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Reviews
Fur Love of the Game (2007)
A masterpiece of the people-dressed-like-animal-to-play-in-a-sports-tournament genre.
A masterpiece of the people-dressed-like-animal-to-play-in-a-sports-tournament genre, in a mere 7 minutes "Fur Love of the Game" covers the gauntlet: the thrill of competition, the joy of romance, the irrepressible urge to dress like an animal of some sort in order to have sex. Will poor Peter, a mild-mannered library attendant, be able to deal with the confusion of secretly loving a night watchmen (or should I say night watch-woman?) who's a player on "the other side?" Will Toni West, aforementioned nightwatchperson, be able to contain her lust at the mere sight of Peter, a man from the wrong side of the tracks as far as her Nightwatch brethren are concerned. Find out, in Fur Love of the Game!
Daisy Chain (2006)
Fun horror/comedy short
Daisy Chain was an entry in the 48-hour film festival's Fargo competition. It is a delightful little film about a doll that seduces its owners and goes on homicidal rampages. Well written, shot and acted with none of the usual superfluous scenes/subplots so often found in student films (it was made mostly by college students), Daisy Chain is well worth seeking out. In an unrelated note, does anyone find it odd that a comment has to be 10 lines long in order to be submitted? Much like Daisy Chain, reviews that are short and sweet are often better than bloated ones filled with self-centric scenes/words that others watching/reading will not get anything out of. Maybe IMDb could loosen its standards for length for films under an hour, half- hour, etc.
AJ Goes to France (2006)
The kind of comedy Hollywood doesn't make anymore... you know? funny
AJ Goes to France is the kind of comedy that Hollyood seems to be incapable of making anymore. It is a film whose plot does not make sense and does not matter. Thank God. For too long we have suffered through the likes of Scary Movie and Date Movie and Not Another Teen Movie and, and, and... none of which have a single joke that isn't communicated to the audience 5 minutes before it happens (hence negating the point of the gag) or isn't a variation of a famous scene from a movie ("Show me the money!", etc.) with scatological/ sexual innuendo/drug references being added to show how creative the screenwriters are.
"France" moves along a rapid fire pace, never outlasting its welcome, utilizing a machine- gun fire dispersing of its many clever sight gags, run-ons, and one liners which aren't so much one-liners as they are clever versions of tired, plot-oriented dialogue from other movies. Everything but the kitchen sink is included, but in such a way that it is intentional and not a desperate try to get a laugh out of everybody. The filmmakers know what they are doing, they know when they want everyone to be confused, to be laughing, to be excited at there film. Not afraid of being offense or feature cruelty into a passive manner ("I get to see hero today, Kapitan Kangroo!" "You mean the one with the debilitating addiction to black-tar heroin?"), "France" is above using cheap scatological humor or base sexual innuendo as easy substitutes for jokes, characters and a storyline that was well thought out (which is impressive in itself considering what kind of film this is).
All in all, a strong recommendation for "AJ Goes to France", especially for those who, like me, remember the glory days of the 80's when thing like gags, one-liners and intelligent parodies of the ridiculous in other popular films (see Heidi Gustad's pitch-perfect send-up of the quirky caricatures of the female leads in Garden State and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) didn't have to be dumbed down in order to make light of films that took themselves too seriously. -10/10
A History of Violence (2005)
Well done David Cronenberg
A perfectly done film in terms of acting and especially tone/mood. Mortenson proves he's more than a one note actor in this wonderfully jarring and edgy film. The crowd I saw it with didn't appreciate its subtler qualities or its willingness to portray complex, adult sexual themes (unlike those found in American Pie-style movies). If you are looking for something with a little edge and intelligence in the year of The Dukes of Hazard and The Longest Yard this is your ticket. Be forewarned, however, it is one of (if not the) most violent films this year. This may seem obvious given the title but I must warn you this is not Hidalgo. For those who can handle it, make sure you put seeing this film at the top of your list!
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
A perfectly delightful film that thankfully doesn't drag.
Wallace and Gromit thankfully didn't succumb to the all too common traps that feature length films about short subject characters fall into and never lagged once (my main fear going in). The first two W&G shorts (A Trip to the Moon and The Wrong Trousers) were excellent, short and sweet. The third (A Close Shave) while certainly better than a majority of animation coming out these days, was definitely a step behind the first two. It focused on thrills instead of comedy which was an unwise choice in my opinion as The Wrong Trousers gives you both. Curse of the Were-rabbit manages to give both with no down time. The requisite love interest and bad guy-who-never-appeared-in-anything-involving-these-characters-before were present but handled so well that I hardly noticed it and even enjoyed said characters. Definitely, definitely one of the year's best films.
Sable Ligero (2005)
Toby Jones makes an excellent 'debut'.
Toby Jones is an aspiring filmmaker from Fargo, ND who made this short film (two minutes) won 3rd place (should have been 1st) at the Fargo Two-minute film festival. In it, Jones shows wisdom in film-making and life in general beyond his years by letting his audience get a feel for his two main characters entire relationship in two minutes. All the self-aware humor is perfectly delivered in this one-shot film by Heidi Gustad and Jones himself as the two main (and only) actors. Normally a concept, such as the one Jones is dealing with here, would be handled with no subtlety at all while Jones instead ops to focus on character-based humor and the aforementioned self-aware dialog (which satires American suburbia). When other filmmakers his age would laugh at his own juvenile joke (which I won't give away here) Jones makes sure that his characters don't laugh at all: they are the joke, not telling it. I say "debut" in the title of my review because Jones has made numerous films before this, this is simply the one to make it to IMDb first. Coming up, he has a feature-length film called "AJ Goes to France" which is set to debut in his native Fargo in December, 2005 and then tour movie circuits across the country.