Mountain Top Renewal, winner of Best Documentary at this year’s Charlotte Film Festival, is an in-depth look at controversial coal mining practices taking place in southern Appalachia. Essentially, it is where coal companies literally remove tops of mountains to get to valuable coal strains. It is much more efficient for the coal companies and takes less manpower than deep mining practices and so, as a result, is cheaper. Unfortunately, the environmental and negative health effects on those within surrounding communities can be devastating.
The immediately obvious effect is the appearance of the areas where mountain top removal is being practiced. Captured by various helicopter shots, what were once beautiful tree covered mountain tops become whole square miles of barren, leveled out, industrialized landscape . The not so obvious effects include polluted drinking water in neighboring communities due to coal slurry (basically a big pond that includes a mix of water and coal dust) run off and a possible slow contamination of a great part of the water table for the east coast.
Many of the people focused on in the film are activists that live in the area and have been fighting to stop mountain top removal since 2005. One interviewee, Carmilita Brown has been battling for clean drinking water for twenty years. Particularly effective is the footage of protestors in the governor’s mansion, who manage to shut down that branch of government for the better part of a day trying to get the governor to help relocate a school that is about 300 yards from a slurry pond. Does this protest get results? Apparently not, because the coal companies are currently in litigation to build a second coal silo even closer to the school.
In the end, this is the most damning thing about this film and mountain top removal in general. We are so dependent on cheap alternates for energy, that practices like this don’t get much pressure from those not directly involved. Why should we apply pressure, when those practices assure that we will continue to be able to turn on the lights, not to mention keep our AC on when we have thirty plus days in a row of over 90 degree temperatures? Wait a minute, isn’t part of the reason we have had so many days of unrelenting heat due to the environmental impact that things like mountain top removal cause? Seems to me we are all directly involved. Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.It’s hard to imagine that there are many people who did not have to read The Lottery in high school (there were a few at the recent Festival screening). Directed by Augustin Kennady and adapted by Anthony Rando, the short is a fairly straight forward adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s critically acclaimed 1948 short story. It stars Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (Damien Thorn in the remake of The Omen) as a young boy who is being taken to the lottery in the town square by his mother.
Kennady hits all the important notes from Shirley Jackson’s tale, unquestioning following of tradition and the alienation of those that might possibly question such traditions. He even manages to add a few surprises which give a dose of freshness to a story that so many are familiar with. His use of black and white is particularly effective in conveying that one is watching a documentary rather than a fictional narrative.
Add this to the fact that we all need to be reminded from time to time that blind adherence to tradition is dangerous, and The Lottery still proves to be an important tale. We do need to stop periodically to ask important questions as to why we follow the rituals that we do and what should we do to adapt them when they become dangerous or are no longer relevant. Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.After watching the Jem Cohen film, Building a Broken Mousetrap, all I can say is, “Anarchy ROCKS!” This film has the distinction of being the most gleefully anarchic offering that I saw at this year’s festival. It also earns the award for being one of the most walked out on films I have ever seen in my life. Our mid-size audience had shrunk before the film was over. Whether it was because of the band’s politics or just the experimental nature of the music, I’m not sure. It’s probably both.
Mousetrap captures a performance of The Ex in New York City on September 11, 2004. This five person (drummer Katrin; Guitarists Terrie and Andy; acoustic bass player, Luc and vocalist G.W. Sok) punk band from Holland chose to intersperse the concert footage with scenes of working construction sites around the city, shots of the Republican National Convention (taking place in NYC at the same time), clips of war protestors outside the convention and several random street scenes from the Big Apple. This is definitely NOT your average Green Day concert readily sponsored by corporate America to move loads and loads of CDs.
The idea works. The music during the street scenes meshes well, particularly during the construction bits. It adds an industrial, haunting quality to those parts that is reminiscent of a David Lynch film.
The concert footage is just as unique. The music is at times random noise but always very tight. And speaking of experimental, ever wanted to see an electric guitar played with a screw driver? It’s in here. Or how about a stand up bass played with an old transistor radio. Remember those? That’s in here as well. These elements are blended with more traditional rock sounds and allowed to play out in long musical improvisations. They show that the musicians are lovingly familiar with their instruments. They also show us musicians willing to squeeze from their instruments every sonic inch of fury.
Should the band and the director be concerned about those that left the showing before the film was even half over? No! For it is the job of punk rock to be in your face, loud, abrasive and dangerous. Especially punk rock that revels in this much anarchic destruction and glorious re-imagining of what music can be. A punk rock band must simultaneously be hated and loved. Fortunately The Ex is more than up for the job. Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.Based on George Harrah’s short story of the same name, this film, directed and written by Bernadette Demisay, presents us Walter Mason. A shy mechanical engineer, Walter is content to retreat to his apartment every evening to listen to short wave radio and work on his Book of Impossible Objects. Occasional attempts by a co-worker to set him up on blind dates lure Walter away from his apartment, but outside of that Walter seems content to be alone.
That is, until he starts to notice a woman in a brightly colored head scarf waiting to board as he leaves the train every evening. During one of these brief encounters, a chance event reveals that the woman is hiding something. The next evening, the woman is not there. Walter then becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her, and is suddenly cast into an unfamiliar world.
The film, wonderfully shot on location at the Illinois Railway Museum, has a timeless and haunting quality. The editing and music blend well to create sadness as the director shows us how alone Walter is. Of particular note is Walter’s hobby of listening to short wave radio. The things that are broadcast over the speaker seem otherworldly. Add to this Walter’s drawings and paintings of impossible objects which show that Walter has an imagination. Are all the recent changes in his mind? Or is another world reaching out to him; perhaps a world beyond the comfortable confines of his apartment? Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.Orizuru, a short film by Writer-Director, and Hiroshima native, Junya Sakino, offers a unique perspective on events leading up to the dropping of the atomic bomb upon that Japanese city. He presents us with Jackson (Steven Mann) an American diplomat stationed in Hiroshima right before the start of the war. Rising tensions between the US and Japan do not keep Jackson from falling in love with the beautiful Chizuko (Atsko Hirayanagi). When Jackson is suddenly called back to the states, he asks Chizuko (who is pregnant with his child) to come with him, which she cannot do. She presents him with an Orizuru, an Origami crane, as a keepsake and a promise that they will be together in happiness when tensions ease between their two countries.
Shortly after returning to the states, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and the war starts in earnest. Jackson’s stateside work throughout the war directly affects the decision on which Japanese cities warrant targeting for bomber runs and he hears rumors of a project referred to as “Manhattan.” Meanwhile, Chizuko is still in Hiroshima comforting their son, Ken (Kent Yamamoto), who does not understand why he cannot see his dad nor why all the other kids bully him for being “different.”
