Encounter (2010)

Director: Travis Mills
Stars: Scott Scheall and Jennifer E Rio

Travis Mills and his Running Wild team met their undeniably ambitious challenge for 2013, to shoot 52 short films, all based on stories from the public domain, in 52 weeks. They will be premiered at a three night event at Mariscos Vuelve a la Vida in downtown Phoenix in early February, so with such a wealth of new material about to erupt from Running Wild, I thought I'd travel the other way in time to review the earliest Mills title with an IMDb page that I haven't already covered at Apocalypse Later. It's an old film for Running Wild, a 2010 comedy short called Encounter, that hints at where they would go in the coming years but also shows that in many ways they hadn't got there yet. It's a little rough, especially in the sound department, for which there's no credit; presumably they hadn't found James Alire yet. It isn't a shining example of camerawork either (though the back and forth on the bench is surprisingly effective), but the editing partly makes up. However the rest is all a little reminiscent of future work.

We open in a parking lot where an unnamed young lady accosts a stranger because she thinks it's her ex-husband, Josh. It turns out to be a completely different Josh, who sparks the plot by not just walking away when the mistake is realised. In fact, he's apparently enticed by her abrasive nature. All her body language screams 'walk away', but he asks her to lunch. Her response is, 'I think all men are two faced bastards,' but she accepts anyway and, before long, she becomes the questioner, pressing for all sorts of details. The ending isn't a surprise, given that it was telegraphed at the very beginning, but it opens up other questions that are perhaps the best part of the film. While we find out a lot about this girl, who doesn't have a name, we find out almost nothing about Josh Anderson, for whom we're given two. Is he really just this charming or is there some sort of meaning to their supposedly accidental meeting? The script, by Running Wild co-founder Gus Edwards, doesn't tell us. It wants us to answer that ourselves.

That's one of the tells that this is a Running Wild picture, as primitive as it is when compared to more recent output. So many of their shorts are character pieces, in which actors are tasked to finding their characters even with details missing, often crucial ones. Here Jennifer E Rio does a pretty solid job as a woman clearly still damaged by her broken marriage; it's telling that we're given her husband's name but not hers, as if he's still who defines her. Certainly she's short on trust but quick to temper, which is why we wonder so much about where this film ends up. If she wears her emotions like her lowcut dress, itself a hint that she may be subconsciously looking to move on, Josh Anderson leaves the story as the mystery as which he began it. We're given all sorts of enticing hints about who or what he might be but never actually told much that he is. Scott Scheall underplays the role appropriately, so we wonder at the moments when he does something and especially at the ones when he doesn't.

Encounter isn't a bad short but it's far from a great one. Its value is mostly historical, as an indicator of what would come from Running Wild, at an increasing pace and with increasing technical mastery, over the ensuing years. We've been given a lot more characters for us and the actors both to work to figure out. We've been given a lot more moments in time that are worthy of telling, even if what came before and what might come after may not be. We've heard a lot more old time public domain music, not only in The Big Something, where it was put to much better use than here, where it feels like a placeholder. We've been shown a lot more deceptively clever choreography, where what happens on screen is often notably enhanced by an understanding of how it happens as much as why it happens. We've also been given more sexual deviancy and edgy drama, far more overtly too. The more Running Wild films I see, the more telling early films like Encounter, Man/Woman/Motel Room and The Ruffians become.

Encounter can be watched for free at Vimeo and YouTube.
Details about the 52 Films/52 Weeks screening event can be found on Facebook.

The Phoenix (2012)

Director: Carmelo Zucco
Stars: Alex Cardillo, Jim Bradford, Brie Barker and Howard Rosenstein

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.

