Low Tide in the High Desert (2011)

Director: Stanley Ray
Stars: Chris Ranney and Steve Corona

This film was an official selection at the 9th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

Sometimes just mentioning the location is enough to set the scene. This one's set in Roswell, NM. Now tell me what it's about? Well, you're not going to be far wrong, but Stanley Ray's script has a great deal of charm to it and it's cleverly written as a dialogue driven piece. Almost the entire film unfolds in the form of a conversation between a pair of cousins, Gary and Chuck, who are camped out by a lake. Gary is like a redneck who can reason, while Chuck is mildly retarded. They contrast strongly in almost every way, perhaps the best example suitably being in dialogue during an early exchange. 'You're so unprepared for life,' Gary tells Chuck, who pouts and replies. 'You're such an assface!' The most important difference for this picture is that Gary doesn't believe in UFOs at all, while Chuck believes in pretty much everything: Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Princess Leia's virginity, you name it. And from that, I'm sure you can tell just where this is going.

Shot in seven days with a mostly student-based crew, this is capably done. For an outdoor shoot, most of which took place at night, the lighting and sound are surprisingly good. When the effects show up, they're minimal but effective. The acting is precisely what it needs to be: Chris Ranney grounds the film superbly as Gary, while Steve Corona overplays Chuck with wild abandon. Chuck is the sort of character that Eddie Deezen would have played back in the eighties, outrageously nerdy and with a whole slew of social issues to suit every occasion. He's the sort of character who you'd hate to be around unless you have a nerdy streak yourself, in which case he would be your best friend forever. Well, until the inevitable argument about something completely meaningless culturally that turns you into mortal enemies. Ray plays in that pond a lot here, stirring up sacred cows in both the Star Trek and Star Wars universes as part of the same sentence.

The dialogue that handles this sort of thing is by far the best thing about this picture. Corona and especially Ranney bring it to life well, but it's the writing that stands out. Stanley Ray, who wrote and directed here, has six short films to his name; he wrote all of them and directed four. Based on what he does in this one alone, he has a knack of writing simply but effectively, not merely as the means of moving his story forward but also to build his characters and engage his audience at the same time. I wonder how many audience members at genre festivals talk to him afterwards, not to comment on his film but to debate him on one of the cultural points he riffed on in it. This isn't the most substantial sci-fi short you'll have ever seen and you certainly won't be surprised at how it turns out, but it's fun and engaging and it sits very well halfway through a set of generally serious short films. It'll definitely raise some chuckles.

The Secret Keeper (2011)

Director: Bears Fonté
Stars: Sara Fletcher, Brad Fletcher, Rosalind Rubin and Ryan Mulkay

This film was an official selection at the 9th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

Around the time The Secret Keeper began, partway into the Sci-Fi Shorts A set at the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival, the projector began to misbehave, thus rendering the colours notably off. Given that, even with this hindrance, The Secret Keeper was my favourite short in this set, I'm very happy to report that it looks a lot better when not filtered through a malfunctioning projector. That said, the colours are still faded, as old fashioned as are the clothes, hair styles and feel of the piece. We're never told where we are, but it's some sort of alternate universe 1940s America, with a lot that's very recognisable but things here and there that are completely alien. One of the latter is the mention of the Open Zone, in which our story takes place and from which characters aim to flee. The other is the neat little concept at the heart of the story and which provides its title. Alice, the leading lady, is a secret keeper, which is a profession in this world.

We watch how she works as the film begins, dealing with a client in such a way that invites a clear parallel with another profession. Alice works from home and her client feels nervous in even being there. It's his first time, apparently, and he's not sure how it all works. He's Calvin, but she doesn't need his name. She takes his money and asks him to wait for her in the bedroom. When she joins him, they can begin. No, she's not a prostitute, though she serves a similar purpose, to take care of a mental urge that has a physical manifestation. However, there's nothing sexual in the source of the urge or the way in which she satisfies it, making her more like a confessor, who can relieve burdens and allow people to move forward with their lives, happier with their secrets shared and not festering away inside. There's a literal transference, making Alice akin to a sin eater, but the secret doesn't stay in her; she's a physical conduit who transfers it on again into a glass jar.