The film is effective and beautifully shot. The performances are solid, especially the leads. Sakino’s story is a distinctive twist on how war can have a dramatic effect on all of us, even those who never have to fire a single bullet.
The film’s only weakness (and it is minor) is its length. A subject like this deserves more time to study the motivations of the characters, particularly why Chizuko makes the decision to stay, and the broader ramifications of the character’s actions. Rumor has it that Sakino is developing his idea into a feature-length film, let’s hope he succeeds in doing so. wait! Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.A journey like no other, Black Gold succeeds in exposing the modern day legal robbery and exploitation of third world Ethiopia by the US many European countries. If this movie accomplishes nothing else, it should make viewers not ever want to purchase or even drink a cup of coffee from the billion dollar conglomerates Starbucks, Kraft, Nestle’, Proctor & Gamble, and Sara Lee. While Starbucks prints messages on its packages claiming to help farmers build and sustain their communities by paying them fair wages, thousands of Ethiopian farmers make less that fifty cents a day harvesting coffee crops to sell at jaw dropping prices.
Black Gold reports that coffee, indigenous to Ethiopia, is the second most actively traded product in the world, only second to oil, however, many countries of Africa are the absolute poorest across the globe. At a consumption rate of two billion cups a day, the industry rakes in an amazing $140 billion a year. Yet, Ethiopia earns less than 3% of that enormous profit. In fact, the country receives so little money, the communities cannot afford to feed, clothe and educate their families. The schools they want to build cannot afford books, chalkboards, or even a salary for one teacher to teach the few students that are privileged enough to attend.
The filmmakers Marc and Nick Francis shed a blinding bright light on the issue of Fair Trade and the World Trade Organization. It is beyond sickening how a continent with the richest, most valuable resources such as diamonds and coffee continue to get poorer and poorer while every other country around the world has seen their economy grow with less valuable commodities.
The filmmakers followed Tadesse Meskela, General Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union, for more than two years. From the rolling hills of Ethiopia, to parts of Europe and the United States, Tadesse constantly travels the globe negotiating better prices for some 74,000 coffee farmers in his native country.
One day Tadesse’s globe trotting will hopefully pay off and farmers of all traded products will get their fair share. Review by Dawn Cauthen
Dawn Cauthen is an aspiring screenwriter and graduate student at Queens University of Charlotte studying Creative Writing with a concentration in writing for stage and screen.Before and after Kissing Maria - This short from Spain follows a nine year old and his infatuation with his older cousin one summer. This is a very charming small film with a rather bittersweet ending.
Parabolic Dish - Another Spanish short which begins about a man and his misadventures of fixing his television antenna. Then it turns to the reality of having the world and all of its issues right there in his home. This was a very interesting take with no dialogue except for the dialogue spewing from the television. Very relevant and makes you think.
The Cricket's Song - Another Spanish short, which is high on suspense and intrigue. A terrorist is attempting to get out of his profession to start a new life and there begins his delimna. This was very well done, tautly directed, and extremely well acted.
Twice - Regrettably, this Spanish short had no subtitles. Someone gave me the details: A couple is about to divorce. But before the man will sign the divorce papers, the woman must agree to reenact their very first date. This was well directed and the two actors were very realistic in their characterizations. Interesting camera work.
THE VISTORS
WINNER-Indie Spirit Award
Best Short Film
This is a German short film about a woman who takes in a couple while her boyfriend is away, with major consequences. This film is quite intriguing with good plot twists and an amazing web of passions. This film along with many of the other shorts in the festival makes you wonder what these filmmakers could have done with a full length film. I can't wait! Review by Hank West
A very poignant and sincere film dealing with a girl and her relationships with family, her boyfriend, and particularly with the boyfriend's family. The lead actress, Meagan Moses, was thoroughly genuine and real in her portrayal. There are many scenes that are completely heartfelt, particularly the encounter in the bar when she questions a man who swoops down on her for a possible one night stand. It's a very blunt and brutal scene that is completely forthright and frank. This is an emotionally charged film that succeeds in its naked and unpretentious honesty. Review by Hank West
Hank West is a local stage and film actor, and avid film buff.By wearing 3-D glasses while watching the introduction, one would think they were gently plopped down in the middle of Utopia with a pair of angel wings strapped to their back. Montclair, NJ, initially depicted in this narrative as the perfect place to live and raise a family is anything but flawless. Rich with marital problems, subtle drug use, meddling neighbors, and depression, Montclair is actually your typical suburban town.
Quirky metaphors are used in the form of comparing colorful balloons to life’s emotions. Bursting them signifies trouble just as filling them with air to rise and float above the trees indicates happiness is just ahead.
This film peeks in on the lives of families at a crossroads: a lonely expectant wife, an overweight man staring divorce in the face, and a bachelor who has pain hidden behind his Hungarian accent and tough attitude.
Friends commend sports radio personality Jay and his stay at home wife Amy on how they keep their picturesque marriage in tact. But as time goes on, the two become at odds because Jay wants to further his radio career as his wife desperately longs for another child. Feeling guilty, Jay finally admits to his wife that he’s not ready to expand the family. Ultimately his wife, who prides herself on being a wonderful wife and mother resents him. All the while, Amy’s pregnant best friend is miserable after her husband leaves to travel abroad on a business trip for 2 months. Although he vows to be back before the baby’s birth, depression sets in and she slowly but surely loses her sanity. Bruce, the chubby loner, has isolated himself due to the recent split between him and his estranged wife. For months he ignores her harassing phone calls to sign the divorce papers so she can move on with her life. Unfortunately he can’t move on with his. The soft Hungarian brute, Voltar, seems to be a sloppy, hairy, noisy neighbor to many but eventually opens up to Amy about the son he lost tragically and the wife who left him as a result.
In each story, there is a familiarity that makes for a good hearty movie that most abnormally normal people can relate to. Funny, real, and compelling, Montclair is the all-American film. Review by Dawn Cauthen
Dawn Cauthen is an aspiring screenwriter and graduate student at Queens University of Charlotte studying Creative Writing with a concentration in writing for stage and screen.This hour long documentary revisits the riotous era of the Civil Rights movement and the fight for equality throughout several states in the deep south. Writer, Producer, and Director, Robin Smith, followed Civil Rights leader and Georgia politician John R. Lewis through a weekend of tours with other politicians as well as working class adults, and school aged children. These tours spanned from the infamous Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama to The Martin Luther King, Jr. memoriam in Atlanta, Georgia.
