Little Victim ventures into the realms of the supernatural with a straight face. Brian Ronalds is Duane, a shady character meeting his upper crust divorced father Howard (the legendary Robert Wagner) in a parking garage. Howard has trophy Tracey (Lori Singer) draped in the passenger seat, while Duane has his rather lower-class mother Irene (Laura Durant) in tow. Duane has a treasure to deliver. However, he also has a surprise in the trunk that warrants a lot of discussion and debate.
The script is talky, but the talk is quite worthwhile. Dellis likes his humor presented with the kind of delivery that borders on dramatic. All four of the actors prove adept at saying the impossible as though it were routine. Wagner is strong. Always known for his natural suaveness, he uses his sonorous voice to espouse some pretty fantastical lines. In the opposite extreme, Durant is very funny as trailer trash, making her character into a mockery even while proving the most knowledgeable about the subject. Ronalds plays deadly serious quite well, while the weakest performance comes from Singer, who starts off disjointedly as the stereotypical dumb blonde but gains momentum when given more to play.
Dean Ronalds’ camera work is consistent and sometimes clever. The scenes are quite professionally shot and edited, visually keeping the tone of earnestness set forth by the script and actors.
CAST Robert Wagner ... Howard Lori Singer ... Tracy Brian Ronalds ... Duane Laura Durant ... Irene Mark Trombino ... Little Victim
BRITAIN - 2001 Romo is a mixed race kid (half Pakistani and half white), but he lives on an all white housing estate. He starts work as an engineer and finds he can pass himself off as white. However when he falls in with a group of NF guys he gets involved in an attack on another Asian youth and is forced to confront himself with emotional results
If films confront racist issues they are usually toasted as being brave or something like that. However this deserves even more praise for looking at racial-self-loathing in no uncertain terms. The plot follows Romo as he tries to integrate himself into the white world around him. This is done well as, at the start, we understand him and almost accept his decision. However we learn how deeply this affects him at almost the same time as he does himself.
The film is violent and has lots of swearing throughout but is all the more powerful for it's realism. It isn't a comfortable watch and the ending is difficult but brave. It almost is a bit OTT and student-film-like but manages to be powerful rather than silly.
Sheppard is excellent in the range he has to deliver on. The rest of the cast are good as well but only really have to do characters where Sheppard must deliver in so many areas. The final scene is delivered with such force and realism that he totally makes the scene. CAST Darren Sheppard ... Romo George Russo ... Skeggs John Hudson ... Rutzie Freddie White ... Caino James Bannerman ... Pete Scarlett Liebenhals ... Jameela Mary Sheen ... Mum Marc Zuber ... Dad Tanisha Rehal ... Baby Directed by Yousaf Ali Khan
CANADA/IRAN - 2007 On a scorching hot summer day Nima blows a tire and finds himself stranded in a village two hours outside Tehran. A local girl tells Nima of a bus leaving for Tehran 5km away, a bus she was planning on taking herself. Because of the heat and Nima's attire, she offers to take the morning bus and insists on giving Nima her umbrella for shade as a gift and something to remember his visit with. Nima returns a few days later to give the umbrella back to the kind stranger only to realize that the bus she took the next morning crashed into the hillside, killing all on board.
USA - 2007 This tender love story profiles Justin, an architect who is face blind, as he begins a new romance. Face blindness, or prosopagnosia, an impairment to recognize faces, is the result of damage to the right temporal lobe. Similar to people who are colorblind and still see colors but are unable to tell them apart, prosopagnosiacs perceive faces but cannot distinguish them. Justin and Leslie must decide whether their new relationship can overcome the obstacles ahead of them as they try to cope with this bizarre and rare diagnosis. In Vivid Detail addresses the following questions: What are the details we notice about other people and how is this information processed? Can elements, perceived in wholes, be broken down to basic math points? And on a simpler note, how is beauty measured?
CAST John Ventimiglia ... Justin Piper Perabo ... Leslie Kylie Delre ... Kim
SPAIN - 2007 Every day in Sandra's life is exactly the same: taking care of her mother, who suffers from alzheimer. Routine is a constant in her life. Until, one day, everything changes forever...
