Menchi, | 48HOURS Screening Room

Private Invasion

A great example of how to use limited resources and gear to produce a memorable film. A film about an alien learning how to perform his first probing. Remarkably sweet with some clever jokes and efficient world building that implied the world outside it's single room location. Very well shot and edited as well.

Die Trieblehre

This was a slick looking piece with some great moments. I felt the ending was telegraphed a bit and it would have been nice to see a bit more showing whether the therapist really was who he was accused of being by the end. Instead the ambiguity kind of undercut the film for me. Having said that, I did enjoy it and the final shot was great.

Past-it Notes

A film that managed to be both moody and funny in equal turns. Takes a beautifully absurd time travel idea and tells a haunting story about the risks of messing with time. Another example of being able to make an imaginative story with the limited resources on hand.

Awake Like An Egyptian

After a suitably fun opening scene in ancient egypt that set up a great Z-grade romp, the film then took an odd twist into David-Lynch-does-a-comedy land with the two sisters in the sixties. Personally, I didn't think we got enough story from the sisters or museum guard to make this a genuine converging stories film. But then it didn't really feel like there was much of a story here at all but a series of scenes that roughly led to a punchline that kind of missed its mark.

Mother's Day

Great performances and an interesting story. Is it weird that I found their 30 second intro better than the actual film though? I liked the set up of the film and the characters presented. Unfortunately it lost steam by the end with the final criminal act feeling like it missed a step. The end also felt a bit out of place next to the rest of the film. It did drag a little in the middle too. The make up on Vic as she fell victim to insomnia was great, by the way.

Bags

This was kind of disappointing given how talented this team is. Great camera work with some genuinely creepy shot compositions. A suitably atmospheric soundtrack. But the story struggled in my opinion. It wasn't clear if the narrator was just a very disturbed young boy or a ghost, the best death sequence was the first and the rest were progressively underwhelming (with the final death being unintentionally funny because the "victim" deliberately kneels so that the killer can garotte him.) It just didn't seem to really go anywhere.

Loop Aahhh

This was an ambitious idea, unfortunately it was kind of let down by being a little too unwilling to reveal what it was about. The core idea - that something happens to the leads causing their camera to go back in time and end up at their home where they eventually are drawn by the mysterious footage on it to the point where it went back in time - was pretty clever and a nice twist on the time travel genre. The problem was that there was far too much faffing about with people being normal and not enough elaboration on what was happening. Also the guy in the stocking suit was a poor choice of monster as he ended up looking comical rather than scary - especially in the longer shots. Some great ideas, but it did need to be less incomprehensible cacophony of images and more attention to telling a story instead of an idea of a story.

Pour Moi

This was a fun film. Great performances, especially from the lead and the guy playing Vic Meyer. It probably could have been quicker with the set up and spent a bit more time with the art students and played more with the immobilised aspect - but overall I felt it was solid twist on the genre with some fun performances.

Engaged

Beautifully shot, this film definitely gets points on the technical side. Musical is always a challenging genre to do in 48 hours and I think this team did a great job with a difficult genre. I wasn't a big fan of the song, but it was well executed if at times it did feel like a string of ideas rather than a story. Morgan as a Real Estate agent was a great angle on the liar aspect but he did feel like a squeezed in character to meet the obligation of the competition rather than an integral part of the narrative. Still, I enjoyed the confidence with which this team committed to their idea and it was a very humourous film.

Snoopy Rupert, Aro P.I.

One of my favourites of the heat. This had a great lead and some fun gags. It was an enjoyable film to watch but I did feel that while it had a PI it didn't really have a mystery at the heart of it. Just a series of great jokes around a fun and well realised character. Also the freeze frame finish was brilliant. Just would have been nice to see Snoopy Rupert dealing with a real mystery for the main part of the film rather than a set up for the punchline at the end.

Organic Chemistry

Great camera work, some really funny performances and a fun soundtrack. While this was a bit rough in parts and a couple of the performances were a bit wooden, the overall experience was a lot of fun. It was a bit laconic for a race against the clock film, but with a sequence like the organic drug dealer and his mother, I still enjoyed the film overall.