Full of emotion, Come Walk In My Shoes showed the uncensored acts of violence thrown onto Black America because they simply wanted the same rights as white citizens. Vicious dogs, powerful water hoses, and police officers with night sticks were all unleashed on defenseless men, women, and children asking to be treated as human beings. In addition to the thousands of blacks who suffered, many whites joined the fight and were beaten and bruised just the same. Robin Smith got up close and personal with John Lewis and others who put their young lives in jeopardy.
A major milestone shown in the film was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. After the world witnessed the brutality of John Lewis and hundreds of marchers crossing the Edmund Pettis Bridge by police officials, President Johnson issued a call for the bill. This act outraged racist whites but would assist in setting the social climate from then on.
The silence in the room led me to believe most were in awe of the happenings some mere sixty years ago. America is not too far removed from inequality but has made great strides over the years. Review by Dawn Cauthen
Dawn Cauthen is an aspiring screenwriter and graduate student at Queens University of Charlotte studying Creative Writing with a concentration in writing for stage and screen.Old slave songs have been present in the black community for hundreds of years as displayed in the documentary The Spirituals. Severing language barriers and communicating through words that would express their ambition to be free, negro spirituals nurtured souls and helped slaves survive moments of relentless mental and physical abuse. Members of the American Spiritual Ensemble told stories of how slaves would discreetly prepare their escape and notify the others by singing a song such as Steal Away to Jesus that masked messages for what was to come in the wee hours of the morning.
After the film, a live church choir serenaded the movie patrons with two spirituals and earned a resounding round of applause. Review by Dawn Cauthen
Dawn Cauthen is an aspiring screenwriter and graduate student at Queens University of Charlotte studying Creative Writing with a concentration in writing for stage and screen.Marian, a woman who was raised in an orphanage in Germany goes back to the "home" she left ten years before. She interacts and gives her time to work with a number of children as a way of supporting the home.
Far from being bitter, she is very caring and supportive of the home and the couple who helped raise her. She has fond memories and deep feelings for the young people she was with there and connects with some of them again. A moving story of loss, self-reliance, and grace. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.This is a delightful short with no words, but an excellent sound track to support the narrative. A professor has lost his zip and his students know it. He not only doesn't inspire them, he puts them to sleep. He receives a mysterious present one day that puts a spring back in his step, and suddenly his teaching comes alive and he's popular again. When he finds the present-giver, another layer of happiness is added to his life. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.The topic of abortion remains a divisive one. African-American woman are not of one mind either, but the issue is more prominent for them. The statistics show that African-American woman have more abortions than white women or Latina women.
This documentary gives both sides of the issue from the African-American point of view. First, with women who have had an abortion or support women having choice; then from women who feel that it's wrong. There are also class and social issues that complicate the picture.
The film does a good job letting the women tell their stories without making judgments. Some feel they made the best decision they could at a given point in their life, yet because they have feelings, they mourn. It's an issue that causes pain either way. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.If "winning hearts and minds" toward the best in the American spirit is one of our country's goals, which we can support, in its military occupation of foreign lands today, than we all have something to learn from this documentary. It shows how three seniors--a cardiologist, a mortgage banker, and an independent farmer--have devoted their free time to create an organization called Knights' Bridge. They travel around the world bringing food, medicine, and other desperately needed supplies directly to those suffering in war-torn lands and refugee camps.
In this insightful and important film, we experience the courage, common-sense wit, tireless energy, and adventurous spirit of these men, who take humanitarian aid where other organizations refuse to go. They tell us that Americans "need to get out and see the world," while showing us how they do it. They explain that they've decided to live life to the fullest, rather than spending their free time in a relaxing hobby. They take no pay for their charitable work, because--instead of saving money to buy an expensive car or boat--they'd prefer to leave a different legacy with their lives. Yet, they are not foolish heroes. They carefully study each country before they arrive and make careful plans to organize local workers. Even then, they worry about being kidnapped and have discussed what to do if one of them is killed (bring back at least a hand for insurance identification).
In Afghanistan, with U.S. bombers attacking Taliban positions just four miles away, we see these gray-haired Americans meeting with local tribal leaders, to find out what they need and bring it to them personally--especially when told that aid from other organizations is not getting to the people who need it. We see them in Burma, daring to save people in a warring area that seems inaccessible to other humanitarians. We see them, too, in the Philippines, helping the U.S. military by getting medicine at an 80-90% discount and bringing it (with a few soldiers as their guards) to people who have been abandoned by the local government and are caught in a rebel war. Through these and other adventures, we meet these three eccentric personalities and the impoverished people whose lives they save, simply helping them--as the men point out--without trying to change their politics or beliefs. Review by Mark Pizzato
Mark Pizzato is Professor of Theatre amd Film at UNC-Charlotte. His screenplays, produced as short films, have won New York Film Festival and Minnesota Community Television awards.An obese woman wants to fly again, but can't looking as she does. Can an obsession with food be cured by surgery? The woman undergoes massive liposuction and her body looks great. The interesting thing here is what's done with the fat that's sucked out of her body. (Hint: there's a definite yuk factor.) Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.This intentionally bizarre "lost luche libra masterpiece" is imaginative and funny. It features masked heroes from outer space who, for whatever reason, think it is their job to save the human race. They have no obvious super powers, but punch and wrestle with their opponents. The dialogue is purposely out of sync, they fight a race of genetically altered "transanimals" who show up in cheap cloth horse and elephant costumes, they hawk an awful breakfast cereal to raise money, serve a mad killer president, and use their "status" to flirt with the ladies. In short, a good time is had by all because the audience is let in on the joke. Shot in and around Charlotte, the producer stated he's going to be shooting more episodes. Viva los Ivory Bastards. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.This feature length takes us into the lives of a father and son in mourning for the loss of a loving mother and wife. The father is a driven doctor who, while good at his craft, lacks the bedside manner to land the position he so desperately wants. His wise supervisor sends him to a rural town in the mountains of North Carolina to improve on his people skills.
For quite a time, he sticks out like a sore thumb unable to get into the rhythm of it, and his son, to whom he has a disconnected relationship, is miserable. I couldn’t help but be reminded of “Doc Hollywood”, but this charming tale takes us to places that film does not. We meet the usual suspects of quirky and interesting locals, but there are many challenges for the doctor and surprises for us along the way. We do get a sense of the breezy mountain air and the laid-back lifestyle, and the ensemble is first-rate, especially the townspeople and the children.