Maybe I think too much about science fiction shorts, but isn't that the point of them? Here's another one that I liked but had problems with for entirely uncinematic reasons. The core of the film revolves around a concept that's gradually easing into the mainstream, that cybernetic technology will improve to the point where we can effectively, for the most part, conquer death. This near future film explores a small human story after that point has been reached, in which 'cybernetics have done away with the fragility of the human body' and little Ben's grandpa, his sole companion, doesn't have to die. He's old and frail and his body is failing, but instead of just giving up the ghost and leaving his grandson alone, he can merely check into wherever and swap out his human shell for a nice shiny metal one, in which he can continue on and, presumably, feel a heck of a lot better while he does so. He isn't rejuvenated, he isn't cloned and he isn't fixed, instead he's replaced, all except his consciousness and his clothes.

Before this happens, we see an old man, presumably actor Jim Bradford, with worried eyes and wildly receding white hair. After the change, after he's risen again like the phoenix of the title, we discover why he was really cast: we're not going to get to experience any more of him than his voice, which is perfect for the task, the sort that we intrinsically want to trust. 'It'll still be me,' he told young Ben, 'on the inside.' Now Ben has to adjust to that reality, as do we. I can totally buy into the concepts thus far, because, after all, we're already doing this to a lesser degree. What are pacemakers, hearing aids or prosthetic limbs, after all, if not primitive cybernetic replacements for faulty or dying flesh? I can also, having lived in the United States for the last decade with their reliance on health insurance, buy into a scenario where the rich get better care than the poor. What I don't buy is those two facts manifesting themselves here in Grandpa coming back in a Tron suit and a huge birdlike helmet with googly eyes.

As the main thrust of the film runs on and this unlikely couple hike into the wilds so Grandpa can toss his ashes into a waterfall and Ben can come to terms with his only relative being the sort of robot we laugh at in serials from the forties, I couldn't get past this. Fine, make his new human suit uglier than the boss of the company that makes them, but why so much so that he can't even lean over without stabbing himself in the chest? This is just tech; you can buy an expensive phone with all the gimmicks or a cheap one with crappy battery life, but both are going to look current generation. None are going to be ten pound monsters with antennae the size of your kid sister. I don't know if I'm alone with this issue, but it was a big one for me. Neat and far more believable little touches like Grandpa's batteries coming in different flavours couldn't get me past it. And that's a shame, because the human side of this story is explored well, if inevitably limited by the film's sixteen minute running time.

There's a great movie somewhere in these ideas, especially now with the controversy over Obamacare prompting Americans to wonder why they're the last civilised country on the face of the earth without nationalised healthcare. Unfortunately that great movie isn't this one, which is relegated to the level of merely being promising. While I can't buy into this particular robot Grandpa, his rather stunning change of appearance does highlight well what writer/director Carmelo Zucco clearly aimed to do, which is to starkly contrast the before with the after to explore how little Ben reacts to the wild change. He asks all the right questions and Alex Cardillo, who plays him, carries a capable mixture of wary adjustment and youthful tolerance. With Jim Bradford's reassuring voice to guide him, it's a safe bet that Ben will find a way to deal. What isn't explored is how long Grandpa will, along with a whole heck of a lot more. I like the way that The Phoenix asks questions. I just wanted more and I don't agree with all the answers.

White Room: 02B3 (2012)

Director: Greg Aranowitz
Stars: Breckin Meyer, Tamlyn Tomita, Rachel True, David Blue, Tony Janning, Milynn Sarley and Doug Jones

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 wasn't surprised when the cryptically titled White Room: 02B3 was awarded Best Science Fiction Short at this year's International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival. After all, it checked off every possible box. The story by Tory Mell was intelligent, thoughtful and resonating, even though he hasn't written any of the enviable list of films that he's worked on. There are cool special effects everywhere, from the gorgeous auto-retractable seats to, well, let's just say that Doug Jones is in the movie and he's about as visually recognisable as usual. The set is so shiny that it could easily be an iSet with an Apple logo somewhere prominent. The cast are strong, established actors, most recognisable to a genre audience through TV shows or webseries: Breckin Meyer is a Robot Chicken stalwart, Tony Janning was Neil in The Legend of Neil, Milynn Sarley was on Team Unicorn and The Guild, Tamlyn Tomita was perhaps most obvious on Eureka and David Blue was a regular on a couple of the Stargate shows. Only Rachel True is new to the genre. Oh, and it's made by Roddenberry Entertainment, produced by Rod Roddenberry, Gene's son.