I really liked this concept, that merges the world's oldest profession with perhaps its next oldest. There are ties to prostution beyond the clearly outlined parallels, in that secret keeping is hinted at not being a respected profession, perhaps one to which people come out of desperation and doubt, their visit a secret in itself. Yet there are continued parallels to the priesthood too, such as the ritual and litany of the event. 'Share this with me,' Alice asks each client to formally begin the process; 'Go and let the peace surround your soul,' she recites after it's over. This is an enticing concept and Sara Fletcher is magnificent in both aspects, simultaneously carnal and consecrated. Magnetically gorgeous even in dowdy attire, she would surely be the favourite in any brothel. Yet she carries herself impeccably, with a inherently trustworthy, almost holy air, making her a natural confessor. One client calls her a saint, but she prefers martyr.

What makes The Secret Keeper such a great film instead of just a great concept is that there's a strong story wrapped around it, unfolding consistently and believably over an unrushed eighteen minutes. I'm getting close to spoiler territory, so I'll be careful and merely say that another client comes to her with a secret to unburden which affects Alice directly and so tests her integrity as a secret keeper. With both prostitutes and confessors, there's a substantial level of trust inherent in the exchange and that's no different here. While there are clear sides drawn, with Alice the justified heroine, the underlying theme of the piece is Juvenal's old standard: 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' This literally means 'Who will guard the guards?' but, courtesy of Alan Moore, is more commonly translated nowadays as 'Who watches the watchmen?' The Latin for 'Who will keep the secrets of the secret keepers?' is remarkably similar: it just adds the word 'arcana' for 'secrets'.

This film really has everything. It starts with a great concept, which it fashions into a great story, courtesy of Fletcher and director Bears Fonté. Underneath it all is a great theme which keeps us thinking, not only about what we see but the ramifications of it. The production is pretty solid too, with Fletcher's acting most notable. The other two actors we see a good deal of are Ryan Mulkay and Rosalind Rubin, both of whom do solid work too, Mulkay looking especially right for the period. If there's a downside, it's the lighting. While it looks much better without projection issues, it aims at a muted palette in deference to the forties feel and some scenes play out in light that's a little too dim and with colours that are a little too faded. That's not much of a downside for a powerful short and I certainly now need to track down iCrime, a feature Bears Fonté wrote and directed in 2011 with Sara Fletcher in the lead. If it's half as good as this, I'll be impressed.

A Conversation About Cheating with My Time Traveling Future Self (2012)

Director: Pornsak Pichetshote
Stars: Bobby Campo, Haley Webb and Lauren Kruse

This film was an official selection at the 9th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

Surely the best title in play at this year's International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival was this one: A Conversation About Cheating with My Time Traveling Future Self. Given that the first short made by writer/director Pornsak Pichetshote was intriguingly called Women Who Eat Meat, I'm tempted to build a time machine just to find out what other films he's going to make in the future. Perhaps he already built one and used it to go back in time to persuade Hollywood producers that the titles they had weren't the right ones. Was it Pichetshote who persuaded Clint Eastwood to rename The Cut-Whore Killings to Unforgiven? Maybe it was he who talked the adapters of a newspaper article called The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night into calling it Saturday Night Fever instead. If he was the one responsible for changing the title of the unpublished stage play, Everybody Comes to Rick's, when Hollywood began to adapt it for the screen, into Casablanca, I'll buy him a drink.

'It's never just one thing, but you know that, right?' That's what the narrator tells us, as we watch Stan dance rather suggestively with a gorgeous blonde who is clearly not the dark haired lady in the image on his phone. He's talking about all those little moments we could have played in other ways or those decisions we could have taken differently. What makes this special, as Stan knows already and we're about to find out, as he leaves a guaranteed sexual conquest with this smoking hot blonde, is that he's the narrator too. As the title hammers home, that doesn't mean his inner voice needling for attention, his conscience screaming to be heard or those little angels and devils that show up on shoulders in animated movies to figure out the best plan of action, it's that he's literally the narrator. He's in a nearby room ready to explain. 'I have travelled exactly one year back in time,' he says, 'to tell you to cheat on your girlfriend with that slut in the other room.'