CAST Maria Sola Marga Loriente Estel Sole Agurtzane Zallo
IRELAND - 2002 During the Cuban missile crisis in 1963 a young woman from a small Irish town has a fascination with H.G Wells “War of the Worlds” and slowly her imagination and reality merge between the potentially real war of the worlds and Science Fiction, as she sets out to meet Che Guevara in a bid to save the world from the Martian Invasion.
Unbeknownst to her, Che Guevara has stopped over on the West of Ireland to refuel on a flight from Cuba to Algeria, and its only a matter of time before she catches up with him to deliver a letter that the Man from Maybury Hill has told her to deliver. The real and surreal become fantastically blurred as they slowly and surely draw their plans against us. CAST Vincent Fegan ... Aide to Che John Hurt ... Man from Maybury Hill Fiona O'Shaughnessy ... Beth Karl Sheils ... Che Guevara
12:01 PM is a 1990 Academy Award nominated short film starring Kurtwood Smith in 1990. Directed by Jonathan Heap, it originally aired on cable television in 1990 as part of the Showtime 30-Minute Movie anthology series.
It is the first film adaptation of the short story 12:01 PM by Richard A. Lupoff, which was published in the December 1973 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The major plot device is a time loop or time bounce.
In this version, Kurtwood Smith plays Myron Castleman, an everyman who keeps repeating the same hour of his life, from 12:01 PM to 1:00 PM. The character is fully aware that the time loop is occurring, although no one else appears to be aware of the repeating hour. Each time the hour resets, Myron retains his memory (or as the film puts it, his consciousness), and despite his best attempts to understand what is happening, he ultimately realizes that he is entirely helpless to prevent the time bounce. Myron cannot even break the loop by killing himself, as he reappears, alive, at the next iteration; he is trapped in the loop for eternity.
CAST Jane Alden ... Stephanie Kurtwood Smith ... Myron Castleman Don Amendolia ... Prof. Nathan Rosenbluth John Bachelder ... Blazer driver F. Richards Ford ... Junior executive #2 Laura Harrington ... Dolores
SPAIN/GERMANY - 2003 An eerie, atmospheric film which explores the obscure inner world of the introverted and mysterious Simone. Simone is woken up for her father and, after kissing her sleeping mother goodbye, is taken to school in time for the coach trip to Austria. On the bus, the kids swap stories, but when Simone declares that they are all in her dream, and an accident is imminent, events become somewhat peculiar.
CAST Laura Sonntag Catherine H. Flemming Hilmar Henjes Andrea Losleben Nola Nicole Oehming Jan Kollarik Fabian von Klitzing Franziska Birnkammer
USA - 2007 Having commitment issues? Then check out "The Glitch," a hilarious, smartly-conceived comedy short starring American Pie's Jason Biggs, which mixes the inevitable question, "Where do you see us going?" with Groundhog Day-like insanity. Having achieved "immortal" status at FunnyorDie.com since it was posted last week, "The Glitch" has been seen more 13,000 times. While director Mike Samonek always figured the movie would find a home on the web, "it was never my intention to see this become a 'viral' video," he says.
