They're saying that Zombies are played, but I think there must still be some magic in that old silk hat they found. The festering dead are still ambling strong when headed by a good script, a smart director, and a well-deployed cast. This proves to be the case with Instapocalypse. 

There's two intrepid hold-outs roaming the ravaged Earth, and a zombie, and there's an iPhone, and there's an Instagram post waiting to be checked. That's the basis for the film, and in five minutes, it gives a smart and funny play off of those elements in conflict. While it's short, it's stylish, but not showy, and funny, but not dumb. There's some beautiful craft on display in setting, make-up, and especially cinematography. As quick as a flash, it hits, and ultimately, that left me howling!

Instapocalypse shows as a part of Program 5 - Mindbenders  at Century 20 Redwood City Fri, Mar 3 9:45 PM Tue, Mar 7 6:00 PM and Fri, Mar 10 4:45 PM and at the Hammer Theatre in Downtown San Jose Sun, Mar 5 9:15 PM and Thu, Mar 9 3:45 PM
 

I am a sucker for the adorable first date film. I am especially fond of the beautifully-shot, well thought-through first date film. And thus, when I first saw Ryan Goble's Wish Me Luck, I was immediately drawn-in. 

Two attractive young people, one a young woman who seems far more interested in her phone than in any sort of interpersonal connection, and a young gentleman who seems more in touch with everything around him. The story is how he brings her out of her phone and into his realm. That's a smart story, and the way Goble shot and edited it, with just a hint of science fiction technology present (or at least implied!) that made me take immediate notice. 

The rest of the story is wonderful, and humane, and funny, and surprising, and it ends with a delightful moment of, well, a moment. It's impressive in that in less than ten minutes, it powered me through to a place of smiling joy and love. It's a wonderfully charming film that feels sweeter as time goes by!

You can see Wish Me Luck as a part of Shorts Program 2 Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes Century 20 Redwood City - Wed, Mar 1 9:20 PM, Wed, Mar 8 3:15 PM and Sun, Mar 12 1:30 PM, and at the Hammer Theatre in Downtown San Jose on Fri March 3rd, at 330pm
 
You can find out more Here
 

I've been pretty damn vocal in my distaste for South Park since about 2005 or so. THat's still about 10 great seasons of boundary-pushing, often dizzyingly dark, comedy. I loved some of te work they did in those years, with the Chili Cook-Off episode (aka Scott Tetterman Ate His Parents) being the best fucking episode of adult animation ever made. It was genius, and then, right about the time the two of them realised they could do anything they wanted, it all went downhill. The stories got weaker, the shocking wasn't as shocking, they were punching laterally, if not down, more often than not. They were what they had been railing against in the media, and then Archer happened, and Adult swim got great, and on and on. 

But Parker and Stone are, in fact, geniuses, and the second thing of their's I ever saw proves it. 

If you need any proof of that (beyond Cartman's triumphant episode) all you need to do is watch Your Studio & You, the faux newsreel they did for Universal. It's one of the funniest things anyone with a knowledge of the workings of studios will ever see. THey use recogniseable faces and names to play up the comedy, needling Universal's "Old and Stupid" concepts, and giving a great series of bits over the course of 15 minutes. It's hilariously good fun! 

Plus, they had teh audacity to call Traci Lords a recording artist! ha!!!

The smartest guy in whatever room he happens to inhabit has to be Jad Abumrad of the podcast Radiolab. He's awesome, and brilliant, with the kind of insight you only get from being on the radio! When I was viewing and came across The Function of Music, and heard his voice, I knew I was in for a treat. 

What I didn't know I would be getting was an absolute visual feast. 

Mac Premo's visual styling is amazing. It combines stop-motion (or at least stop motion-looking segments) with a recurring audio cassette theme (and for a guy who produces a podcast on cassette tapes, how could that miss with me?) 

Visually, it's compelling, as the visuals mix so perfectly with Abumrad's incredibly insight-filled discussion. He hits on all the points, from both a personal/emotional and a scientific perspective. It makes the entire doc feel as if it's bigger than the four-and-a-bit minutes it runs. It gives so damn much, but it doesn't over-power you either. It's a beautiful thing to behold, n every dimension! 