As setups for science fiction stories go, that's a pretty good one. It doesn't quite reach the epic stature of Fredric Brown's Knock, but it's a peach nonetheless. Bring it on, I say. And Pichetshote does. Like any story about cheating, everything here boils down to trust and selfishness, but that usually means the trust that exists (or doesn't exist) between a couple and the selfishness that leads at least one half of that couple to stray. This nine minute short goes a notable step further by making it all about Stan. It may be difficult to trust another person a hundred percent, but how hard can it be to trust yourself? What if 'yourself' is outwardly manifest and has your unlived next year of future lived and outlined so that you can make better informed decisions? Even he might have ulterior motives, after all. Where Pichetshote goes with this is consistently fascinating and provocative. It's rare that I get to see a new twist on the tired time travel trope.

Haley Webb and Lauren Kruse get a little to do here but not much. Almost the entire running time revolves around Bobby Campo and Bobby Campo, the current and future versions of Stan talking to each other in a hotel room, thus proving that capable science fiction doesn't have to have CGI up the wazoo, it merely has to have ideas. Pichetshote describes this as a 'theatre piece that can only be done on film' and I find that a pretty solid way to see it. Given that what we see relies on what Campo does, it's good to see that he does good work here, ensuring that each version of his character is slightly but believably different, not only because a year makes everyone just a little different but to help us keep track of which one's which. Their conversation feels natural because he really is replying to himself, merely a recorded version, which in a way is a microcosm of the story as a whole. Even without a spectacular title, this one is worth coming back to.

Ellie (2013)

Director: Ricky Lloyd George
Stars: Stefanie Estes, Jeff Alba, Barbara Goodson, Bonnie Bower and Robert E Beckwith

This film was an official selection at the 9th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

I liked Ellie from moment one, because of the colours. They're lush: natural greens and yellows at an outdoor photoshoot and red indoors at a bar, where the model goes to drown her sorrows. The music finds a way to mirror that in sound. She's the Ellie of the title, of course, and she's not quite who we might think. The first hint is when she introduces herself to the gentleman next to her at the bar and the lights dim, but we discover that she's not human when she swipes the back of her neck to open her belly, so she can empty out three glasses worth of Jack Daniels through a tube in her mechanical innards. Back at the bar, we realise that she's magnetic, both literally, as cutlery on the bar occasionally moves towards her, and figuratively, because the bartender immediately recognises her on the commercial that shows on the bar's TV while she's in the bathroom. That's for Spirit, which could be anything from the abstract beach scene we see.

There's a vast amount of depth here, going far beyond the romance at the heart of the film which sparks up between Ellie and Roger, who feels as suffocated in his job as she does in hers. I found this romance as meaningful as any screen romance between two people who are separated only by convention. I don't know if Ricky Lloyd George, who directed and co-wrote, deliberately aimed to comment on relationships between members of the same sex or different races, but given how much else he's obviously commenting on here, I'd assume that he did. For a story named for and following a robot woman, it's packed to the seams with an exploration of human drives, what we might reference as making us human: the need to be happy and to make others happy, the joy of being wanted and the fear of not being wanted any more, the drive to do what's expected for no better reason than the fact that it's expected. This is an amazingly human story.

Even moving past Ellie and Roger, there's a lot of commentary here about society and especially about the power of advertising, which is a central part of the story. The purpose of advertisers is to convince us what's best, for us and for everyone else, to explain to us in every detail how we should live and how we should act. That's also the realm of another occupation, that of gods. The two merge here in another way too, namely the ability to create life in our own image. There's a lot of debate about ethics in advertising, as it's easy nowadays to enhance reality through magic powers known as PhotoShop plugins, to remove blemishes and improve features, and so create false impressions of reality that can have both positive and negative real world effects. Nina and the advertisers in Ellie go a step further to create 3D models to serve their campaigns, not using graphic manipulation but using robotics. Ellie herself is completely artificial but passed off as real.

And with that, the story goes full circle and asks us that time honoured science fiction question of how to define humanity. What makes us human? How can we measure it? What line can be drawn that uniquivocally divides what is human from what is not? Everything that Ellie does feels human, even though she clearly isn't by any obvious definition we may conjure up. So we have to begin to examine her motivations. Is she doing all these human things because that's how she feels, or is it because that's how she's been programmed, whether literally through code or figuratively through the advertising that aims to program us incessantly from every billboard, magazine and television set. This film, like its thematic cousin, Blade Runner, makes us think not only about the characters we watch but about ourselves too. And in an homage to another classic film, Some Like It Hot, the last line brings us neatly back down to earth. What a wonderful short film this was.