Despite some resistance on this viewer’s part, I gladly gave in to the inspiration and hope that came out of this story. Friendship, grieving, and the “search for the good life” are things most of us experience and struggle with. Simple Things was a pleasant reminder that it’s all right there in our own backyard. Review by Vito Abate
Vito Abate is a native New Yorker working and living as an actor, director, and sometime writer in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Obsessional habits, a crazy love triangle, and a crafty villain become both funny and sinister in this feature about a young man who keeps his New York apartment pristinely clean and hasn't left it for 10 months--until lured out of his shell by a sexy woman and a menacing landlord.
Kip takes five showers a day and microwaves his mail, but when a young woman gradually breaks through his germophobic paranoia, making passionate love with him and then betraying him, he must overcome his fear of dirt and flesh--to get his own revenge, to reconcile with his beloved, and to get that bloody body out of his home.
This all goes to show the grave dangers of trying to hold onto a cheap, rent-control apartment in the Big Apple, especially when the girl across the hall and her "ex-boyfriend" have their eyes on it. With a fascinating mixture of genres, this low-budget film displays excellent acting and many surprising twists of plot and tone. Review by Mark Pizzato
Mark Pizzato is Professor of Theatre amd Film at UNC-Charlotte. His screenplays, produced as short films, have won New York Film Festival and Minnesota Community Television awards.This documentary, produced by Gary Null of PBS fundraising fame, is almost unbearable to watch. It's repetitive, overwhelmingly sad, and doesn't give the journalistic "other side." And yet, even if it's only half true, all Americans should see it.
The film explores many aspects of the mysterious illnesses plaguing hundreds of thousands of veterans from both Gulf Wars. Ironically, the our government and companies provided chemical and biological weapons components to Iraq in the 1980s, which may have been released into the air when the U.S. later bombed Iraqi factories. Such "dusty agents" may have infected U.S. soldiers, permeating their chemical protection suits. Radioactive uranium dust, from the "depleted uranium" in U.S. bombs and tank armor, could also be part of the problem for our soldiers in Iraq, with many of their children stateside being born with birth defects, and with Iraqi civilians and their children suffering increasing rates of cancer and birth defects. The vaccines soldiers received to protect them against anthrax and botulism may have caused severe side effects as well.
Many specific cases are given, plus much documentation, to show the vast tragedy of such causes--involving Iraqi civilians and U.S. veterans--along with the Army's failure to acknowledge and treat its soldiers as victim of physical illnesses, not just post-traumatic stress. Whistle-blower Steve Robinson explains the Department of Defense's "Bronze Anvil" program as a "battle plan" to confuse the public by calling the problem a "syndrome," rather than an actual set of illnesses. Doug Rokke, former Director of the U.S. Army's Depleted Uranium Project also rails, as a veteran, against the continued use of that radioactive substance in our weapons and warfare. Others in the film accuse our government of a "war crime" in creating a "Chernobyl" in the Middle East, a radioactive landscape that can never be cleaned up.
These are harsh claims on top of all the other problems caused by U.S. military activity in the Persian Gulf. It seems too horrible to believe and may thus be, as Null's voice over insists, "the truth." Ironically, we may have fought the second Gulf War to prevent Saddam from using "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that he did not even have--and yet released them ourselves in the process. Review by Mark Pizzato
Mark Pizzato is Professor of Theatre amd Film at UNC-Charlotte. His screenplays, produced as short films, have won New York Film Festival and Minnesota Community Television awards.Writer/Director Alan Arrivée has given the audience plenty of symbolism in this intriguing short film. A cowboy and a strange drifter are in a diner in Wyoming close to 3 am. The drifter starts a conversation and the cowboy begins to relate how his wife's friend, a writer, has come to stay with them several times and interviews him.
The film is talky, but it works here because we are shown scenes in voice over flashback. At first, the arrangement with the writer works well, then the cowboy becomes obsessed with what the writer is writing. He keeps saying his wife doesn't mind, she doesn't care how much they talked, but in flashback we see that's not the case.
The cowboy feels the writer has stolen something from him--his thoughts, his soul? Is it a diner, or someplace more sinister? Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.The Caltech men’s basketball team and its monumental 244 game losing streak is not just a lighthearted tale about a group of affable losers, but rather a poignant story of a program with history and tradition, of brilliant men attempting to achieve a single victory on the court. Writer/director Rick Greenwald captures every angle of the experience of playing basketball at Caltech. The proud academic standards and the long list of famous scholars and Nobel Prize winners have left the basketball team far behind without a win since 1985. A determined group of seniors and equally determined coach, Roy Dow, seek to end the streak and have their best chance in years to win a game.
The history of Caltech basketball is revisited from its inception and players from all decades are interviewed. Some truly interesting stories are told of the players after they graduated and also of the great basketball connections the program holds. All this leads up to their final home game of the 2006 season where they play their closest game and it comes down to a dramatic conclusion. The game itself is as exciting to watch as any super bowl, any World Series, or any large sporting event. You can’t help but root for the team; it will bring you to the edge of your seat.
Greenwald admitted after the showing that he only became interested in the team because of the story of the coach and how he stayed at Caltech facing nearly impossible odds. After he investigated the story he said he couldn’t help but want to share it with everyone. Those who follow sports, and even those who don’t come to understand why these players continue to play the game. It’s a compelling and inspiring story. Review by Alex Massé
Alex Massé is a graduate student in sports studies at High Point University, and a film fan.
The Charlotte Film Festival is off to a good start with the special presentation of Adrenaline. The hook here is that it takes place in real time in one continuous shot filmed in Nashville. Aside from the technical demands on the crew and actors, the story gets your heart pumping.
Chris Thompson (David Alford very good/believable from beginning to end) buys a brand new SUV with a satellite support system. Before he can leave the lot, he has to sign some papers or not get the system. Chris doesn’t know exactly what he’s signing, but he’s not too concerned. His ordeal is foreshadowed, though, when the salesman says, “You’ve just bought yourself one hell of a ride.”
The new car turns into the vehicle from hell. Someone has hijacked the system and becomes a disembodied voice that terrifies Chris. “Harvey” claims he has kidnapped Chris’s daughter and threatens to kill her unless Chris does exactly as he is told. This threat keeps him helpless as he goes through a series of increasingly risky, violent tasks.
The film is mostly well-paced and only slows a few times towards the end. As the stakes get higher for Chris, the pace picks up when the final task must be completed. It’s easy to get engrossed and forget this is one long take, which makes it that much more admirable. This cautionary tale about privacy, piracy, and being caught up with the latest toys is not the paranoia of the future; it’s now. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.
Bruce David Janu’s documentary, Facing Sudan, is an incredible testimonial of both how horrible human beings can be to one another, and how seemingly ordinary people can stand up in the face of that horror and make a difference.
