Smooth Operator (2009)

Director: Alyn Darnay
Stars: Cynthia Enriquez and Bruce Linser

Infuriatingly cheerful music accompanies shopping kids and a woman really enjoying her shower. She has little fluffy dogs. She's Kelly and her husband Drew is blissfully asleep. Then we find out what this short film is all about. Drew isn't quite as infuriatingly cheerful as everyone else because Kelly has removed his appendix and we're about to be treated to some of the best deadpan suggestive lines in movie history. Whatever director Alyn Darnay and actors Cynthia Enriquez and Bruce Linser brought to this film, and all three of them do a fine job, it's writer Larry Gotterer who should walk away proudest here because this dialogue is wonderful.

When Drew discovers that his wife has removed his appendix, he 'thought she was over that', but no, it's gone the way of his spleen, kidney and liver. 'What a busy week,' she says. Even though this is a short film even for a short film, we still have the reasons to come. Personally I think he deserves it because he chooses to live in Trenton, NJ and he has a Boondock Saints poster on his wall. God, I hate that movie. I prefer this one much more, having a real story, great dialogue and not a single shot in slow motion. In a year where every other short film seems to have zombies in it, this is refreshingly different. There are just as many stories that can be woven out of the cliche 'Hell hath no fury' than out of the living dead, after all, and they don't need as much make up.