What surprised me was that it was only after enjoying the film at the Harkins CineCapri that I learned I hadn't seen it as it was designed to be seen. No, it's not one of those modern 3D movies that serve only to inflate the ticket price; it's a little bit more unique than that. It was shot using a camera system that shoots 360° footage, with the camera in the middle of the set catching everything that goes on, even if characters aren't directly engaged in what's happening. To watch it in a true immersive environment, I can't go to a Harkins, an AMC or any other multiplex, let alone any of my favourite indie theatres; none of them have the required technology. Instead I'd have to go to a dome theatre, where I can effectively sit in the set and watch the action unfold all around me. There are only three compatible venues within 120 miles of my house: a science centre, a community college and a charter school. Of the mere six in Arizona, one is the Lowell Observatory in Tucson. That would be a serious movie night!

Fortunately, the film doesn't require such rare technology to be enjoyed; on a regular movie screen, it plays like a regular movie, albeit one that swaps explosions for tension. It grabs us immediately, with a strange beginning that sets up a mystery and prompts us to ask questions. Six people wake up around a table in what must be a spaceship, given that it's built out of the same moulded white plastic that we know from the movies that spaceships are built from. The colour here comes from the people, dressed in uniform black outfits. They're suitably varied as to race, sex and age; one is even pregnant. They're as confused as we are about what's going on and there's little to help them; merely a gun on the table and numbers over their hearts. One is even missing his glasses. He's the first to pick up the gun and wave it around in a hope for answers. He's number 6 and number 6 is always the first to go, some say. And so he does. It all fades to white, then starts again with the five remaining players. And so on...

For all the the technological hoopla and recognisable faces (or recognisable voice, in the case of Doug Jones), it's the script by Tory Mell that makes this work so well. It feels rather like something we might have seen on a black and white episode of The Twilight Zone, an overtly science fiction exploration of human nature. The initial mystery is ramped up a few times with fresh revelations and we learn much before we're gifted with the why of it all at the finalé, only to realise the true scope of events and how this means that the end is merely another beginning. It's quality writing and it keeps proceedings very tight indeed. The actors are as reliable as you might expect and I wonder how much more depth we'll get from them in a dome theatre where all are on screen simultaneously. If there's a flaw, it's that the theme is a little closer to what Gene Roddenberry aimed to achieve with Star Trek than his son should probably play if he wants to stand on his own two feet. Of course, many might see that as an asset.

Flashback (2013)

Director: Steve Petersen
Stars: Walter Koenig, Judy Levitt, Tom Biagini, Shannon Murray and Karla Osella

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.

The science fiction shorts at this year's International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival were notable both for their consistent quality and for the emotion they drew out of the audience. Films like Ellie, Restitution and The Secret Keeper nailed both the science fiction aspects of their stories and the emotional ones. It may be that Flashback is the most emotional of them all, mostly because of the searing performance of the lead actor, Walter Koenig, who proves here that he deserved a much bigger role to play in Star Trek. It revolves around our personal connection to new technology, another common theme running through the festival selections, especially All I Think of is You, Restitution and Iris. The new technology here, the Flashback Device that Koenig's character, Dr Joseph Griffin, creates, is reminiscent of the slow glass of Bob Shaw's superb short story, Light of Other Days, but with control given to the user. Griffin dedicates his life to perfecting this device, only for irony to strike in the cruellest fashion.

As befits a story about a gadget that allows people to relive moments of their lives, we're whisked back into the lives of the Griffins, Joseph and his wife, Greta. We watch them as a young couple, decorating their house with all the possibility that the future can hold, but Joseph is already distracted by his work. His boss suggests that he has the potential to change the world and he believes him. We soon find that he manages it too because, back in the present, he's living on Mars with his perfected device selling in the billions. The catch comes in how he got there. Even as a young man he tells Greta that he loves his work more than anything and we see her understanding of that, in her eyes as the truth of it registers and also in the moment he flashes back to with his own device, of her leaving him as an old woman. It hasn't been a good life for her, living it alone while he works, so she leaves just as he finds the time to spend with her and regret that he can't do it any more because she's gone.