Ontogenesis (2012)

Director: Joanna Ellenbeck
Stars: Joanna Ellenbeck and Patrick Kilpatrick

This film was an official selection at the 9th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

Perhaps the best way to highlight how consistently good the selections for the Sci-Fi Shorts A set at the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival were this year is to point out that Ontogenesis is probably the worst of them. It's far from a bad film; in fact I've seen sets of sci-fi short films where this would have been the best, but it just didn't spark for me, playing a little on the wrong side of the simple vs deep conflict. Otherwise it's a promising piece, with decent actors in front of the camera, competent crew behind it and a thoughtful idea underpinning it all. It isn't as pretentious as the title would suggest, though it neglects, perhaps deliberately, to tell us what ontogenesis actually means. The dictionary says that ontogeny or ontogenesis is 'the origin and development of an individual organism from embryo to adult.' The poster puts it more simply: 'There is no end. Only a new beginning.' The broad sweep of the film applies this to our entire species.

Within that stunningly broad framework, we get little pictures to focus on. Joanna Ellenback, who also wrote, produced and directed, plays Aria, who has survived the end of the world by the time the film begins. What apocalyptic event triggered it is never mentioned, but she's part of a small band of survivors eking out their existence as best they can given the circumstances, struggling against similarly wary bands of survivors in the process. When Aria returns alone from a vaguely outlined mission, perhaps to parlay with one of these bands, she's confronted angrily by Nathan, the apparent leader of hers. What happened to everyone else, he asks? How come she survived? And when she tells him what really happened, he doesn't believe her in the slightest. If what she says is true, why was the she the one let in on the secret? Why not him, the powerful leader who does so much to keep his people alive?

I like the way that Ontogenesis attempts to explore such a broad concept with such a small story, clearly one of many such stories ongoing on this world at this time. Ellenbeck proves capable as Aria, really the leading lady though she's lost in the noise as the picture starts to incorporate wild and beautiful footage from NASA's Hubble telescope website, directed by Oli Usher. Contrasted with the majesty of creation in the form of an exoplanet orbiting Fomalhaut and a space artist's impressions of a vampire star, people we've just met fade from our memories as if they weren't ever there to begin with. Patrick Kilpatrick, a massively experienced actor who has appeared on what might just be every dramatic TV show of the last decade and a bit, makes more of his brief appearance as Nathan, endowing his character with a surprising amount of depth given how long he doesn't get to do it, but similarly, once the space footage takes over, he's lost too.

I'd like to have liked this film more, but while it has a great story wanting to come out, Ellenbeck and her co-writer Joseph Ruggieri can't seem to find a way to phrase it. Instead we're given some good scenes but little to tie them together. The impressionistic bundling of realistic scenes is not particularly successful, though the impressionistic bundling of impressionistic scenes is far better, in a sort of intergalactic Koyaanisqatsi sort of way. Perhaps appropriately, given where the story takes us, it felt like the film had two completely different approaches that were pulling each other apart. Had Ellenbeck chosen either of those, the result would probably have worked better than choosing both of them within a mere nine minute running time. That was only fitting if her goal was to demonstrate how jarring the events she recounts would be, but that isn't the best way to entertain an audience. Ontogenesis is a capable film but it should have been much more.

Dry Gulch (2013)

Director: Alejandro Alberola

This film was an official selection at the 9th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

This was a subtle choice by programmer Mike Stackpole to kick off the first Sci-Fi Shorts set at the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival. Not only is it an animated film, it's one without a single word of dialogue, the only vocal sound we expect to hear being a scream that escapes its owner's throat in the form of searing guitar. It even starts slowly, but the stunning visual design on display was certain to grab everyone's eyeballs and turn them to the screen. The films that populated two sets of sci-fi shorts this year were of unparalleled quality, perhaps because filmmakers are starting to realise that science fiction doesn't have to equal special effects, and those still playing with CGI are finding it easier to look good. Selections during the past few years have been inconsistent, as the quality of submissions has varied so much, but this year's pleasant surprise of consistency is outweighed perhaps only by the pleasant surprise of variety, this being its epitome.