Facing Sudan is truly about the Sudanese people and their struggle to survive the genocide that is being committed in their country. It is also the tale of those who choose to fight these atrocities. Are they soldiers? UN Peacekeepers? No, they are neither. They are custodians, housewives, doctors and even some who have escaped the genocide themselves and have returned to help their fellow countrymen and women.
These seemingly ordinary people have helped in extraordinary ways. The doctor goes into the country to treat people. The custodian also flies in to help the doctors wherever he is needed. The grandmother leads a group to help displaced Sudanese people get settled here in America. And one former Lost Boy returns to his country to help drill wells, the first step to getting these people back on their feet.
The atrocities presented in Facing Sudan, are horrible and upsetting. The fact that they are being carried out by other human beings because of a difference in ethnicity is depressing. The power of this film is the way it shows how individuals can make a difference, and the hope instilled in watching them make that difference. Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.Absolute Zero, written and produced by Alan Woodruff, tells the story of a man (Ian Wilmoth) trapped in a refrigerated train car who painstakingly documents the effects of hypothermia in pencil on the walls of the cooler as the train rolls to its final destination.
This short alternates between footage of the lead character and archival footage of a coroner answering questions about hypothermia and its effects on our leading man. Presented this way, the film, which is set in the 50s, has a CSI/Law and Order feel to it. The scenes of the man trapped in the car are well lit and convey claustrophobia and entombment. As he drops further into hypothermia we also start to learn a little about his past through a series of hallucinations.
The final twist, when it comes, leaves us wondering what exactly has happened to our lead character. Is the mind so powerful that it can come to such an erroneous conclusion? Or do the snippets we see of the man’s life provide us a clue as to why he might just want to die?
No simple answers are provided by Absolute Zero, just questions, suppositions and a slight chill. Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.Make no mistake, Robin Burke’s documentary, Living Lightly, is trying to sell you a lifestyle. The Vido family (Peter, Faye and their three children, Ashley, Kai and Fairlight) practices the ancient art of scything as a form of meditation in action.
The film also follows the family, who live on a farm in a corner of New Brunswick, Canada (captured in all it’s beauty by Burke’s camera,) as they go about their daily, simple lives, taking no more from the land then is necessary to survive. This creates a bond of love among the family and strengthens their relationship with the land.
The film is simple as well, depending upon interviews and with the family scything demonstrations that are graceful and yet show how efficient and productive a group can be when all are working toward a common, simple goal. While we get interviews with both Peter and Faye, as well as with their oldest son, a few moments with their daughters would have provided interesting insight to the situation from a teenage girl’s perspective. We do, however, get to see one of the daughters challenge a guy, who has a weed-eater, to see who can clear out a patch of grass quicker.
Make no mistake, Burke and the Vido family are trying to sell you a lifestyle. A simpler, cleaner, more meditative one and that might not be such a bad thing. Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.Moviebonics (brought to us by Donald P. Unverrich and Lance Miller) was almost the funniest film at this year’s festival. The funniest was Ivory Bastards, a film made right here in Charlotte. The plot concerns two evangelists (Heidi Fellner and Jason Powell) who knock on the door of a couple who lives the movies - literally. While the evangelists try to convert them the couple responds to them only in movie quotes.
This is a movie lover’s dream. The whole fun of this film lies half in trying the figure out which movie the quote comes from and half in realizing that as dialogue, the quotes fit with the action of this story as well.
The couple (Aaron Carpenter and Mary E. Morales) delivers each line as they were delivered in the films taken from. As imitators, both performers are brilliant and they surrender themselves to the absolute joy playing such characters must be.
The setting of the film is another bonus. The inside of the couple’s house looks like a movie theater and is decorated with movie memorabilia. The use of this set as well as the memorabilia just adds to the zaniness and forces the viewer to pay attention visually as well.
The great thing about all of this is that this movie will just keep getting funnier with each repeated viewing. If Moviebonics was this good, can you imagine what Ivory Bastards must have been like? Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.Wood Diary, a short by director/writer/producer David Myers, follows a man (played by Samuel Gates), who has an ornately carved wooden and metal prosthetic leg (loving sculpted by set and prop designer Kevin Titzer), as he wakes up first thing in the morning. On top of his dresser are four wooden figurines (also sculpted by Titzer.) Very methodically, one at a time he opens four hidden compartments within his prosthetic. Into these compartments he puts a different wooden trinket which he removes from the hand of one of the figurines. Each of these trinkets represents an action, i.e. the heart trinket, represents love.
After doing this, we continue to follow him through his day. We see him cook for his invalid mother and then as he serves her breakfast, he ever so gently kisses her on the forehead. Following this he retreats to his room and removes the love trinket from the compartment in his leg and returns it to the hand one of the figurines. This signifies that he as accomplished one of his important daily tasks, to love someone. He does this with each trinket as he accomplishes each daily task.
The film is shot in a dreamlike quality that gently brings us into this man’s world. And even though he may be very different from you or me, his gentleness and drive to fill everyday with his four most valuable actions give him a certain heroism. His handicap represents the parts in us that we feel might be broken. While those parts of us may never truly heal, the most valuable lesson of the film is to show us that we can work with and around our shortcomings and still lead a fulfilled life. Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.What does Philip Rockhammer (Robert Lambrechts) want more than anything in the world? Why to place first at the NASP Championship? What is NASP, you ask? Well, if you were hip. . .er. . .slack enough, you’d know that NASP stands for National Association of Staredown Professionals.
This mockumentary, directed by Mark Decena, follows Philip’s attempt to qualify for the NASP finals and his ongoing rivalry with five-time Staredown champion Tony Patterson (Bob Brindley). Philip lives with his girlfriend, Chrissy (Nanrisa Lee), who works two jobs so that Philip can “train” all day to follow his dream, since Patterson is the only one who makes money playing Staredown. And how exactly does one train for Staredown? Just ask the Puma, that’s all that I will allow myself to say. See, nobody actually makes any money at Staredown except Tony, because he is the Tiger Woods of the sport; so, Philip must have somebody to support him as he pursues his dream.
This film follows the pattern that fans of Christopher Guest film will recognize. The characters are whacky and most are not very likeable. Brindley plays Patterson’s jerk quality to the hilt. Lambrechts’ Rockhammer is every bit as pathetic as you’d expect from a young man getting a free ride from his hapless girlfriend. Therein is the films one weakness. Chrissy wants to get married to Philip but he does not want to commit. Why should he when he is getting all that he wants without the commitment? The writers, Decena and Lambrechts (along with co-creators Jason Apaliski, Justin Kramm and Adam Lau) choose to play this card too early in the film and since they never really ramp the idea beyond the “girl wants to marry, guy won’t” phase, it comes off as sounding one note.