Koenig is magnificent here, his eyes full of sadness and regret, as he interrupts a TV interview to flash back to Greta leaving him again. 'Is there anything I can do to get you to stay?' he asks, knowing full well that there isn't because she only exists in the memory that his device provides him with. At least it's clever enough for him to converse with it, but that's little solace for him. The ironies are palpable. The time he spent developing the device stole the opportunity for him to spend valuable time with his wife, only for her to leave and force him to use his own gadget to relive what might be the only moment of time he captured before she left, which in turn nails home again and again what he could have had but lost through dedication to the device. It's an ever decreasing circle, which we can see in Koenig's eyes and hear in his broken voice. Here is a man who has achieved wonders, lives among wonders and has given wonder to billions, but he's a broken man because of it all.

The biggest problem Flashback has is that it's only six minutes long. Apparently there is an intention to expand it to feature length, which I'd dearly love to see, but there's precious little information available online about this goal. It deserves more time to breathe, to draw the characters out, even if that's only by expanding to, say, twenty minutes. Koenig gets the most screen time but there's surely a lot more to Dr Griffin than we see within that. Judy Levitt is excellent as the elder Greta, but again there's so much more possibility to the character than just a repeated exit in Griffin's repeated flashback. Their younger versions have possibility too, Tom Biagini and Shannon Murray believably ready for the world. Murray in particular gets that one moment but not the opportunity to make more of it. I have no doubt that, given the ironies that Steve Peterson shoehorned into the six minutes he had, he could layer it more with the flexibility of time. Here's to hoping we see more of Flashback.

At least we can continue to flash back to Flashback again and again through YouTube, where the film is available to watch for free.

Sunset Day (2012)

Director: J A Duran
Stars: Ramon Novell, Jordi Llordella, José MarÍa Blanco, Laura Motos, Robetra Pasquinucci, Roser Boladeras and Ariadna Minguell

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 wanted to like Sunset Day more than I found I could. I love the concepts in play and the ramifications that spring from them, but it felt to me like they weren't explored as well as they could be, in favour of a safer and lesser approach. The key idea is similar to the old time travel trope where people go back to a critical point in time to change that one seemingly insignificant event that will alter the course of history and prevent a particular future. You know it from The Terminator and Twelve Monkeys. Well, this is the same thing in reverse: a shadowy organisation known as the Corp has a mysterious ability to see far enough into the future to identify when the apocalypse is going to happen, here codenamed Sunset Day. They send an agent to make that insignificant change and deny that potential future its chance to unfold. Great, you might think. Well, insignificant changes may not feel insignificant; would you crash a train, killing 236 people, if you knew it would delay the end of the world for only 18 days?

That's what our hero does at the start of this film, explained through the deep and resonant narration of David Seys. What's more, it's the 36th time he's saved the world. In a nice touch, the apocalypse is a constant foe to the Corp. They can't just save the world and be done with it; they have to keep doing it, time after time. There are so many ramifications to this great idea that a whole feature could easily be dedicated to exploring them. Surely trust would be a major concern. How could each agent sent on such a mission be sure, absolutely sure, that they were doing the right thing? Just one shred of doubt would be enough to cause psychological torture. Surely the knowledge that they will be called upon to do the same thing again next week would be enough to spark that shred. The conspiracy angle is vast too; shadowy organisations inherently attract conspiracy theories anyway, but the Corp wouldn't just be a gift to the tin hat brigade, it would be a conspiracy to everyone who worked for it.

