To Be Alone (2017): A Haunting Chill in the Air

To Be Alone (2017; Indie Short Subject) - As a child, if we are lucky, it might be a pet. As we get older, it might be a parent. When we get settled in life, married or with a partner, change is even more drastic when letting go is letting go of your everything. When one understands that time seeing your mother staring out a window, not seeing you. A light in her eyes is missing, a stone cold expression on her face as she looks deep into somewhere, like looking for someone, who is never coming back. There is no set way for dealing with loss, for dealing with change so drastically ..what might we do not To Be Alone?

To Be Alone is the story of William, sensitively played by Timothy J. Cox in a haunting performance, who has suffered that very loss in his life, and letting go is played out in dramatic fashion in the cold chill of winter to match the cold chill of emptiness that has entered his life.

To Be Alone was scripted and directed by Matthew Mahler. Cox and Mahler have done work together before to good effect. What I have seen of Mahler so far he likes to write to allegory in his stories with a brevity of dialogue, if any, using instead a play of events and a setting of mood to tell his story. Timothy J. Cox is the perfect actor for this utilizing his talent in the silent performance with Mahler's story to create a haunting and chilling mood honed raw.

Mahler's direction reminds me of Kubrick. He delineates space in his framing and uses it to draw attention to his subject. His composition allows no distractions, unless he wants them to be there for the story. In previous work of his, working in a beautifully cluttered scene he was able to draw that clutter into the focus of his frame. A talented musician he has scored this himself using vibrant heartfelt beats to up the tension tightened further with claustrophobic framing, and somber melodies in a stark framing to draw in the chill of loneliness. He shows himself to be a master of creating mood without having a word uttered.

Timothy J. Cox is a master of the unspoken performance being able to use emotion and body language to great effect. I don't even know how conscious he is of his performance. When he enters a scene, it looks like Timothy J. Cox, but it's his character that has entered the scene, not him. And when he is able to do that without uttering a word, now that's masterful.

Oddly, when I started writing this review, even though I knew where I was going with the rating, and that has not changed, I was a little fuzzy about exactly the relevance of events in the story. As I wrote my intro, things sunk in. That sneaky Mahler played me with his allegory, and it works beautifully.

Mahler's writing and direction combined with his own score and a wonderfully timed backdrop of gospel blues by The Staple Singers, Cox's brilliant and heartbreaking performance, and the ambiance of the dead of winter put a haunting chill in the air.

I give it 5 Daggers

Availability

Watch To Be Alone on Vimeo.

Check out the IMDB page.

Mallas, MA (2013): Let's Investigate This

Mallas, MA (2013; Indie Short Subject) - You're traveling to do another con job, a con job not only of sight and sound but of ghosts. A journey into a superstitious town whose residents are that gullible. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, Mallas, MA!

Brian and Maria are not just buddies, but con artist buddies. They have devised a plan, using Brian's latest invention, to con an entire town into believing they have a ghost problem and Brian and Maria are the cure. But things don't exactly go according to plan.

Nor will this review go according to plan, or more appropriately according to my usual review. The difference here is the film I am reviewing was made for a 48 Hour Film Project in which all the participants are given a genre, a character, a line and a prop which must be used in the film. They then have 48 hours to script and/or improvise a story, shoot the film, and edit & score it. That's quite a challenge. To me, as I've said before in other reviews that I will rate a film within its context, I need to take the challenge itself into consideration and how the film fares under those circumstances.


The parameters and requirements they were given at the 2013 48 Hour Film Project in Boston:

Genre: Buddy Film
Character: Brian or Bonnie Higgins, an Inventor
Prop: A net
Line of dialogue: "Believe me, it's worth it"


All of the ingredients are in the film. Timothy J. Cox takes on the role of the required character, and that would be playing "Brian" Higgins for you smart alecs asking which one he played. It is a buddy film with Maria Natapov playing Maria Synder, who is buddies with Brian Higgins, together they are con artists looking for a score using Brian's latest invention, also a required ingredient. The prop is only required to be in a scene and not required to be an action element, and of course it is in there. Cox's character gets the line "Believe me, it's worth it."

Before I had realized this was a 48 Hour Film Project entrant, 48 Hour Film Project being prominently displayed at the beginning was apparently not overly obvious enough for my sometimes dense self to get it, I was leaning toward a 3 on a rating. It just feels like it's missing something, kind of leaving you scratching your head at the end. On the upside it is fun. Timothy J. Cox and Maria Natapov share a good chemistry on screen and that makes it fun; and that's at the core of the success of a buddy film is the chemistry between the buddies. The plot of two con artists posing as ghost hunters is a fun one.