The rest, however, is very funny. Some of the funniest scenes are those that show how intense and heated people can get over the smallest things. One particularly funny bit, not to mention suspenseful, is how the filmmakers manage to up the ante during the final Staredown, not once, but twice.
So, if you get a chance, tune in to see if Rockhammer will beat Patterson and his notorious “Crankshaft,” maneuver. Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.One of the most interesting ideas put forth by Epicentre, a documentary about nuclear weapons, is the duality of man. Not only can societies have feet firmly planted in two very different, sometimes opposing viewpoints, but individuals are completely capable of achieving this task as well.
Director/Producer Danny Pederson-Bradbury’s movie covers every angle of the nuclear weapons issue. It starts with stories of the first atomic bomb tested by the United States and covers up to what our nation is currently doing with its nuclear arsenal. Within, we see how atomic weapons have affected every facet of our lives, our health and our psyches; not just our political climate.
Petersen-Bradbury’s movie is ambitious. He shows us how the bomb has affected us physically. Much of the footage is of the victims of the blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By speaking with historians and anthropologist he shows how our culture and our psyche have been affected by nuclear weapons. He also gives us numbers on the staggering amounts of money we have spent on the weapons. In short, he hits all of his targets and hits them well.
However, the thing that is most pervasive in Petersen-Bradbury’s film is man’s own duality. That duality is everywhere in the nuclear argument. Nuclear power is a positive thing AND nuclear power is destructive. Building more nuclear weapons is a way to enforce peace AND nuclear weapons will destroy us, our culture and our history. We live in a democratic society AND YET one man has the authoritative control on whether or not these weapons get used. Perhaps this duality exists because, for years, the nuclear arms race was us vs. the Soviet Union.
I shudder to think how our psyches might shatter once it starts to dawn on us that you can now count on one hand the number of countries that have an existing nuclear arsenal, add to that another hand’s worth of countries currently developing nuclear weapons. Finally, add to that another twenty or thirty countries that have the ability to develop nuclear weapons but choose not to, at least until they feel threatened enough by those who already have the weapons. No wonder so many of us choose to think that the nuclear weapons problem dissolved along with the dissolution of Soviet Union.wait! Review by Tom Ollis
Tom Ollis is an actor, model, and bookseller. He lives in Matthews.Gulp- very slick, very funny little short from Jason Reidman about the trial and tribulations of finding salt water for a little fish. Imaginatively shot and performed.
Common Practice - Near the end of this piece, you come to understand the title. Until then, with no dialogue, you are just not sure what to anticipate as you watch a boy walk home with his violin case. One of my favorites from the festival, this is such a beautifully shot film. Very very good and very very life affirming.
The Oates' Valor - A very dark and edgy story of a young man's conflicts with his father and his life goals. This film by Tim Cahill has a warped tense feel to it which is right up my alley of fun. Very imaginative and clever and the one scene where the father makes two of his sons carry him in a trash can was down right hysterical.
Time Out - Terrific little movie by Robbi Chafitz about two little boys in time out at school, but the actors are adults! Great work play in this one. Very straight forward in the direction of this one, no camera gimmicks, but none is needed. All it needs is the spot-on dialogue and the two actors being committed to their kid roles.
The Tragic Story of N'Ling - This film by Jeffrey St Jules was probably the most bizarre but the most visually arresting film I've seen at the festival. I'm not sure what type of animation (I'm not sure if that is the correct category for it to be placed in) was used, but it appeared to be done with cut-outs that were layered over and over. A truly bizarre fairytale of a man and his donkey friend and their attempts to survive. Very allegorical.
Ha Ha America - Very funny, sobering look at China and its evolving into a greater power. Sharp editing and incisive lines (narration is written, not spoken), goes from satirical to grim and horrific. Very potent and gripping. Review by Hank West
Hank West is a local stage and film actor, and avid film buff.This short written and directed by Lisa Cole had a very strong use of color, especially with the blues and greens in the shots. The music used was also an essential element, but I had difficulty in following the narrative of a daughter returning to her mother's home on a mission. Review by Hank West
Hank West is a local stage and film actor, and avid film buff.Once Upon a Christmas Village - Very colorful story of what happens when Santa's magical watch brings to life the Christmas décor of a New Jersey home. The opening shows you where this is going: eye popping visuals of Santa (voiced by Jim Belushi) with his reindeer and sleigh being assisted by a hot air balloon (and the most devilish elves I've ever seen). The stop-action harkens back to the days of Rankin and Bass, but this is much darker and crude with some of its visual and language elements.
Ikebena - A lovely and restrained piece of simplicity and the tragedy of this simplicity as it affects an elderly couple. The film shows the couple as they go through their ritualistic life, including the creation of flower arrangements. The musical score is a major component showing the simplicity and strength of the piece.
The Street Cleaner - Highly interesting and wonderfully shot piece dealing with a prostitute in Savannah, Georgia. This could have been a very formulaic story: A Jack the Ripper of modern times, but it definitely goes into a more unexpected and different path. Wonderful use of location shots and the girls "holding room" was expertly done. Smoothly written and directed by Nathaniel Nauert, this could easily be done as full length film.
Eulogy for Jack - Expertly done piece and nicely acted by Larry Keith about a man thinking of the exact words to describe a person very close to him. However, I felt I could tell where this would end. Well done though.
The Fortune Hunters - Wonderfully done, quirky and delightful piece about a young guy at a fortune cookie factory and his misadventures when fortunes are accidentally sent about his personal feelings for a girl. Very funny and imaginative with an assured performance by Thom Harp. Others in the cast were on the spot. Very fun film from Mike Standish. Review by Hamk West
Hank West is a local stage and film actor, and avid film buff.“Don’t swallow the seeds or they’ll grow in your stomach,” warned a young Chinese girl to her big sister while eating watermelon. Little did she know another kind of seed had already been planted. This eleven minute film simply showed the interaction between two sisters as the older one is faced with having a pill-induced abortion and keeping this shameful secret from her family. Although a short film, it seemed to be missing a little more substance and even more dialogue. Review by Dawn Cauthen
Dawn Cauthen is an aspiring screenwriter and graduate student at Queens University of Charlotte studying Creative Writing with a concentration in writing for stage and screen.
In this charming and ironically poignant short, a black girl being groomed for baptism by a handsome young preacher secretly loves a beautiful blonde, who happens to be female, and sends her notes through her locker door. Melissa assumes the notes are from a boy and is shocked to learn the truth. She admonishes the black girl as unfit to become a Christian--although she and her teen girlfriends desire the young preacher as "sexy."