Yet those angles are mostly jettisoned in favour of a very personal story. We learn about our hero, how he was brought into the fold as a child and how the friend he lost in an explosion comes back into his life and changes his thinking. It's not a bad direction, but it's a far safer one than director Josep Antoni Duran and his co-writer, Ferran Grau, could, or even should, have taken with their script. I wanted so much more from their story, given that the film itself had so much more to back it up. We visit more than one time, as we see our hero, credited as Owl, as a child and an adult, but the look of the film is believably dated, not just through costumes and sets but by the use of a wonderful orientation video that takes the form of a cartoon. There are neat hints at history, like the Hindenberg disaster being a means to avoid Sunset Day. The CGI is too crisp and artificial but it's suitably spectacular and it's ably backed up by Roger Costa's excellent score. Technically, this is mostly an accomplished piece.

The acting is also solid, even from the child actors like Ramon Novell and Laura Motos, who play the young Owl and his unnamed friend at the orphanage who he believes he loses. They're only tasked to act physically, as the fifteen minute running time is entirely devoid of dialogue, possibly because the piece unfolds well as an almost silent film with narration and possibly to aid international distribution. This is a Spanish film, but just as silent movies could easily swap out intertitles for each market, this could easily swap out its narration and a fewother details and reach a whole new country. Sunset Day also comes in a Spanish language version and it wouldn't surprise me to see other languages follow. I wouldn't mind seeing that original version to see if anything was done differently, but I doubt it. What I really want to see is a longer, tighter, more complex, story that attempts a lot more than this one and covers a lot more background. Sunset Day gives us a fascinating world; I'd like to explore it.

Golem (2012)

Directors: Patrick McCue & Tobias Wiesner
Star: Cyrena Dunbar

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.

If Quantum was torture for physicists, Golem is torture for technologists because it raises the potential that once a computer becomes more intelligent than those who built it, it will diverge from us in ways that we cannot predict. This animated short is a beautiful thing, notably organic in its visuals, but it's an overwhelming and almost inpenetrable one, especially without the necessary background, which, in the most puzzling choice of the filmmakers, Patrick McCue and Tobias Wiesner, is not provided. We're told that Golem is an adaptation of a novel by Polish philosopher and science fiction author Stanislaw Lem, but not that it's told by a computer. The book Golem XIV riffs on one of his regular themes: the inability of mankind to communicate with truly alien intelligence, the title character here being an artificial intelligence created for military purposes which becomes conscious and quickly outstrips its creators, initially lecturing but eventually ceasing communication altogether for no provided reason.

Like the book, this film is told by the Golem XIV AI in the form of one of its lectures. It's a deep talk, one which covers so much ground that it's exceedingly difficult to keep up. In the end, we surely fail to do so and the narration by Cyrena Dunbar becomes nothing but white noise to accompany the eye candy. I've lost the plot every time through, though repeated viewings do help. I also know that I'm not alone; when I talked to other audience members after its screening at the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival, they reported the same effect. Initially it's relatively simple, as Golem XIV recounts a tale about rats in a labyrinth, probability ensuring that at least one should escape it, even if not through its own talent. This quickly becomes an analogy for the human race and the process of evolution, which allows us to choose our own fate. So far, so good, but it continues to expand outward, explaining how we limit ourselves by imposing religion and culture. At some point this discussion of rationality gets too obscure.

While I'm not qualified to say whether this philosophising has meaning or not, it clearly ceases to do so to most viewers within this film's framework. Those ambitious enough can watch and rewatch to figure out if they can fathom it all; everyone else can at least enjoy the audiovisual treat, which continues on unabated. The visuals begin with what looks like slow motion footage of the sun, though it's computer generated and morphs into less recognisable and more abstract forms. Presumably the tendrils are the thoughts of human beings and the ice cages reflect how we bind them. Eventually we're led backwards into a mechanical structure, presumably Golem XIV itself. The score is an ambient electronic piece that is pleasant to the ear with its gentle pulsing beats, courtesy of composer Cliff Martinez. Dunbar's soft voice becomes another instrument, playing along with it. I applaud the filmmakers for their ambition and I'm not going to ask anyone to dumb their work down, but I can't help stating that this lost me.

Golem can be watched for free at Vimeo and YouTube.

Quantum (2012)

Director: Joseph Carlin
Stars: Jeffrey R Ayars, Frank Halbiger and Mike Sokolowski

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.

