: he drinks heavily even during sermons, he curses like a sailor, and doesn’t care about much of anything anymore. But when a series of kidnappings threaten the relative peace of his chosen neighborhood, Eldrid decides to find the kidnapper, no matter what it takes.
Review Rating: 8.5 out of 10

 The Watermelon
Director: Brad Mays
A divorced 30-something misfit doper seems very bogged down with his own boring life, until he receives a gift from his late stepfather: a trailer designed to be pulled along behind a vehicle, for some strange reason painted brightly in a watermelon motif. And from the moment our hero gets the Watermelon, all sorts of strange things begin happening to him, one right after the other. The girl of his dreams, sort of, shows up in the midst of the chaos and makes the mess all worthwhile.
http://www.thewatermelon.net
Review Rating: 7 out of 10

The Lucky Ones Director: Neil Burger Three socially different U.S. soldiers, one their way home for a month-long leave, find themselves stranded together when their planes are all cancelled due to a power outage and decide to make it a road trip together. Along the way, many things are won and lost. Cheever, the eldest in rank, goes home to find his son in need of money to get into a great college he already got approved for, while his wife is demanding a divorce. Cloee Dunn, the resident female of the trio, is bringing home the guitar of a deceased friend to his folks, and a head full of stories about the deceased friend that turn out to be more helpful lies than truth. And TK, the one with plans to become a politician and sexual issues after being wounded in an unmentionable place, finds comfort in some very unexpected spots. Not a soldier or war movie at all I’d say, more of a road trip of a lifetime with friends who just happen to be soldiers. Review Rating: 8 out of 10

The Last Lullaby Director: Jeffery Goodman Price is a former hitman attempting very hard to retire to a quiet life in Louisiana. Not surprisingly, Price finds himself caught up in yet another job, and as is usual, this job involves a woman he just can’t seem to bring himself to kill. That’s where the commonalities to other hitman movies end. The Last Lullaby is fraught with tension, and probably the most quiet assassin movie I’ve ever seen, with gunshots echoing across winter-laden trees out in the middle of nowhere. Not overly gross or violent, but certainly heart-wrenching and restrained-passionate, this movie is worth theater prices when/if it comes out. Review Rating: 8.5 out of 10

 Remarkable Power!
Director: Brandon Beckner
Jack West, star of the wildly popular late night talk show, seems to have it all. Until he finds out, all more or less in the same 48 hours, that his shows about to be cancelled, and
his lovely wife is banging the local pro baseball star. Somehow his desperation to fix both major problems involves a fairly large conspiracy that draws in Russian mafiosos, black Jews who fancy themselves gangsters, a failed actor turned pornstar and con, and a down on his luck kid who likes the weed. Throw them all together, and see where Remarkable Power! takes them!
http://www.myspace.com/remarkablepower
Review Rating: 8 out of 10

The Brothers Bloom Director: Rian Johnson The Brothers Bloom are the best con-men in the world, and they’ve been running cons since both brothers were children. Bloom is the actor, always playing his part as his brother laid for him to perfection, while Stephen is the brains of the operation, and always looking for the ultimate con, the story so good it becomes real. After years of conning their way into the pockets and purses of easy and hard marks, the brothers have a tiff and reunite for one last job: swindle a quirky heiress (played by Rachel Weisz) out of her money by taking her on an adventure with them. Backed by their faithful Japanese sidekick Bang-Bang, a pretty lady who has a particular fondness for explosives, the Brothers Bloom travel the world attempting their last big score to steal, only to find that things have already been stolen: Bloom’s heart and Stephen’s brother. The last big con, the story so good it becomes real, will be the finest, and likely final, performance of the Brothers Blooms’ lives. http://www.brothersbloom.com/ Review Rating: 8 out of 10