Shot over two days, the film took five months to complete from conception to final cut. Directly inspired by Groundhog Day, Samonek says, "I've always liked the idea of a guy who thinks he can dodge an uncomfortable question only to see it come back and bite him in the ass again and again until he's forced to confront it." Samonek, a self-described "comedy junky" who appreciates the "absurdist comedy of Mel Brooks and Monty Python," and the "character driven, reality based" laughs of Alexander Payne and Judd Apatow, says he's using "The Glitch" as a calling card to put together a feature comedy to star Biggs, whom he met after selling his first screenplay in 2003. "Jason has a very smart, dark sensibility and I think that is a huge part of why this film works," he says, regarding "The Glitch." "Truth is, he's a jerk and the more roles he gets that allow him to be his true self, the better. CAST Jason Biggs Melinda Sward Ed Ackerman Directed by Mike Samonek
CANADA - 2001 Terminus (Latin for “boundary stone”) is a dark comedy about the self-destructive nature of the human mind and the dangers of urban isolation. In this film, a colossus made of concrete pilings follows a lonely man throughout the city tormenting him as he goes about his daily life on the subway, at the doctor’s office, and elsewhere. All the while, a strong, foreboding sense of mental anxiety builds as the man is ultimately driven to extreme ends. CAST Rob Carpenter Tristam Gieni Les Quinn Trent Opaloch Directed by Trevor Cawood
GERMANY - 1993 A young black man rides on a German bus while an older racist woman starts laying in the bigot commentary so harshly that the passengers have no choice but to sit around and listen to her silently. Eventually the black rider (Schwartzfahrer) exacts his deft revenge in a small and clever way. The short itself could use some paring down, though. It's roughly 12 minutes long and could easily be about 7 or even 5. It introduces at great length one character that doesn't matter, and seems to spend unnecessary time introducing other characters as well. Having multiple characters unable to stand up against the woman's racism is fine, but they don't all have to have some history. For the most part, the film's timing is off enough that it works against its comedic timing. I think it could have used a little reworking. However,more people care about the story than they do the craftmanship, and it is a good story. Ultimately it's a satisfying movie for what it is. CAST Senta Moira ... Old Woman Paul Outlaw ... Black Man Stefan Merki ... Biker Klaus Tilsner ... Controller Andrea Katzenberger ... Mother Mark Tiedemann ... Child Andreas Schmid ... 'Walkman' Directed by Pepe Danquart
AUSTRALIA - 2007 Jimbo is 13. All he can think about is one girl, Sarah Jane. And no matter what stands in his way - bullies, violence, chaos, zombies - nothing is going to stop him from finding a way into her world. The zombie movie has thrived in recent years, with re-imaginings from 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead, and is still being successfully tweaked—as this Australian import shows. Shot digitally using the Thomson HD Viper Camera, I Love Sarah Jane is set in a parent-free neighborhood where the adults are either dead or undead. Without anyone to tell the kids to clean up the house, it just isn’t going to happen. What makes Susser’s film so effective is the matter-of-fact way that the kids deal with their bleak situation. It’s nothing special to anyone to be carrying a bow with a quiver of arrows on your back like 13-year old Jimbo does. That’s just survival. Dark clouds loom—literally—overhead as he rides his bike around a trash-strewn, smoldering street. Amidst this awful backdrop blooms a chance for love—at least in Jimbo’s head. As a bored Sarah Jane watches a newscaster on TV describe the proper way to handle undead body disposal (incineration, of course), Jimbo sits down to make his move. Any movie, even a short one, is reliant on a strong ending to make a good lasting impression. Without giving anything away, let’s just say that I Love Sarah Jane, written by Susser and David Michod, has a very satisfying one. CAST Brad Ashby ... Jimbo Mia Wasikowska ... Sarah Jane Vladimir Matovic ... Joey Beau South ... Rory Peter Yacoub ... Gram Richard Mueck ... Zombie Anton Enus ... Newsreader Directed by Spencer Susser
FRANCE - 2007 A prisoner arrives in a wacky prison . Smaller than others,he is becoming fast the new scapegoat of the prison until the day while rocking ... A movie created by french students of ESMA (Ecole Supérieur des métiers artistiques / School of Artistic Trades). Directed by Mathieu Arnoux-Hugo Cierzniak-Bruce Nguyen Van Lan -Aymeric Palermo
In 1990, Johannesburg is home to a number of Extraterrestrial refugees, whose large spaceships (estimated to be nearly one kilometer in length) can be seen hovering above the city. When the visitors arrived, the human population was enamored with, among other aspects, the aliens' advanced "bio-suits", and supposedly welcomed them with open arms. However, later on, the aliens began moving into other areas of the city, committing crimes in order to survive, and frequently clashing with the police. The film goes on, playing as a documentary, complete with interviews and footage taken from handheld cameras, highlights the growing tension between the civilian population and the visitors, especially once the ships began to steal electricity and other natural resources from the city. According to individuals "interviewed" in the film, the aliens were captive labor, forced to live in "conditions that were not good" and had escaped to Earth. As the film takes place in 1990, while Apartheid was still effect in South Africa, the aliens were forced to live amongst the already-oppressed black population, causing conflict with them as well as the non-white population.