A lot of people avoid science fiction films, especially Russian ones or short ones, because of a general assumption that they'll be called upon to think, as if that would be a bad thing. It does mean that they miss out on a lot of great movies but it also means that they safely avoid what they hate and fear: the possibility that an idea might take root in their head and throw their safe, boring lives out of whack. It could be said that Quantum, a short film from writer/director Joseph Carlin and Transfixion Films, is the epitome of what they fear, as it's all about taking an idea, releasing it into your skull at high speed and letting it ricochet around until you drive yourself batty. Its story is effectively torture for physicists, the sort who can paint themselves into a corner, all the while meditating upon what a corner really is and whether it still exists after they close their eyes. It's based, of course, on the infamous experiment of Schrödinger's cat, but with a number of enhancements to make it cinematically viable.

For a while it's tedious, as we just follow a man on a long walk into a library, the glitchy soundtrack and odd angles not adding much to proceedings. We just want to know why a man, before we're even given opening credits, placed a gun to his chin. The walker, Tyler by name, holds the key because everything ties to a study he wants to perform. He tells Robert that he aims to 'push the limits of quantum theory, human understanding' and Brandon that 'by the time we're done, we'll have lifted the veil of reality as we know it.' It's an odd experiment, as we expect from his voice which is half soporific college lecturer and half persuasive used car salesman. That voice is the principal reason why we buy into some of what follows, because the logic is dubious, even though it's rivetting. In most films, the quick bout of Russian roulette that we're treated to would be the drama that underpins the story, but this is not most films. In this one, it's just the beginning, as the participants then argue about what the result really means.

Inevitably, the more we think about this one, the more it falls apart on us. I'm a realist: If I shoot myself in the head and survive, then I'm alive. However, because this story is is inextricably rooted in quantum theory and the characters are students of the subject, we can't help but watch from their perspective. In other words, if Brandon shoots himself in the head and survives, how can he know whether he's alive or dead? How can Robert prove the outcome in numbers written on the white walls of the box like room in which the study took place? Here's where the true value lies, as a clear vision of what most of us tend to see in quantum mechanics: men in white shirts torturing themselves over whether black is white or vice versa. All three of the actors are believable in this, even though they're completely different otherwise: Jeffrey Ayars is an infuriatingly calm Tyler, Frank Halbiger a quintessential nerdy genius as Robert and Michael Sokolowski a less disciplined wildcard as Brandon. The film relies on them all and they deliver.

Mostly, of course, it relies on the story, which is a clever little bugger that's careful to make itself about the characters' interpretation of quantum theory rather than about quantum theory itself. That way we stay sane while they don't and we follow proceedings clearly even without a grounding in the subject. After all, quantum theory tends to trump cryptography as the archetypal example of the science most fundamentally inaccessible to the layman. At least we know cryptography works, even if we haven't a clue how. This approach is why Carlin could get away with such a minimal set; most of the film unfolds in a closed room with white walls and almost no props because everything is conjured out of words. The budget ran around a thousand dollars, most of which went into building that room. The beauty of a film that revolves around a cryptic thought experiment is that it keeps us thinking and it's the easiest thing in the world to think round in circles. I bet the three of them are still in that room doing just that.

Quantum can be watched for free at Vimeo.

Split (2012)

Director: Miguel Gonzalez
Star: Seth Gandrud

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.

There's a lot of ambition in the script for Split, written by the film's director, Miguel Gonzalez, who has a habit of making short films with overly generic titles that take forever to track down on IMDb. Out of five titles, three have Roman numerals behind them to distinguish them from others of the same name that were released in the same year. The film he's working on now is the sixth Torn of 2013; at least this was only the second Split of 2012. Sadly its ambition doesn't pan out and it becomes as generic as its name, feeling as schizophrenic as its lead character, Tom Lundi. We figure out that he has at least two distinct personalities pretty quickly, but while the story is presumably all about the fight between them, it never really gels together. The Tom that everyone knows is the boring Tom, an accountant who likes numbers and is good at his job, so routine that it fits that his surname is a day of the week. Yet the other Tom is a more forceful character, one who's apparently blackmailing the mayor, even if he's not sure how.