The Awakening

Another film that kind of felt like it skirted around the genre it was about. There was a great potential for this to be a revenge movie with a difference, but the film became too bogged down in its groundhog day concept to explore the idea that the main character could have been the one having revenge visited upon him rather than seeking vengeance. Such a beautifully simple core story which efficiently used a minimum number of sets, along with some great make-up and practical effects. The acting was solid, and the lead really managed to carry both the humour and tension. Sadly the ending just was ill advised and kind of undermined the entire film. What could have been a twist that revealed that the main character was being tormented as revenge for something he had done, he became the character seeking vengeance at the end of the film. By doing this the film ironically ceased being a revenge film and instead an oddity with a revenge plot slapped on the end to be able to say "it's a film about revenge." But we then never find out why Morgan wanted revenge, who it was against or anything that is part of the genre. And that's the thing. One scene change at the end of the film would have made all the difference. Instead it just went with a punchline that sat awkwardly with the rest of the film.

Deathday Wishes

Conceptually ambitious this film was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The humour was great (I do love my funny films) and the performances were solid. I agree with other reviewers that it felt like the story needed something more to it. The idea was so cool and there could have been a great and frenetic race against the clock for the guy who was going to die. Unfortunately it did at time feel like we spent too much time with the wrong character dealing with what she felt were her final moments and about midway through it felt like the film lost steam.

Fruit Punch

Although there were a few clumsy moments in this film, I felt it had great framing of scenes and the leads were just so darn adorable together. Also, getting to trash a place looked like a lot of fun and the actors really sold me on it. The story was humourous and I loved David's rambling at the beginning of the film. Plus having a character beaten up by a banana was a hilarious moment in the heat. My 3rd favourite film of heat.

Lost & Found

I have to mirror what other's have said - this was a gorgeous short. The landscape, the use of depth of field, the framing - this was a beautifully shot film. I loved the David Lynch/Oliver Stone style mystery and the final shot was nicely understated while explaining a fair bit. The two actors were a bit hit and miss with their performances, but managed to carry the hefty subject matter well enough to keep me engaged in the story. Freaked out when it looked like the farmhand was almost hit in the head by a hammer being tossed in his direction. My second favourite film of the heat. Great job, guys.

Prime's Numbers

Great visuals, solid performances and a haunting soundtrack. However I did think that the story needed more work. There was a cool concept here for a Reunion movie but I felt that the film didn't do as good a job of communicating what was happening. Instead it preferred to hold on to the mystery for as long as it could. When some solid exposition began, I didn't feel that we really knew enough about any of the characters to get a proper feel as to what was really going on. I felt there was a great idea in there, it just wasn't communicated well enough.

Stake & Chips

Very much an "I don't get it" kind of film. The poker game was a predictable one room set up, and the plan to get revenge on Bobby wasn't very clear. So the characters set up a poker game an plan to... what? Cheat him out of his money? But they don't cheat. So their grand plan doesn't seem to make any sense at all. Bobby was a suitably nasty character - but the overall acting and technical style wasn't really up to scratch. Having said that, there were some moments in the dialogue that worked, use of the bent wire was clever and the freeze frame was well done if a bit predictable.

Altered

An ambitious sci fi. Great call backs to the Cyberpunk genre, and some impressive makeup and art design. Without resorting to loads of fancy effects, this film did a good job of making Wellington look like a dystopian cyberpunk future and told a straight forward story. Some solid work from an imaginative team.

Red River

This was the highlight of the heat for me. Unrelentingly funny and dances closely to the line between objectionable and hilarious. Given the subject matter - a woman in a bathroom looking for an emergency solution to a problem - this could have been outright offensive to watch. But instead it was hilariously inventive, gross in that hilarious can't-look-away kind of gross instead of Freddy Got Fingered gross. The lead managed to create a character who isn't a caricature but someone who you could relate to and managed to sell the increasingly desperate solutions she considers. Two thumbs up. Great film.