Thursday, September 28, 2017

A critical review




There's a short film on Fandor called "Who is on First". It has 3 stars out of 5. Made in 2005, produced by Nathan Zellner and directed by his brother David. 5 minutes long. Apparently available on YouTube as well.

Two people sitting in chairs for some reason in front of walls lined with baseball cards go through that terrible Abbott and Costello routine. Yes, I know. It's "classic". But it was stupid and contrived, people named "Who", "What" and "I Don't Know". If they were named Hu and Watt it would make sense, but why would a person be named "I Don't Know"?

Sesame Street made better use of that gag. Someone keeps telling Grover that he's looking at the letter "Y" but he thinks she's saying "Why".

The movie was done with Dragnet editing, cutting to a close-up of who ever's speaking. And it was done with Dragnet acting, where the actors read their lines neutrally.

But the editing wasn't fast enough. The movie just wasn't very good. If they had at least been standing or had some reason to be having this conversation in the first place it might have been better.

I always liked Dragnet. It made me feel like even I could be an actor. Just stand still and read your cue cards as fast as you can.

And movies like this are what intrigued me about film to begin with---that you can put very little effort into a very short film and it would be considered a major achievement. I read about a guy who became a major figure in art film by making a 30 to 90 second Super 8 film every year. Then I read about "one shot" art films----films shot in a single take. One guy pointed his camera across a highway. It was a sound movie, and it wasn't stereo, so there was suspense because you would hear a car approaching but you didn't know if it was coming from the left or right. Another film was a two minute shot of a rotating beer sign with a nature scene.

"Who is on First" starred Anthony Holsome and Se Young Min.

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