He starts the film in memorable fashion, with a gunshot wound in his chest and a phone in his hand, so he can talk to the 911 operator and the story can get moving in mysterious fashion. It's a great start to the film and it doesn't hurt that Tom is played by Seth Gandrud, the closest the Arizona film community has to Brad Pitt. I'm not sure how boring we can buy Lundi as being when he's played by Gandrud, but he does seem to be sleepwalking through life, apparently oblivious to his cute wife and his neat house. It's time for an intervention but that doesn't come from work colleague Michael, who wants to take him shooting, it comes from himself, the other personality that decides it wants to change his life. The film's title doesn't just suggest Lundi's split personalities but the split directions that they're taking him. The end, of course, reveals which personality wins and which direction he takes, and that's all good, but it's not that simple. It leaves us with as many questions as it gives us answers.

Gandrud is great here in the tense scenes, one of them feeling like Clint Eastwood playing Jack Palance. Unfortunately he's less good in the everyday scenes, perhaps inevitably because the boring half is, well, the boring half. It's nigh on impossible to play a boring man in an interesting way that doesn't stop him being boring, but it can be done better than Gandrud manages here. It makes us root for the dominant Lundi throughout. Bizarrely, Miah Gonzales is the complete opposite; he's solid in the everyday scenes as Michael, but sorely lacking in the tense ones. Jamie Jurju has little to do as Mrs Lundi and the pair of cops who interrogate Tom couldn't be more inconsequential. And so, with the technical side capable, if never spectacular, it comes down to the story, which deserves credit for its ambition if not its eventual mixed bag of success and failure. At 25 minutes it feels too long, but the script could easily have been expanded to feature length. It just needs a firm direction and it doesn't have one.

Cordones (2012)

Director: Bob Marquis
Stars: Kaleena Newman and Stephanie Mello

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.

An odd but enjoyable silent short from Arizona Filmmaker of the Year Bob Marquis, Cordones wins out as a fun, fluffy piece about individual freedom but I have a feeling it aimed at being a lot more than that and didn't quite hit the mark. Like the story, the title has a double meaning. Most obviously, 'cordones' is Spanish for 'shoelaces', props which are populated throughout the film in such an emphatic way that they become MacGuffins; they keep most of the characters in work at a factory which manufactures the things but they also become the spark for those who want an escape to find it. We're never quite sure what part of the process these workers are responsible for, but they're clearly menial labourers, which reminds of the other meaning of the title, that of 'cordones industrial', a sort of union that challenged the Chilean government to adopt workers rights. Certainly this factory is a bleak place, where workers are dressed in drab grey and given numbers for names. It looks like the opposite of fun.

And, against expectations, fun is where this goes. It may all be set up as an authoritarian nightmare of a workplace, more of a prison with its unspeaking workers watched carefully by Kane Black, who patrols their table like a hawk, but everyone's a willing prisoner, it seems. Kaleena Newman, the engaging lead character who goes by the name of Siete (or 'Seven'), is one of these. She labours under mind numbing tedium by day, but then drives home in her cute yellow mini as if she's as free as a bird. Careful editing and use of repetition suggests to us that she does nothing except shower, work and sleep, but the sun is notably out as she drives home, so perhaps her routine is self imposed. When one of her colleagues, Cuatro (or 'Four') exhibits signs of imagination, painting a pair of aglets red, she's not taken out back and shot or hauled off to a gulag, she's just fired. She sets up a stall to sell her own laces by the side of the road and, in so doing, acts like a beacon for Siete to wonder about her own future.