Review by Mark Pizzato
Imagine walking into your favorite bar with a few friends prepared to sit down, have a cup of coffee and maybe a quick bite to eat. Nothing is on your mind but getting in a few laughs and filling your tummy. Now, imagine if you were Black in the midst of a racially divided town in rural Alabama. The short film, The Counter, finds a white waitress torn between protecting young Black students from being beaten for simply wanting to be served at a whites only lunch counter, or following her white counterparts and looking the other way. After warning the patrons to not cause any trouble, several of the towns white teens arrive and taunt the students, by kicking, yelling, and even smearing cake in their faces. Confused and at odds with herself, the waitress helps pick the bloodied, battered, students off the floor and escorts them to safety.
After the film, a live church choir serenaded the movie patrons with two spirituals and earned a resounding round of applause. Review by Dawn Cauthen
Dawn Cauthen is an aspiring screenwriter and graduate student at Queens University of Charlotte studying Creative Writing with a concentration in writing for stage and screen.This short film by writer/director Moon Molson packs a big punch. A sensitive boy, feeling bad about missing a pop foul at a little league game, then witnesses his father get a "beat down" by a thug. The father tells the boy to lie; the mother presses him for the truth. Caught in the middle, he feels betrayed by both. Anger turns to rage as the boy impulsively commits a drastic act of betrayal himself. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.
Debra Kaufman takes a trip to Nepal to visit a child she had been supporting. This begins an odyssey she was not expecting as she finds just how bad the conditions are there where the yearly wage is $250, making it one of the poorest countries in the world.
She finds a Dutch man named Ingo Schnabel who has started a school to educate low-caste and tribal children. Without an education and learning English, none of these children have a chance of having a better life. But civil war tears the country apart, and Ingo and the school are threatened by the rebels.
Kaufman has produced a documentary that challenges the audience to look at an unpleasant, but important topic, and do something, as she has, to make a difference in a child's life. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.
Tara believes she was born in the wrong Manhattan. After 20 years living with a manic-depressive mother and no father or siblings, she escaped from Kansas, moving first to Finland and then to New York. (Her mother suffered a "psychotic breakdown" and threatened to kill them both--while saying she had the devil's baby in her.) But after 6 years, Tara decided to return and to bring a camera crew with her to make a documentary about her mom.
We thus get to experience some of her mom's craziness: the childish free spirit and sudden temper, the defensiveness, the wild playing with words or objects, and the quixotic quests for meaning. This is not an easy film to watch. Yet, it's a fascinating display of an older woman who may be mentally ill, but insists on her right not to be under anyone's "control"--and of her daughter trying to deal with the worry, love, and hate she feels for her.
The real-life story also takes some surprising turns, as the mother admits she felt betrayed when Tara found her biological father and stopped communicating with her. Yet, Tara helps her mom to find the geodetic center of the U.S. (a quest that she claims brought her to Kansas in the first place) and another man who gives her a new home and happiness. Hence, Tara gives her mom's craziness and pain, plus her own life's awful fate, a bigger meaning--through making this movie about both of them, as a prism for us to reconsider our own love/hate relations with the woman who brought us into this world. Review by Mark Pizzato
Mark Pizzato is Professor of Theatre amd Film at UNC-Charlotte. His screenplays, produced as short films, have won New York Film Festival and Minnesota Community Television awards.I doubt I will ever look at a hamburger the same way after seeing Our Daily Bread. Showing ultra high-tech ways of harvesting food, both meat and produce, this is not your grandfather's idea of farm life.
Everything is so mechanized even the people begin to seem like coldly efficient robots. Yet, it's understandable. This is their defense against the sterile surroundings and mind-numbing tasks they have to do, hour after hour, day after day to produce what we go to the grocery store and buy without much thought.
Adding to the odd atmosphere is the fact that there is no dialogue, only the stark visual images. The sound is on, but they speak very little, even to each other. The harvesting of the fruits and vegetables, while repetitive and hard on the body physically, is not difficult to watch. It is when we enter the slaughter house that it's almost unbearable at times.
No, animals are not people, but they are living beings, and when the audience sees their lives are so systematically and abruptly ended with the help of new technology it leads to squirming and gasping. Conveyor belts literally throw chicks into plastic boxes, pigs and cow carcasses are hung upside down from hooks and gutted by machines or workers with sharp knives. We even get to see a calf delivered by cesarian section by a veternarian with this arm past the elbow deep in the cow's side while she stands by. He and a helper must both pull on the calf to get it out, then the calf is quickly taken away on a wheelbarrow. We see workers collecting bull seaman, cows electrocuted, pigs & cows pushed together in small pens, chickens in huge plastic covered coops, cows milked by machines--assembly line style, pigs suckling piglets on converyor belts. In fact, the life cycle of many of these animals is totally unnatural.
The images are thought-provoking, ghastly, sickening, and fascinating. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.
DIVERGENCE
USA, 2007
Drama
114 minutes
This feature offers an oddly moving, double love story of an Army veteran, wounded in Iraq, returning to his hometown in 2003. He finds two women who try to connect with him in different ways, despite his reluctance to talk about the war.
Tim, a helicopter pilot who limps from a leg wound, finds an off-season beach house to rent for a while. His realtor, Heidi, lures him out of his shell for drinks at a local bar and lovemaking in his home--but cannot get him to speak about his own life, no matter how much she reveals of hers. Yet, when Tim saves the life of Claire, his neighbor on the beach, who tries to commit suicide with pills and water, he finds that in getting her to speak, he's able to open up to her as well. Tim confesses to his silent, Alzheimer's afflicted father, and eventually to Claire, that he doesn't believe in the war anymore and doesn't want to go back. Claire makes a plan with him to run away to Ireland--as a way to escape her family tragedy and his duty to return to Iraq, with his leg now healed.
The movie takes its time to present this story, yet the actors give strong performances with very expressive faces. The film's beautiful soundtrack of strings, woodwinds, and drums softly underlines the intertwining themes of loss, mourning, and recovery through love. It provides a compelling drama about two people helping each other to be strong enough to face the sadness and fear at home--as well as in a foreign war. Review by Mark Pizzato
Mark Pizzato is Professor of Theatre amd Film at UNC-Charlotte. His screenplays, produced as short films, have won New York Film Festival and Minnesota Community Television awards.
This wonderfully composed short mixes many themes including caretaking, people leading busy lives, and children needing attention. The three actors, in particular the child, come across as genuine. The audience responded to some tugging at the heartstrings; but we also laughed and went with it. This adorable short might have some resemblances to Hallmark commercials—but delivers with honesty a lovely, touching piece.