Then comes the realization this was done start to finish, all ingredients from writing to the final edit, in 48 hours. That changes the context of rating the film. What they have accomplished within that context is beyond expectations, for me. It's a talented cast at work under the direction of the enormously talented Sean Meehan. Cox and Meehan working together is an indication great things are going to happen, and in only 48 hours they have proven it.

I give it 4 Daggers

P.S. There is a scene in the end credits, so don't stop watching when the credits roll. And do keep your eyes open for their follow-up film Mallas, Aforethought; bwhahahaha, that's a joke, son.

Availability

Watch it on Vimeo.

Check out its IMDB page.

Over Coffee (2010): Down & Out in the Boss's Office

Over Coffee (2010; Indie Short Subject) - You know the type. Maybe you are the type. Just can't function without that morning cup of coffee. Oh, but it's not just any cup of coffee; it has to be just the right cup of coffee with half this, hold that, drizzle of this, and a fizzle fazzle wazzle of that. And if that sounds like you, there are some doctors at the 'nice' place who would like to talk to you...now just hold still while we put the pretty jacket with the sleeves in the back on for you.

 

Meet Andrew. No, on second thought, meet Carla, the apple dumpling fritter of Andrew's eye. If you saw Carla, you would understand Andrew's crush on her. Why, that Andrew would do just about anything for Carla, including making a run to the coffee shop for that special cup of coffee she forgot to get for her boss, Hamilton Rice, who will be expecting it when he walks through that door any moment. Of course making a coffee run should be a simple task anybody can do ...Right? ...Right??

This is a lighthearted comedy written and directed by the talented Sean Meehan. Right from the start we are greeted with a perspective shot and a very upbeat music track indicating somebody is going to be in something over his head, and of course entirely for our humorous benefit. Meehan's film makes me think of some of the early work of Paul Mazursky (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice; Willie & Phil) in being free spirited with a caper aspect to it. And it's not a coincidence the title I gave to this review.

Bringing up the lead in this film is Erik Potempa as the infatuated Andrew, Jocelyn DeBoer as the more than fetching yet apple pie sweet Carla, Michael Oberholtzer as David whom I shall talk about more in a moment, and Timothy J. Cox as Hamilton Rice. Cox's entrance in this is hilariously over the top, exactly where it should be, and injects an immediate shot of caffeine into the energy of the film (get it...get it). I do want to give extra creds to Michael Oberholtzer for his portrayal of the office sleaze, David, portrayed so disgustingly well I just want to take a scalding hot shower with a bottle of pine cleaner.

I was leaning toward a mediocre rating on this as at times it does feel like it lingers a bit too long on some scenes. But it ups its energy and humor when Timothy J. Cox makes his grand entrance, and the ending of this is so Beatles, which I hope you don't figure out what I mean by that until you see it, that it is uplifting. Those two ingredients pushed my rating up.

I give it 4 Daggers

Availability

At only 15 minutes this is a can't miss and it is available free on YouTube.

Check out its IMDB page.

Cauliflower (2017): A Short Comedic Skit

You say tomato, I say tomahtoe. Don't know what it is? Then just fake it! One of our most shared flaws is trying not to appear to be ignorant of something while looking stupid in the process. Well I know where vegetables come from... they come from a store. Of course I know that; do I look stupid to you?

That was a rhetorical question ...and that was cold.

Three women are at a dinner party hosted by a friend. This friend is listing off the different delicacies being offered up tonight. One of these delicacies gets a rather unusual response. Do they not like it? Do they not know what it is?

In barely 2 minutes, Phoebe Torres has created an hilarious comedy skit. It relies solely on dropping a single punchline, but it's not the punchline that matters, rather the build up to the punchline, and that is where she succeeds so well with Cauliflower.

Now how do you rate something that is only 2 minutes? This brings up an interesting and necessary point that rating movies, shorts and skits is not comparing them to each other. It is rating it within its context and how well it succeeds at that. Cauliflower depends on a punchline for its big laugh, but it's setup is where it earns its stripes, or in this case Daggers. I about fell over from laughing when Phoebe Torres delivered the punchline. Additionally, I did not see it coming, which gets it an extra mark for not being formulaic.

I give it a full 5 Daggers. The setup and delivery are perfect, and the punchline will stay with you.

Availability

You can watch Cauliflower for free on YouTube.

Check out its IMDB page.