Newman is endearing enough, even without the benefit of speech, for this to raise a smile and applaud her escape from boredom, but the substance is fleeting. There isn't enough for us to ever be sure what Cuatro escapes from or what she achieves: is this a contrast between conformity and imagination, the confines of a sweatshop and the freedom of the open air, being a number in a faceless corporation and being your own boss? The last film Bob Marquis directed from a Jessica Marquis script was a lot clearer in its intentions: Awesome Guy: A New Identity had a very similar story, about a man who left behind a set of societal expectations and became his own man. Maybe this is merely the female equivalent with Newman taking the Mario Guzman role. If so, she does great with producer Stephanie Mello also worth watching in the smaller role of Cuatro. The men aren't given much to do here, with talented actors like Black and Michael Hanelin tasked only to be part of the status quo. Maybe it's just one for the girls.

I should add, after my review, that context may be a key factor here. Cordones was an entry into the IFP Phoenix Masterpiece Challenge in January, 2012, to round up the 2011 challenge year. It won a number of awards, including third place overall, behind Winding Road and The Fall, as well as Best Actress for Kaleena Newman and Best Editor for Bob Marquis. Masterpiece is all about interpreting a piece of art at the Phoenix Art Museum and Marquis chose a piece from the children's area that highlighted seven key elements of self-expression. I'm not sure what they are but they're apparently all depicted as symbols within this film. Certainly there's self-expression in what Cuatro, and eventually Siete, does, with smiles only showing up when that happens. This suggests that Cordones is all about imagination fighting it out with conformity, with the setting merely being an intriguing one that suggests at a lot more than just a setting without actually providing it.

Another Chance (2012)

Director: Barbara Gross
Stars: Mare Nubson and Sharon Newman

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.

It would be a difficult thing not to choke up at this little tearjerker, but then that's much of the point, as it's very much a film with a message. It even starts out with a woman crying, as she parks her SUV over two handicapped spots to let her dog out. We don't see where, but in the morning we discover that it's a Humane Society animal shelter. This lady has apparently tied her dog to a pillar for Susan to discover in the morning as she shows up for work. Out the window goes any sympathy we might have found for the crying SUV driver, to quickly attach itself to the dog, an old girl that Susan decides to call Chance. The pair bond, in part because, as Susan says, 'nobody wants an old dog, just like nobody wants an old broad like me.' I was expecting the story to continue with the parallels, but it doesn't; it has a one track mind and that's focused on its message, which is that old dogs rarely get adopted, which in turn means that in many shelters they're put to sleep, an unfortunate euphemism in this scenario. They're killed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this story about a shelter that kills its old unadopted dogs after six months was shot at a no-kill shelter, the Humane Society in Wickenberg. After all, no shelter with a kill policy is likely to let a filmmaker like Barbara Gross wander in with a camera to shoot a short message film that aims to highlight to as wide an audience as possible how much this sort of behaviour goes on. It ends with a page of statistics to highlight how many animals enter US shelters every year and how many are killed. It's no spoiler to point out that it's most of them, even discounting age. When it comes to older animals, it's almost all of them. 'Give an old dog or cat another chance,' it pleads before the end credits roll, with the backing of strings to make it all the more plaintive. 'Adopt a senior.' I couldn't agree more, which is why it's sad that I find the film annoying. It didn't have to play things up as much as it did. Those strings weren't needed. Susan's boss didn't have to be such a bitch. The message stands up on its own.

Technically, it's capable but never high art. The picture quality isn't great at points and there's footage here that should have been chopped to make a leaner, tighter picture. Who cares if Susan eats peanut butter on her toast? We need to get her to work so we can move on with the story. Chance appears to be a lovely dog, who doesn't get enough screen time. Fortunately Mare Nubson does as Susan, as her performance is the foundation on which the entire film is built. I have no idea if she's really a dog lover off set but we can totally buy that she is, that all those dogs she cares for are really hers because she does a great job. The problem is that it relies on her too much and, instead of creating a subtle story to draw us in, it tries to jerk our tears any way it can, even if it hurts the consistency of the story, and it cheapens itself in the process. It's odd to find myself arguing with a film whose message I agree with, but that's what I found. I hope it finds a large audience but that it doesn't annoy them too.

Another Chance can be viewed for free at YouTube and Vimeo.