It's a Mexican film, which is quintessentially science fiction and quintessentially western all at the same time. We're in Chiseler's Burg, which the film's IMDb synopsis calls 'an old town on a dying planet in a long forgotten region of space'. It's quite clearly influenced by the movie Heavy Metal and in turn by the organic work of artists like Jean Giraud aka Mœbius, who had co-created Métal Hurlant, the French comic book whose legacy led to it. Perhaps uncoincidentally, Mœbius, who is still mostly known for fantasy and science fiction work, had started out in westerns with a series called Blueberry. He worked occasionally in film, including concept designs for Alien, which grew out of the legendary failed adaptation of Dune by Alejandro Jodorowsky, with whom he'd created comic books in France, such as L'Incal. The reason I mention all this is that Dry Gulch is clearly so influenced by titles like L'Incal that they could almost be seen as part of the same universe.

If you've ever seen anything drawn by Mœbius, you'll be instantly intrigued by that. Dry Gulch was brought to life by six animators, who share twenty names between them, so I'm not going to list them here, but they channel his vision into a striking world. While we follow a silent story from murder and hanging to revenge, we can't help but bathe in the highly organic visuals: a spaceship that reminds of a giant flying centipede, snow that makes it seem like the stars are dancing, huge mushrooms that serve as bridges. While this is clearly a western, it's fully translated to this alien world. In place of horses there are giant spiked warthogs or huge birds. Instead of carriages, there are hovercars with neatly retracting steps. The sniper rifle looks like a dieselpunk antique. Yet the archetypes are still here and eerily familiar: the wanted poster, the windswept duster and the fire to keep people warm out in the middle of nowhere in the desert.

The music is another archetype, but less traditionally American and more like an Italian prog rock improvisation on spaghetti western themes by Ennio Morricone. The choice to to make this rather universal by eschewing spoken words in favour of themes is a good one, the English words on the wanted poster really as much art as the images they accompany. The lack of words highlights the prominence and importance of the music, by Javier and Francisco Diaz Pinelo, and also underlines that connection to Heavy Metal. I really enjoyed the score, which accentuates the visuals but also survives them, as it would be much easier to listen to this outside the framework of the film than most soundtracks. If I'm navigating Spanish websites appropriately, it would seem that both play for a Mexican hard rock band called Ravenscar, who I will now need to explore. Now all these guys need to do is make more films like Dry Gulch and we'll have a Mexican Heavy Metal to enjoy.

Dry Gulch is available to view for free on Vimeo.

The Muse (2012)

Director: Brian Kiefling
Stars: Christina Campion, Kelly Leeth and Kim Huenecke

This film was an official selection at the Phoenix Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

This film was an official selection at the Jerome Indie Music & Film Festival in Jerome, AZ in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

Here's another film that played two recent Arizona festivals that I've covered. The Muse screened in the Arizona Shorts set at the Phoenix Film Festival and the Holy Moly Horror Shorts selection at Jerome. It's a capable film, but one that clearly grew out of a location and could have done with growing a little more. The location is, admittedly, very cool indeed. The heart of the story is spent inside the basement of the Community Services building at ASU, where the producer and director are both film students. This building used to be a children's hospital and it didn't change much for the film, where it plays an office that used to be a children's hospital. The difference is that, in the story, the very popular, award winning nurse who ruled its roost turned out to have a dark secret. During the excellent opening credits, we follow the newspaper clippings to discover that she was indicted for Munchausen by Proxy, pleaded guilty and committed suicide while on trial.

That's the sort of story that emerges from a location like this, which retains many of its darker fittings, such as its furnace and crematorium. Brian Kiefling, who wrote and directed, gave a tour of the building to some people from a music charity and two of them freaked out. That very night, he wrote the bare bones of the script with 'the hairs on his arm standing up'. Naturally, this solid location for inspiration soon became the location for shooting this short ghost story, which gives a traditional haunting a neat edge and combines it with more modern characters. The premise is a good one and it unfolds in a fair fashion, but it didn't progress far enough from those bare bones to really warrant returning to. It feels a little rushed and could have done with more substance to ground it. We never really find out anything about any of the characters on show, except maybe Margaret Broman, the wicked nurse whose story is outlined in all those clippings.

