Coming up shortly….

It would seem, according to my last entry, that I really have not been posting very much at all. I would like to say it was because I had been too busy, but that would be a lie. I think it is mostly down to laziness and fear and not a little procrastination. I did make another film, so there is that, which I appreciate is still a pretty poor excuse for posting twice a year!
To that end – Lord help me – I have come up with a plan. Hoorah. Don’t get to excited back there. I am, in my self appointed position (shut up! Everyone does it!) as short film expert, going to be watching and reviewing short films and putting my opines here. My opinion on the films and as to whether you should watch them is as relevant as winking at a man on the moon; a bit like everybody else’s opinion then. It is all just a bit of fun and may point you in the direction of a film that you would otherwise never have given a second thought.
To kick off my review segment I took a look at the Shooting People short of the month(shootingpeople.org) – not mine! – Mouse-X – https://shootingpeople.org/watch/127066/mouse-x. A film by Justin Tagg, it tells the story – shows a man – of man waking up in a room unaware of why he is there or where there is. Beside the chair he is sitting in, there is a chest with the lid open, a side table,a book in his lap and a mouse. After looking through the book, which is marked in various places, he looks to a very large mouse hole, with curiosity getting the better of him, he goes into it. He is still in the hole when then door is opened. He sees a pair of boots, the boots pausing and then retreating from the room. He emerges from the hole but quickly hides behind the chest as a man in a white, CSI jumpsuit and goggles, drags in an unconscious body. The body turns out to be our confused protagonist. Whilst our main protagonist is hiding out of sight, the jump suited man puts his twin into the chair he had been sitting in. His twin does exactly the same as our protagonist did in the beginning, diving momentarily into the whole in the wall. meanwhile our first twin – keep up – makes his escape, hefty book in tow. he finds himself in a red corridor, with doors evenly spaced along each wall. A jump suited man emerges from one of the doors, without thinking, twin one bashes the jump suit man with the book, knocking him unconscious. He removes his goggles and sees version three of himself! Personally I would have freaked out, but, perturbed, he gets into the jump suit and drags his third version into the room he had left, mirroring the previous actions. Back in the corridor, he sees another jump suit and as they see one another, they dart off in different directions into differing rooms. Back with twin one (I know he is not a twin, but there is no dialogue in this film before the fourteenth minute!) he has hidden behind the chest of the identically furnished room, as the same scenario as before plays out. So as not to spoil it for you, I just say there are more replicas and more doors!
I must admit, this is not my type of film. Being a writer who likes the spoken elements of film, a film with an, in essence, lone protagonist is not my go to entertainment. Having said that, I do still think it was a good film. It looked fantastic – DP Hakon Palsson – the whole thing richly coloured, even if those colours were blood gothic in hue. It had a wonderfully atmospheric score – Verbal Vigilante and Itamar Rosenbaum I’m guessing – and was nicely paced. For those who are into sci fi chillers, this film is definitely worth fifteen minutes of your time.