The Function of Music screens as a part of DocuNation  on March 1st at 415, March 5th at 615, and March 12 at 415 at the Century Theatres in Redwood City, and on March 7th at 345 at the Hammer Theatre in Downtown San Jose. 

By far, the hardest thing in acting is the transition. Going from one emotion to the next, seamlessly, is the hallmark of an incredible actor. I can remember the first time I noticed it, in Peggy Sue Got Married when Kathleen Turner managed to go from teenaged presentation to middle-aged reaction in the space of a single shot. Films that require such turns are among my favorite, and a short that takes on that challenge competes for my absolute heart's delight. 

Ginger Gonzaga's Your Day is an amazing example of just that idea. 

We meet our couple in a hotel room, and the day passes with the two of them being adorable, but there's something underneath, and as they flow through emotional responses to the events, and to each other's reactions to the events, and to their own interpretation of those reactions, we see two actors moving between mountains. This is a workshop in how you play off both your co-star and your own character's path, and director/star Gonzaga has so much to accomplish within her character that many would fall flat on presenting the nuance. She manages brilliantly. 

Jason Ritter was known to me through his beautiful comedy work on Drunk History, and especially for the short The Five Stages of Grief, but here he has to sprinkle his comedic talent within a dramatic scenario. He nails it, without doubt more than carrying the weight he's given. If Gonzaga's Jane is the reason for the story we're watching unfold, it is Ritter's Jack who provides the audience's viewpoint. 

This is a film which takes place in a room, but it is not claustrophobic at all. There is an intimacy, and at times it feels like we're being shown something beyond our real understanding. To say more on that front would be to diminish the impact, but let it be known that this is a film that never drags you along; it is a film that invites you to view a key moment in a tiny contained world, and the hearts of two brilliantly realised characters. 

On a personal level, when we viewed it as a part of the selection process, it was a moving and personal moment I shared with my wife, who is also on our programming team. Afterwards, I gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead. There were tears, but also hearty laughter, much like we got from Jack and Jane on screen, but when it was done, and as we were hugging, I knew that we're not the last couple that will share that sort of moment after the credits roll.  

Your Day shows as a part of Shorts Program 2 - Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes at the 2017 Cinequest Film and VR Festival. It's playing at the Century 20 Redwood City  on Wed, Mar 1 at 9:20 PM, Wed March at 3:15pm, and Sunday March 12th at 1:30pm, as well as March 3rd at 3:15 at the Hammer Theatre in Downtown San Jose.

More info Here. 

Sometimes, I'm rather thick. 

I had no idea who Sam Taylor-Wood was when I watched Love You More while programming Cinequest in 2009. I watched it early in the morning, I think about 6am, enjoying my coffee. While watching shorts, I'm often doing two or three other things, typically checking my eMails, or back in those days, doing layout for The Drink Tank. I know a movie is something special if everything else drops and it's the only thing that I can hold on to. Early that morning, before I had discovered the joy of coffee other than at cons. 

And I could not take my eyes off the screen. 

The film is about Peter, played by Harry Treadaway, and his awakening by the luxuriously post-punk dreamgirl Georgia, who is played with a brilliant sense of sexuality and straight-ahead joy. The two go through their motions, and there's a connection, not only between the two of them, but also between the couple and the music of The Buzzcocks, and of the era in which they are living and the class strata they're representing. It's a layered thick and pointedly executed movie. 

Now, if this movie had come to me in 2015, I would have been falling all over myself. I had no idea who Sam Taylor-Wood (now Sam Taylor-Johnson) was, or even who the Young British Artists were. Sure, I knew Damian Hirst, but he may as well have been an island in a sea of unrelated artists.. Taylor-Wood was a big part of that crew of Arts miscreants, and it wasn't until recently (because I listened to an episode of I Don't Hate This) that I learned the truth about the YBA. Also, she directed 50 Shades of Grey, so there's that...

The film is the work of a fully-formed director. She had yet to direct Nowhere Boy, but watching Love You More, you can see where she was headed.