The film was shot in two days, like many of the IFP films I've been reviewing lately, but it shows. The first scene after the credits has poor sound and isn't promising, but it brightens up when we move out of Katie Johnson's house and follow her to the Muse, where she's interviewing for a job. The interview seems to comprise of showing up, as the first thing her potential future co-workers do is show her the 'haunted house', the morgue of the old children's hospital. Christina Campion does well here as Katie, a lot more believable than the actors supporting her. I particularly liked the little wave she gives as they slide her into a cold chamber, one of those locked drawers they store corpses in. She's just trying to impress them, of course, daring to stay locked inside for five minutes for a bet. The problem is that it soon becomes more because the fire alarm goes off and everyone else leaves. Cue the ghost story part of proceedings, neatly hinted at earlier.

Kiefling isn't your average film student. He's a former cop, who spent fifteen years at ASU in the campus police, but he caught the filmmaking bug when asked to make training videos, promptly enrolling in the university's film school to take it a step further. It certainly wouldn't surprise me to find that the most natural actor in the film, the cop who gets to explain the reason behind the fire alarm to the evacuees, is a real cop. Most of the actors do have capable moments but they often feel like actors otherwise, putting on a show rather than being the characters. The standouts are Campion as Katie, Kim Huenecke as a particularly evil Nurse Broman (though how a nurse who acts like this could get away with years of abuse without raising any suspicion, I have no idea) and Kelly Leeth as a little girl ghost called Celia. We hear her more than we see her but her voice is the haunting bit, however many iconic horror shots Kiefling sets up.

He does that well too, especially as technically dubious scenes like the first one condition us not to expect scenes like the one with the first special effect. It's done admirably, but I firmly believe it carries more of a punch because we totally aren't expecting a well done special effect in a short that starts out with bad sound. Clearly Kiefling has watched a lot of horror movies, because the whole second half is full of the sort of well chosen camera angles, careful composition of frame and solid editing that makes so many horror movie shots iconic, not to mention the freaky score by Andrey Alekseyev. The technique on screen isn't particularly original but it's effective anyway. It all bodes well for what Kiefling might do once he graduates from ASU. A twenty minute version of this would be welcome for a start. Beyond the odd sound issues and some inconsistent acting, it's the length that jumps up and complains. It's a good story but it needs to be given more depth.

The Violation (2013)

Director: Christopher Bradley
Stars: Slade Pearce, Elaine Hendrix, Shayne Topp, Chelsea Ricketts and Beth Grant

This film was an official selection at the Phoenix Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

This film was an official selection at the Jerome Indie Music & Film Festival in Jerome, AZ in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

The Arizona Shorts selection at the Phoenix Film Festival is usually an interesting affair. This year's standout for me was The Violation, an edgy movie written and directed by Hollywood actor turned ASU lecturer, Christopher Bradley. It grabs our attention from moment one, as we realise that we are indeed looking at what we think we're looking at, and progresses on from there, disturbing us while simultaneously asking us why we're disturbed. Given that it was clearly the best film shown, it's surprising to discover that it only made it into the festival on its second attempt and only after some concerted lobbying. Another fan of The Violation is Bill Pierce, who has covered local film for The Examiner since 2010. He championed it at the Phoenix Film Festival and selected it himself to be part of a set of short films he programmed for the Jerome Indie Film and Music Festival, that he called AZ Forbidden Films and which was the highlight of that festival for me and others.

I find myself torn as to which set fit it best. It felt far more at home in Pierce's AZ Forbidden Films because everything he selected had an edge and the whole set had a sharper edge because of it. However, the varied but generally polite films in the Arizona Shorts selection really didn't prepare us for what Bradley had in mind and so The Violation stood out from the crowd all the more. Shot in four days as a response to the US military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, around the time of the discussions about potential repealment, it constructs a believable, if carefully contrived, scenario where we voyeuristically bear witness to a pair of perverse acts. What's important is that they're really the same act, but society, in its infinite wisdom, has traditionally applauded one but vilified the other. The film leaves us at a point where one character asks why the two are seen differently and another simply cannot answer. The punchline to this film is silence and it's utterly perfect.

What Bradley gives us is a love triangle, albeit not the usual sort of love triangle. Oscar Heim is a seventeen year old from a wealthy family, who looks good in both a pair of swimming trunks and a tux. He 'has a thing' for his sixteen year old neighbour, Tina Dougherty. Pretty standard, you may feel, but then he spends the opening scene of the film feeling up a pillow with her stolen bikini on it. This is the sort of thing that's joked about in every frat house movie ever made, but watching it feels a little more freaky. That's aided by the fact that we watch it through a telescope pointed at his bedroom window by Tina's younger brother, fifteen year old Mickey. He has a crush on Oscar and he soon gets the chance to act out a similar fantasy when the Heims have a wedding to go to and need someone to babysit their house. In only ten minutes, Bradley raises gay prejudice, class differences and sexual coming of age, yet all in such a way that the complex seems simple.