Gary from Accounting (2016): What Matters Most

Gary from Accounting (2016; Indie Short Subject) - When someone turns to the bottle for sustenance, and I don't mean mothers' milk, sometimes you have to sit down with them and point out the important things in life. Remind them of the people they are hurting. Point out the important things, beyond marriage, beyond family, sitting right in front of them.

Nathan has a drinking problem. He comes home late from work, not quite getting the difficulty he has caused in that special person's life. Waiting at home this time are his wife and sister in a specially planned intervention. For this planned event they have invited Gary, Nathan's very best .., Oops!

In only 5 short minutes Gary from Accounting succeeds in satirizing something we seem to hold dear in our lives, even more than family itself. Timothy J. Cox heads up this cast which includes Mark Grenier, Thea McCartan and Jake Lipman. As usual in what I have come to expect from him, in a matter of seconds Cox takes a role from edgy drama to comical without missing a beat.

Phoebe Torres scripted Gary from Accounting. She plugs in all the necessary ingredients into a one act play, and satirizes something that hits home for so many of us, but we have not looked at it in quite this way. Do yourself a favor and watch this comedy, and I'm going to do myself a favor and keep an eye out for more to come from Phoebe Torres.

I give it 4 Daggers

Availability

Watch it for free on YouTube.

Check out the IMDB page.

We Make Movies (2016): Behind the Indie Scene...Sorta

We have all seen them. Some of us have even been them at one point. That group of guys that hang together in a parent's garage or basement, seemingly never having girlfriends; really there's no seemingly to it, there just are no girlfriends for these guys. When these guys get together, which is usually about 20 hours out of any normal day to begin with, one of four things can happen: they can have a VHS movie watching session, they can break out the Dungeons & Dragons game, they can have an orgy (wait, wait, negate...oh gawd NO), or they can make a movie. For the love of humanity let's please focus on that last one.

A group of friends (5 guys and 1 girl) with apparently nothing better to do for the summer, you know like jobs, plan to make a movie over the summer to show at the Boehring Film Festival at the end of the summer. Led by Stevphen as director, who fancies himself to be a Stevphen..I mean Steven Spielberg in the making, this group rapidly fractures, fissures, or any other f-word you might like to use, apart at the seams, and of all things somebody wants to make a documentary of this!

Let's meet our intrepid filmmaker wannabes:

Stevphen (Matt Tory; also writer & director) - Lives with his mom, has never been laid; kissing doesn't count, and even if it did...has never been laid. Thinks that taking 'inspirations' (ahem) from blockbuster movies and throwing them into one script will make a successful movie; only the crickets in the background agree with him. Wants to appear to be a serious filmmaker if people would just stop interrupting him for trivial things like dinner.

Donny (Jordan Hopewell) - Has never been laid nor will he ever be laid. An accountant in the making, like I never saw that one coming, he is also Stevphen's best and most loyal friend. Just don't ever call Donny anybody's footstool; lawnchair, yes, but not footstool.

Garth (Jonathan Holmes) - Despite sharing his name with a Wayne's World character, has been laid and will be laid shortly. Has a singular trait not shared by any of the rest of the group; common sense. Also known as Gartholomew and Garthica despite his protests not to call him that.

Jessica (Anne Crockett) - The pretty girl who hangs with the group. Could easily hang with other pretty girls but then why would she want to as with this group she is showered with attention and the best gifts money can buy at a local yard sale.

Leonard (Zack Slort) - Pronounced Lee-on-ard. Too busy honing his craft by improvising scenes in public to get laid. Most likely considers Robert E. Howard to be a role model.

Curtis (Matt Silver) - Could get laid but would prefer to do it himself. Film school student and amazingly a thorn in Stevphen's side without even trying.

Kurtis (Josiah Finnamore) - Not actually a member of the group but a thief who has the shrewdness to con Stevphen by telling him he looks like a director, just before stealing his car. The fact that Stevphen is wearing a baseball cap that says director on it is completely oblivious to him.

I had a hard time figuring out where I would be going with this review. Watching a movie for review, you generally know by the end of the movie how you would rate it; at least I do. But how you arrived at that rating might be more difficult in some cases.

For me there are a few annoyances with the movie. At an 1 hr and 51 mins it does linger at times, and having spent too much time with these characters in the past I really don't want to spend that much time with them now. I do feel that a little too much of the story focuses on Stevphen's crush on Jessica and becomes redundant early in the movie. Additionally the jerkiness of the documentary style filmmaking is a bit trying on one's eyes and patience. That being said, there are more things that lean in the favor of this movie than the few annoyances I have mentioned.