The alien species in Alive in Joburg are never named, and are frequently referred to simply as "them" or "the aliens." One black citizen referred to them as "the poleepkwa." In their biosuits, they resembled bipedal, humanoid robots. Outside of their suits, their most obvious non-human features are a lack of hair and ears, and protruding tentacles where a human's mouth would be, features very reminiscent of H.P Lovecraft's fictional monster Cthulhu. In the film, the area where one would expect eyes to be is pixelated.The aliens' language is not clearly defined, and seems to be made up of gurgles and animal noises, not unlike Wookies in the Star Wars films.One scene in early in the film, shown as television news footage, shows an alien fending off an attack by two police officers by telekinetically, while wearing one of their biosuits, throwing large vehicles towards them. Whether or not they themselves have this ability or whether it is done through the use of the suit is never explained.
CAST Dawie Ackermann ... Afrikaans Professor Jason Cope ... UN Official / Alien Sharlto Copley ... Sniper Braam Greyling ... Cop 1 Godfrey Seome ... Cop 2
USA - 2007 Guy Camilleri (Danika, Rx) and Charles O’Hair (Secret Agent, Shamelove) star as brothers in this dramatic story of a seemingly perfect family, and the forbidden desire between two cousins that threatens to put an end to the family’s Christmas dinner. During this reunion of both brothers’ families, Daniel’s existence is immediately threatened by Uncle Guy’s free spirit. When Daniel’s daughter Brie refuses to eat her asparagus, Daniel feels the need to teach his brother a lesson in parenting... While their parents are arguing in the dining room, cousins Jacob and Gwen are sent to Jacob’s room to play with a jigsaw puzzle.. CAST Guy Camilleri Ho-Jung Charles O' Hair Caroline Bielskis Renata Su Obal Michael Jolly Natalie Vigil Directed by Roman Wyden
On a cold winter evening a young manager gets stuck in traffic on his way home from work. He takes his brand new mobile to call his wife, not knowing that by doing so he’s about to cause irreparable damage…
Cast Tom van Dyck Ellen Van Cutsem Aza Declerq Kris Swinnen
USA - 2006 Everyone adores Andrew, including his old Aunt Mary. Rather, she did... until she died. Now, standing at her funeral, his Aunt's casket open before him, Andrew reflects on the last time he saw Mary alive, as well as the shocking, secret chain of events that led to her death: While raking leaves outside his Aunt's house, Andrew hears a thunderclap overhead, followed by a flash of light. Only the sun is shining bright, not a cloud in the sky. The light came from the upstairs window and curious Andrew just has to find out the source. But first he has to deal with Aunt Mary, a doting old lady Andrew believes has everybody fooled. He suspects her of hiding great power and aims to uncover her secret. As he tip-toes around the house, up the steep staircase and into his old Aunt's bedroom, Andrew shows he's up to the task. What follows is a frenzied search through a spooky old house where magic is discovered and unleashed, a frail old woman is revealed to be a being of great, enviable power and a little boy thought innocent by all is proven to be anything but. Is Andrew's Aunt Mary a witch? What's the source of her power? And, most importantly, how can he make it his? WITCHWISE is a swirling tale of horror and magic, murder and vengeance in which one bad little boy learns an important lesson- Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it! CAST Amy Anzel ... Mother Spencer Daniels ... Andrew Colby French ... Father Mary Eileen O'Donnell ... Aunt Mary DIRECTED BY Joe Harris
Somewhere along the equator on the Far East side of the world lies Singapore— a city made famous by beautiful, ever-smiling Singapore Airlines stewardesses. At 30,000 feet these dainty and demure creatures are only too happy to serve you beef, chicken, or a vegetarian option. But on the ground, customer service is a different story. Meet “The Trainee”. She works the long haul, late shift in a 24-hour convenience store along Keong Saik Road – a road better known for the special customer service received in the brothels here. Tonight she’s broken a freshly painted fingernail while closing the register. So you better think twice before venturing into her inconvenience store …
