Breaking up with Maggie Moore
I first saw the movie on IFC after channel surfing, coming upon the (I think) part where they are playing football, thinking that it was just another dull short film that some wannabe film student at NYU made, and quickly flipped the channel to something else. Again channel surfing sometime later, I came upon it again, but saw it from the very beginning to end and was completely blown away with the acting and cinematography. The acting is absolutely superb. I'm of the school in which acting means that you completely believe that the characters are real, that there is a suspension of belief that you are watching a movie and that what is in front of your eyes is actually happening (for short periods of time); not in which we have "great" movies where you are constantly aware that you are watching a movie, in which characters are doing and saying things that no one has ever or will ever do or say. There is a part where the Maggie character is looking directly into the camera, she is laying on her stomach (I think eating ice cream, and we assume is looking a the Alex character (it is one of Alex's flashbacks)); and the look on her face, the emotion that she conveys, is unbelievable. In this scene she says absolutely nothing. No one says anything. It is simply a closeup and she is looking directly into the camera. It is just so absolutely powerful!
Additionally the cinematography is awesome in how Alex is looking (imagining) flashbacks, looking at himself with Maggie in the past, then the camera swings back towards him in the same room without any division in setting (how exactly this is done (technically) I have no idea! This the director does throughout the movie very successfully.
Anyway, I rate this film (it's actually a short) up with Buffalo 66 as THE greatest, actually right AFTER Buffalo 66. The end is so absolutely powerful, yet so simple. Reviewers who critique this film because "the characters don't get developed," etc. are WAY off base.
I first saw the movie on IFC after channel surfing, coming upon the (I think) part where they are playing football, thinking that it was just another dull short film that some wannabe film student at NYU made, and quickly flipped the channel to something else. Again channel surfing sometime later, I came upon it again, but saw it from the very beginning to end and was completely blown away with the acting and cinematography. The acting is absolutely superb. I'm of the school in which acting means that you completely believe that the characters are real, that there is a suspension of belief that you are watching a movie and that what is in front of your eyes is actually happening (for short periods of time); not in which we have "great" movies where you are constantly aware that you are watching a movie, in which characters are doing and saying things that no one has ever or will ever do or say. There is a part where the Maggie character is looking directly into the camera, she is laying on her stomach (I think eating ice cream, and we assume is looking a the Alex character (it is one of Alex's flashbacks)); and the look on her face, the emotion that she conveys, is unbelievable. In this scene she says absolutely nothing. No one says anything. It is simply a closeup and she is looking directly into the camera. It is just so absolutely powerful!
Additionally the cinematography is awesome in how Alex is looking (imagining) flashbacks, looking at himself with Maggie in the past, then the camera swings back towards him in the same room without any division in setting (how exactly this is done (technically) I have no idea! This the director does throughout the movie very successfully.
Anyway, I rate this film (it's actually a short) up with Buffalo 66 as THE greatest, actually right AFTER Buffalo 66. The end is so absolutely powerful, yet so simple. Reviewers who critique this film because "the characters don't get developed," etc. are WAY off base.