Don't get the idea that the jerky camera movements of the documentary style is a sign of amateur filmmaking. It is not; these people know what they are doing. The script is well put together. It pulls together a lot of stuff that would be familiar territory to anybody who has had dreams of being a filmmaker, starting with their own amateur home videos, and then runs with it headlong, mocking it in almost every conceivable manner, and making fun of themselves as they go. There are a lot of laughs in this, at least there was for me, and of course at the expense of the characters involved.

I'll give them extra kudos for maintaining a consistent audio level. In one scene where the camera changed position frequently, there was not a single glitch in the audio track for the scene. The mockumentary camera movements and wide iris, though blinding at times, are on purpose. The look of this and laughs to be had in the script are not by accident, but purposefully and creatively staged to look raw.

I give it 3 1/2 Daggers

Availability

Get it in various formats via their website.

Check out the We Make Movies IMDB page.

Total Performance (2015): Breathtaking & Masterful

Total Performance (2015; Indie Short Subject) - From stage to screen actors put on masks for every performance. Allegory today, perhaps, but the expression comes from theatre of old from the actual use of masks to distinguish characters before an audience. Acting has evolved; actors no longer put on masks, they put on roles. The actor as artist no longer paints a face on a mask, they shape and create a role before our very eyes from a palette filled with shades of range and depth. But what happens when an actor puts on that mask and looks into a mirror, and they know that person looking back at them?

Cori is an actress working for a company with a unique service to offer; they hire out actors to people who want to rehearse real life situations that are uncomfortable. A boss may need to fire someone. A spouse may need to confront their significant other about infidelity. For these and other situations an actor provides the ideal verbal punching bag for someone to build up their confidence or as a form of catharsis. Cori is a good actress providing a good service to her clients, but the next role she has to play might hit hit a little too close to home.

Sean Meehan wrote and directed Total Performance, and hats off to him for a job well done. Great actors can perform great roles, but at the very core of that is having great roles to play, and Meehan delivers with an intelligent script, an obviously creative idea in the first place, and the direction to bring the audience into the story.

What moves this film, and the viewer, are two command caliber performances by Tory Berner and Steven Conroy. They work off of each other naturally. To Meehan's credit again he has used a date night for character development. It's brilliant as what better way to get to know two characters than experiencing them get to know each other. Berner and Conroy ace their roles; it's like the ideal situation, and this is an important foundation for the story and how it plays out.

From the most minor of roles, nothing is wasted. Timothy J. Cox has one scene in this film. Short it may be, but it provides a necessary element of seeing how Cori deals with it, and of course Cox, the master of the understated performance, in playing a boss needing to fire someone has my computer screen feeling his nerves without having to say anything. From opening with an angst filled husband having to confront infidelity, an in-house encounter scene filling the background, to a nervous expression, every moment has a purpose and every performance no matter how short is on key.

Meehan plays the ending of this shrewdly. I at first felt that it was ambiguous. Well, it's really not. It's understated for sure, but it will sink in, as soon as you remember to breathe. When a film can take your breath away...that's masterful.

I give it a full 5 Daggers. I'd give it more, but all I have is 5.

Availability

A really incredible film at just over 17 minutes and you can watch it on Vimeo.

Check out the film's IMDB page.

Here Lies Joe (2016): Indie Short Subject

Here Lies Joe (2016) - Perhaps the only day we might wonder such a thing is at someone's funeral. That thing would be what might be our epitaph. For most of us anyway, but is it a question others might ask themselves more regularly? Would not being able to give a satisfying answer to that very question give you a reason to find the answer, something to hold onto?

Opening with a disheveled looking man duct taping his car windows and running a vacuum hose from the car's tailpipe through the window, he sits in a moment of contemplation as he starts the car, glancing at a smiley face drawn on the passenger side window with Xed out eyes. Flashback to earlier that very day as this man, Joe, is in a suicide anonymous meeting where he meets a brash if not carefree young woman, another member of the group who seems out of place with the other members. Her name is Z, and appropriately named as she seems like the last thing Joe needs right now, or maybe he's the first thing they both need right now.

The subject of suicide is not an easy one to portray on screen. Certainly the artistic community is no stranger to the subject, but portraying it well is just not good business in cinema. You just can't say to someone "don't do it" and change their lives. Everyone of us are as complex as the other and all aspects of who we are run deep.

