linee
22 Reviews
Reviews
youralreadyinjail.co.nz
kind of a NZ take on trash humpers... really nailed the home-movie-of-me-and-my-mates-uploaded-to-youtube so well that it was kind of annoying at points. liked a few of the little touches - the blackletter character names, no-name, the bizarre "RIP bobby youngstah"(?) splash sequence. probably better as a concept than as an actual film though
Instaman: The Untold Story
thought this was a really good highschool(?) entry. there was a neat kind of anti-aesthetic with lots of the brutal edits, lingering on shots for too long, hammy acting, bad music looping etc. all kind of common enough for 48 hours, but this was done in such a way that it seemed a bit more considered somehow? there are lots of ways for this sort of thing to be very boring but i don't think you could really say that about this.
People Get Lucky and Bad Things Happen
lush looking with some really good sound-design at points. really kind of nailed the 48 hours TM type humour i thought too. the genre thing is what had me slightly mystified and i should probably loose 1/2 a star for that but... it was very good regardless.
Tea Jerker
brilliant sort of over the top take on good-cop-bad-cop. nice hammy, manic take on the bad cop. lots of laffs and clever writing i thought with the overall arc of the story. "baby gravy over my oil of ulan"
Bullydozer
really admirable effort on two harder genres. classic take on a musical... just as things were starting to drag something new musically would happen and make it work again. really liked the flight attendant cameo part. technically - lip-syncing issues detracted a few times, but not to a huge degree. decent original soundtrack.
The Fertilizer
really good. likeable lead character and a simple enough plot to go on some weirder tangents without getting too convoluted. a really good script overall i think. looked pretty nice, some good sound-design and visual effects (backwards stop-motion plant growing was really well done.)
People Get Lucky and Bad Things Happen
lush looking with some really good sound-design at points. really kind of nailed the 48 hours TM type humour i thought too. the genre thing is what had me slightly mystified and i should probably loose 1/2 a star for that but... it was very good regardless.
Intervention
really good-looking film. some pretty impressive mid-fi effects. the great acting definitely detracted from this essentially being one big long scene. well-written with some nice one-liners
The Moist
really well-thought out aesthetic i thought. quite beautiful looking actually. felt that some of the humour was a bit obvious in terms of "poor taste" but it was funny regardless. just seemed like it was trying a little too hard in that department sometimes. the voice-acting was a particularly nice touch
BLANKING: THE UNSEEN ART
really good and probably my favourite of the night. the blanking idea itself was well-thought through - lots of kind of subtle allusions to other similar "fads" like parkour and urban exploration. the required elements i thought were particularly well-integrated. i think the team played to their strengths - the slightly weaker acting didn't really hinder it at all with it being presented as a documentary.
GOD BLESS AMERICA
really well-done traditional type musical. kind of in the simpsons satire-on-broadway type way. not really my sort of things in some ways - but i can't really deny it either. i agree that perhaps the film was slightly visually boring at points (we never really leave that park bench), but i feel that this was probably a conscious sacrifice on the part of film-makers in order to focus on the music and lyrics etc? could've been a smaller team in which the musicians we also involved with the filming etc. pretty impressive regardless
Cadavre Exquis
really nice looking and well acted. nice minimal harold budd type piano score too. didn't really like the ending at all. just completely out of the blue and not in a good way i don't think. it might've worked if there was some sort of motivation and/or foreshadowing integrated throughout the film maybe? also - the complaints re: the french language aspect seem a bit unfounded to me. maybe the date cards on their own could've been interpreted that way but the actual dialogue seemed perfectly natural to me. possibly just a french-speaking team judging by some of the names in the credits.... so i'm sure it wasn't an attempt at an air of faux-phistocation or something.
Instaman: The Untold Story
thought this was a really good highschool(?) entry. there was a neat kind of anti-aesthetic with lots of the brutal edits, lingering on shots for too long, hammy acting, bad music looping etc. all kind of common enough for 48 hours, but this was done in such a way that it seemed a bit more considered somehow? there are lots of ways for this sort of thing to be very boring but i don't think you could really say that about this.