Review by Vito Abate
Vito Abate is a native New Yorker working and living as an actor, director, and sometime writer in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Five low-budget shorts were shown, made by area artists. In On My Last Breath (17 min.), a young black soldier during World War II convinces his white superior that it's not too late to write a note to his wife to "make things right"--just before that young soldier dies in a firefight. In On Falling (11 min.), set in Athens, Georgia, in 2019, three people discover they are hiding together in an abandoned building while enemy forces invade the U.S. Close-ups and editing cuts put the film audience inside these characters' paranoia and their struggle for trust and survival. (Featuring Charlotte actors Joe Copley and Robert Haulbrook.)
With Inheriting the Earth (6 min.), ghosts are glimpsed haunting a serial killer as he buries another victim. In Grape Jelly (3 min.), a wife drives her husband crazy in hilarious ways. (Written by Terry Roueche and featuring local actors Hugh Loomis and Jorja Ursin.) And in Harvest (23 minutes), a Rockingham, North Carolina, farmhand with a pregnant wife refuses to resume an illicit affair, yet gets framed as his boss's murderer. However, the real killer is then haunted by the multiple deaths she has caused. Review by Mark Pizzato
Mark Pizzato is Professor of Theatre amd Film at UNC-Charlotte. His screenplays, produced as short films, have won New York Film Festival and Minnesota Community Television awards.In this delightfully imaginative short film, bouncing tennis balls meet floating carrots and toothbrushes, while the hero tangos with a car and greets a snow-bathing deity. What? Review by Mark Pizzato
Mark Pizzato is Professor of Theatre amd Film at UNC-Charlotte. His screenplays, produced as short films, have won New York Film Festival and Minnesota Community Television awards.Cuban photographer Abelardo Morell would be an interesting enough subject for a documentary just as an exceptional artist. But he is also a Cuban-American whose parents brought him to New York when they left Cuba in the early 1960s. At the age of 14, Morell was uprooted from his homeland, because his father, who'd already been imprisoned, feared for his life under the Castro regime. This film explores not only Morell's artistic process, but also his family life, his becoming a U.S. citizen, and his visiting Cuba for the first time in 40 years--meeting with his extended family members, doing his photographic work, and upsetting his parents back home.
Morell shows us how he works at home, saying that he can have more control of his art there, using photography as his "voice in the world" and his "way of being." We see him exploring his medium in various ways--including creating a "camera obscura" out of home and hotel rooms, projecting the world outside onto an inner wall, just by darkening the room and allowing light through a small hole. Morell says he enjoys "disorienting the viewer" in order to reveal more in the ordinary. And he recalls how when he was younger and his work was not selling well he had a "weird confidence" that it would someday. Now that he's successful, however, he still needs to do more, to find new answers--with what his wife describes as an "anxiety" driving him, related to his mixed, Cuban and American identity.
Thus, the filmmakers are exploring here both an artist's process and his journey of self-discovery, involving his photographic medium and ethnic origins, with each of these beautifully displayed onscreen. Review by Mark Pizzato
Mark Pizzato is Professor of Theatre amd Film at UNC-Charlotte. His screenplays, produced as short films, have won New York Film Festival and Minnesota Community Television awards.Even if you find the dialogue crude, you can't help but laugh with recognition at the young "confused" couple in this film. Whether you can tolerate the crudity and language depends on your sensibilities. But this film by Brett and Jason Butler shows they have loads of potential.
Dan and Lisa have broken up. We get to hear both sides of the story in documentary-style interviews as each gives his/her side of the realtionship. This tends to get tiresome. More interesting and funny are the scenes of the two together fighting over their break-up and who did what to whom. Dan sneaks into the apartment he once shared with Lisa with a list of belongings he wants back. This leads to the funniest bit in the movie as he tries to take back his queen size mattress.
Also entertaining is the way the couple go around and around spewing out their grievances against the other. Who hasn't been there? Brett Bulter plays the wacky Dan with an understated delivery which reminded me of Seth Rogen in Knocked Up. Naomi Johnson is a good match for him (although at times she comes dangerously close to sounding like she's reciting her lines).
Brett and Jason Butler answered questions from the audience after the screening. It's clear the affable brothers take their comedy very seriously. I can't wait to see what they come up with next, although I'm hoping for less reliance on salty language. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.Writer/director Adam Rapp takes us on a trip to New York City where we meet, live, breathe and follow two would-be loners who connect and somehow "complete" each other. It’s not enough to watch them in their world, we are in it with them. The bold, yet nuanced acting by Paul Sparks and Gillian Jacobs is well supported by a fine cast of perhaps, “only in New York” characters. There are several references to sharks which are apparently as complex as these two main characters.
Drug abuse plays prominently and realistically here as does a major secret held for most of the film. The world they live in matches most of way New York is portrayed: gritty, chaotic and hard. The soundtrack serves the images well as the story unfolds. I found myself routing for these characters despite their often self-destructive behavior. Even though I sensed impending doom, I wanted them to be okay in the end—and perhaps they are. Review by Vito Abate
Vito Abate is a native New Yorker working and living as an actor, director, and sometime writer in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Writer/director Scott Teems has made a moody, provocative, dark film. A dead man is found in the woods behind a couple’s isolated house. Bobby (Robert Peters) and his wife, Carlene (Kathryn Avery Hansen) claim they don’t know the man. After it’s determined the death was a suicide, the sheriff (Barry Corbin) tries to probe deeper, but can’t come up with any explanation. His pretty wife blows it off, but Bobby is disturbed enough by the death to wonder what led to the suicide.
The production values are good and the photography captures the lush landscape, yet supports the mysterious atmosphere with quick flashbacks and blue filters. The director draws good performances from the actors, especially Robert Peters as Bobby, and the skilled veteran Barry Corbin as Sheriff Roller.
The trouble is that the script gives us too little information on the back story of the characters to even begin to guess at their motivations. The ending comes too swiftly without enough of a set-up. If the characters were more fully developed with a complex plot, this could be a full-length feature. As it is now, I’m left wanting to know more, much more. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.This is a sweet, clever short film about a young boy (well played by Nicky Parks) who lives among the skyscrapers of Manhattan, yet is afraid to climb the jungle gym in the park. Monkey bars, King Kong and the Empire State Building loom large in his imagination and dreams. Instead of the bullying older brother, we get one who quietly puts up with the younger one’s struggles and ultimately encourages him in his quest to conquer his fear. Review by Ann Marie Oliva
Ann Marie Oliva is a writer and producer/editor of ARTS à la Mode.