CAST Sunny Pang Serena Sim Directed by Craig Rosenthal
A passenger plane in great danger is about to make a crash landing. Luckily, a flight instructor is speeding towards the airport with his trusty mobile phone giving instructions to the plane's crew. Everything is going fine and a catastrophe is being avoided when suddenly the call is dropped. CAST Jean Dujardin Artus de Penguern Karim Adda Philippe Bénard Directed by Renaud Philipps
USA - 2003 Nick will make you believe in magic! It is open mic night at a local club. Nick takes the stage. His performance is nothing less than amazing, captivating the audience as he makes a magic wand float around the room. The trick is no simple illusion, Nick has magical powers. Later that evening, he sits at the bar as a beautiful girl named Michelle walks up and orders a drink. Soft spoken, Nick attempts to strike up conversation. They make small talk, building interest and energy. Nick attempts to be charming. He performs a simple card trick – I can guess your card. After a touching soliloquy about tricks and the possibility of real magic, he slowly and methodically makes his selection. He picks the wrong card! An awkward moment ensues, she amused and he embarrassed. Just then he looks at her quizzically, as if something is different. There is. Michelle’s earrings are switched!Not to be outdone, Michelle performs a trick of her own. She asks Nick to close his eyes. She gives him a simple kiss, which penetrates his very being. He savors the moment, then opens his eyes. She is gone. Scanning the bar, he sees that she has returned to her friends. Nick performs one final trick before he leaves, a charm Michelle will later discover. The film ends in Nick’s rundown apartment. As Nick falls asleep the tale of his magical power and his true situation unfolds. It is an ending that can only be described as magical. CAST MATT MESLER STEPHANIE CADMAN REBEKAH BOISVERT KATE LOCONTI PETER CUMBO REED RANKIN LISA VITRANO DAVID "POKEY" RAASCH STEPHEN BRISCOE BRIAN ROBERT TABERSKI ANDREW BOORADY KELLY CRANGLE GERALD INGLUT AMY INGLUT CHRISTINA COURTIN ENRIQUE OVIEDO Directed by JOHN TAKACS
USA - 2006 A man wakes up and finds himself in a dress but can’t remember what happened the night before. Will Bigham’s short is about a tyrant boss, who attempts to make light of waking in a dress by addressing his staff of employees with an ultimatum.Will Bigham won Fox's 'On the Lot' reality filmmaking competition with this short film. CAST Greg Collins Lin Shaye Fred Koehler Travis Wester. Directed by Will Bigham
USA - 2001 A group of people come together in an anonymous waiting room. All are wearing name tags. As they exchange small talk, though, we realize there's something odd: some of them are saying things about themselves that are clearly false, like the middle-aged man "Beth" and another middle-aged man hitting on a 14-year-old girl.
Jerry: Cool name. Mandybear: Thanks. Jerry: Do you like bears? Mandybear: They're okay, I guess. Jerry: Yeah. I think bears are definitely where it's at. So how old are you? Mandybear: I'm 14. You? Jerry: [Jerry is obviously a middle-aged man] I'm 15. Mandybear: Cool.
CAST Ian Vogt ... Skater Reggie Lee ... Slappy Sue Scott Alan Smith ... Jerry Jan Hoag ... Bambi Richard Riehle ... Beth David Starwalt ... Schizo Jesse McClurg ... Joey Mariana Geschke ... Mandybear Aaron Henry ... Freaker Matt Hannigan ... Security Guard Directed by Geoffrey Haley
ENGLAND - 2004 Gaelle Denis initially draws a gray, desolate picture of the metropolis, depicting it as an intimidating presence. And so it is with Tomoko, a young Japanese girl who comes to London to learn English. At first, she doesn't like it a bit there. She hardly even leaves the house. But that changes radically when, quite by accident, she discovers a mysterious, secret underground city below London, a place that's colorful and friendly. In the wake of this experience, she meets a lot of new friends, learns English and makes one wonderful discovery after another CAST Hiroe Takei Robert Stevenson Rachel Phillips Katerina Athanasopoulou Directed by Gaëlle Denis