Slade Pearce is top billed as Mickey Dougherty and he does a solid job in the presence of far more experienced co-stars who get an agreeable amount to do even without being the focus. His white trash mother is played by Elaine Hendrix, one of those memorable actors you've seen and enjoyed in at least a dozen movies but can't quite place what she's best known for. That may be Romy and Michele's High School Reunion or The Parent Trap, in each of which she played major support. The other mother in the film, Oscar's mum, is played by Beth Grant, about whom everything I just said about Hendrix goes double. She alternates Oscar fare like Crazy Heart, No Country for Old Men or The Artist with odd films like this, but may still be most remembered for Donnie Darko or Speed. Yet with experience like theirs to compete with, Pearce holds his own and makes this his picture, literally getting the last word, exactly the right one, and letting it float in the air to stay with us.

I first met Christopher Bradley in a coffee shop, of all things, and I hadn't a clue who he was, even after being introduced. He was Chris who teaches scriptwriting and I was Hal who writes reviews of movies, so we ought to know each other. Only partway into the conversation did I realise that this was Christopher Bradley, who I'd never got to meet at the Royale in Mesa, at which we both saw many movies and at which he presented a screening of Waxwork, in which he appeared at a much younger age. Since then, he's proved to be a gentleman as well as an actor, allowing me to screen Black Gulch, a short film he appeared in back in 2003, at the film festival I programmed at LepreCon 39, and coming out in person to support me and do a Q&A. The Violation underlines that he's also a writer and a director of note, this being easily as important a film as it is a good one. It deserves to be seen widely, and more importantly, discussed. If it plays a festival near you, see it.

The Duel (2012)

Director: Robert Garcia
Stars: J P Frydrych, Herbert Steve Hernandez, Craig MacDonald, Chelsea Samuelson, Jonathan Levy Maiuri, Mike Diaz, Nicki Legge and Devon Garcia

This film was an official selection at the Phoenix Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

This week, Jump Ship Productions celebrates its first birthday. It's been a rather successful year for them, however you want to count it. They made four short films, three for IFP film challenges. Each of those three won multiple awards and automatic inclusion in the IFP finals at the Phoenix Film Festival. In August, at the Beat the Clock challenge for 48 hour films, The Duel ranked third out of eighteen submissions; in November, Titus won Best Film at the Masterpiece Challenge and swept a number of other awards in the process; and at February's Breakout challenge, The Face of Innocence was the audience favourite, again amongst a slew of awards. That meant that Jump Ship provided no less than three out of eight IFP finalists, which is an astounding achievement period, but an especially notable one in their debut year. The Phoenix Film Critics Society voted The Duel the second best IFP film of the year, but I can't help but wonder why.

That's not because this is a bad film, because it isn't. It's a capable piece which I enjoyed and which still makes me smile even after a few viewings. In fact, Jump Ship's lead actor, J P Frydrych, was kind enough to allow me to screen it as part of a film festival I hosted at this year's LepreCon, where it got a lot of positive feedback. It's just that it feels like the least of their opening trio, and apparently their fans agree. To celebrate their birthday, Jump Ship has set up a poll on Facebook and right now, Titus is leading the way as the fan's favourite over The Face of Innocence, with The Duel in third and the new one, Mr Wallace the Great, languishing in last. Titus is certainly the most obvious, a carefully constructed science fiction story that looks great and carries a great sense of isolation. It would be my favourite too, but the ending has grated on me and tarnished its memory somewhat. In comparison, The Face of Innocence gets better with time and familiarity.

And that leaves The Duel, which isn't about what you think, even during the opening scene. It's a geek movie and it's proud of it. The duel isn't between the unnamed hero, inevitably portrayed by Frydrych, and the similarly unnamed villain, played with relish by Herbert Steve Hernandez. They are merely the pawns in the game, or perhaps to extend the metaphor of the title in a particularly geeky fashion, the pokémon hurled into play. The duellists are a couple of patrons of a comic book store, debating what went down when the hero and villain met, whenever and wherever that was. Both Craig MacDonald and Chelsea Samuelson are note perfect, even though neither has another acting credit to their name yet. MacDonald produced and Samuelson was the script supervisor, so they both had a stake in the success of the film and they do a great job. They ground proceedings wonderfully, especially as Frydrych and Hernandez are suitably over the top.