Here Lies Joe is in touch with this. The script is really quite creative in foreshadowing itself. A single line uttered earlier in the story, seemingly trivial at the time, actually comes to bear so creatively later in the film, and life changing at that. Human resolve is a durable thing, but there is so much bombarding it at any one point that a fragile balance can be swayed in either direction by the minutia of a single moment in time. That minutia is at the heart of this story of two people's conflicting personalities being their own way of reaching out, and a hand to hold onto might seem so innocuous to the rest of us, but so very concrete to someone who needs it.

It may seem strange to call tension beautiful, of course it's not but it can be beautifully portrayed and that is exactly what is done in the early scene of the suicide anonymous meeting which sets the tone and more importantly delineates the characters. Timothy J. Cox plays Bill, the moderator of the meeting and conveys the tension in the room through an ever so subtly reactionary performance he masters so well. A perversely beautiful and gripping performance by Mary Hronicek as a member of the group paints a portrait of depression Rembrandt only wished he had the skill to do, and the reason why I am using the picture of her and Cox rather than the poster.

The main characters of Joe and Z are portrayed by Dean Temple and Andi Morrow respectively. Dean brings an outward portrayal of amiable dissonance to the character of Joe, nodding and faking his way through uncomfortable social interactions, while an undercurrent of frustration and amusement vie for first place in his world. Andi is necessarily and successfully deceptive in the role of Z, seemingly carefree and disruptive, a sexy free spirit who could have the world at her feet, yet it is a shroud for the way she and she alone sees herself.

For a 23 minute short subject this may seem like a lot to say about it, but then there you have it. Here Lies Joe is a successful character driven story which creates the narrative via those characters. It's not a rich tapestry of characterization, which would be defeating, but elemental, providing just enough to move the story along and provide the viewer with a connection.

I give it a full 5 Daggers, both for being the wonderful film it is and giving me so much to talk about; now that's the definition of film.

Availability

You can find out more about the film and some great behind the scenes stuff and interviews on Sweven Films' Vimeo page here.

Check out the film's IMDB page.

What Jack Built (2015): Indie Short Subject

What Jack Built (2015) - Welcome to my stumbling block. Usually I do some kind of intro to my review of a film followed by a minimalist summary of the film meant to introduce the reader without spoiling it; a habit more reviewers should adopt of not spoiling films. What Jack Built is essentially a one-trick pony, or O. Henry type story if you will. The 11 plus minutes of the film is one continuous experience with a conclusion and the best way I can introduce it without giving away too much is to say: meet Jack...he builds something. Yeah, the title kind of says the same thing, huh?

Here's the setup: Take Timothy J. Cox, have no dialogue, and let him rummage through an artfully stocked workshop with a goal of building something that's going to keep the viewer in suspense for the duration of the 11 plus minutes of running time.

Now maybe to a novice or someone with a blockbuster movie only mentality this may not sound like much. Considering what I have been learning about Timothy J. Cox's acting ability through more of his films as I watch them, it is brilliant! In the first short I watched him in, I had remarked on how much Cox speaks to the audience on a non-verbal level beyond the script. Now put Cox in a film where that is his only form of communication, and of course he pulls it off wonderfully.

I had touched on the well stocked workshop in this and would like to give PROPS to John Heerlein for his amazing art direction (oh, stop the booing, it was too a funny pun...WAS). I can't say it would be my dream workshop because there's so much stuff I'm afraid I would be lost in it, but despite all the stuff lingering around it has order to it, deceptively, and is not just strewn here and there.

Matthew Mahler does the direction and cinematography keeping his composition tight. He does not stray from his central subject, Jack. This is obviously good as Timothy J. Cox's acting is what moves this along. Additionally Mahler provides the soundtrack, an upbeat synth soundtrack that raises the tempo and keeps with the tone of the story.

I have a few minor quibbles. The biggest of them is I'm not a fan of The Lady, or the Tiger? or alternatively Tarantino's briefcase. Though I have to a degree put that off on myself as some people do like a raw story they can decipher for themselves. The other quibble is on the aforementioned art direction I previously applauded. For someone with age on them, uh...like someone else I know..ahem, it's going to be easy to pick at the inconsistencies of some of the props in this story. Most people though won't even see it, or care, and so it very minor.

Overall it is a well done film providing an, I would think, ideal platform for Timothy J. Cox to entertain and have fun doing it. I did want just a little bit more out of it, but I'm more than satisfied with what I saw. It's only just over 11 minutes and well worth a watch.

I give it 4 Daggers.

Availability

You can watch it on Vimeo. What Jack Built on IMDB