There's a subtle twist and a not-so-subtle twist on top of that, which both play very well, without necessarily making any sense. I can't really argue about it without spoiling those twists, so I need to hush. Really it would be much more appropriate for me to meet you at a comic book store over a box of Detective Comics and argue about it there; would that be meta enough as a critical note? The other flaw is that it feels rushed, as if there ought to have been twice as much footage, but it was a 48 hour film with a time limitation, so that one's understandable. The rest I like: the cast of characters and the way they were played; the sound, lighting and camera movements, even the font used for the credits, though it doesn't scroll well. I love the dialogue, which sparkles, but the connections and twists don't sit right with me from the standpoint of internal consistency. All the Jump Ship films so far have been enjoyable, but I think their signature piece hasn't arrived yet.

Screaming in Silence (2013)

Director: Neil Sparks
Stars: Gabriel Cervantez, Caleb Evans and Jeff Lamar

This film was an official selection at the Phoenix Film Festival in Phoenix in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

I've not made it to as many IFP challenge events as I'd have liked, but I've seen a lot of good films and, well, a lot of not so good films at them. This last year, I saw a lot of great films too, certainly more than I've seen from previous years. A few established production companies raised the ante and a few new kids on the block met their challenge. The unfortunate result was that some of the best local films I've seen thus far lost out on prizes and a few others that have won awards in later festivals didn't even make it to the finals. I didn't envy the Phoenix Film Critics Society at all, but they picked this one from the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe to win as this year's cream of the crop. Personally I'd have gone for La Lucha, which made me tear up yet again when it played as part of the IFP finals set at the Phoenix Film Festival, and it doesn't take much for me to rave about The Memory Ride yet again, but I'm a huge fan of UAT and this is a real peach too.

I can rationalise the judges' decision easily. La Lucha was made by filmmakers who joined IFP as staff members between the time they submitted their short and the time the finals played, so if that film won it could be seen as a conflict of interest. The Memory Ride screened with its original ending, which I hadn't seen before and which notably diminishes the power of the film. But I don't mean to excuse this win. While Mission Control gets better with every viewing, Screaming with Silence hit hard the first time and remains that way however often I see it and whatever it screens alongside. The script by Paul DeNigris, professor of digital video at UAT, is deceptively simple but notably powerful: short on detail but long on depth, if that makes any sense at all before you get to see the film and understand what I mean. I can't really say much about the script, or I'll end up in spoiler territory and, frankly, you deserve to be rooked between the eyes by the twist.

Let's just say that it all has to do with the process of creation, as depicted by an artist struggling with a painting that seems hell bent on fighting him every inch of the way. It knows what it wants to be and that isn't what he wants it to be and I'm sure every creative soul reading this knows what that feels like, whether they paint, write, compose or do anything else cobbled together from sweat, heart and imagination. The deceptive simplicity extends to the technical side; never mind the digital layering of the painting at the heart of the film, which is the most obvious part, notice the foreboding score that bookends the piece, and the white of the canvas moving to the black of the artist's shirt as the film goes literally dark and he fights his demons. Gabriel Cervantez is not flawless but he is excellent and he has some superb moments. Caleb Evans, director of Red Sand, hovers over his painting like a harbinger of doom. The unveiling of the twist is momentous.

At the end of the day, it isn't what this film does that makes it so successful, it's what it doesn't do. Many of the other shorts in competition were about tangibles and there's something about the intangibles, when done right, that always trumps that. Writing about something as abstract as the creative urge is either going to nail something special or fail out of hand, depending on how well it connects to the audience. Adding detail tends to move away from the highs and lows towards the majority of everything in the middle; to adopt the painting metaphor, this is a very impressionistic piece, not a photorealistic image. It's focused enough that we understand thoroughly what's going on but broad enough that the details don't matter, well all but the one that we can't ignore. Maybe what led the judges to vote this above its competition is that it does manage to capture lightning in a bottle, that certain je ne se quoi that takes a foreign language to describe. That's art.