The Wish (hopefully nobody else picked that title)

Man this was funny! What I liked: Breaking the 4th wall Biblical references The Estuary Suggestive ending Improvements? I think the pot could have been more authentic. The tea-pot seemed like a lazy choice. Perhaps it would have had higher production value if some aspects of the film were taken more seriously. Hope that doesn't sound too harsh- A lot to accomplish in 48hours! A 5/7 mini-gun salute!

Funny as heck, great cutaways though second the comment about production value at times.

A guy finds a teapot with a genie in it. He'll get some wishes but has to go through the Ts & Cs first. Good humour in this (Toot Toot are making a habit of this) and the edit & acting created some effective comic timing. It does perhaps labour the joke a bit too long and so the flashbacks get a touch tired. I just would have liked something else to happen in the story as it was all about the genie.

I reckon Jesus would have enjoyed this a lot actually.

This is the film where I want to talk about the Swede style. While it’s been coming for a while now, this feels like the year where the Swede style has really truly matured. (Some of the best films this year went this route to great effect) I talked about it over on M3 Merrin School Movie Makers film, but on that film you kinda get the sense that the Swede style might not have been intential, and just the only way they could make a film. Over here though, Toot Toot clearly knows they could do more for their production value if they wanted for example there is an perfectly executed running on water joke, that they then IMMMEDIATELY undercut to great effect, almost as if they dont want anyone to think they are trying too hard But what Toot Toot is going is choosing how they focus their film, what they put effort into, and what they put minimal effort into (also for extra commit effect) What Toot Toot knows is that if you limit yourself to what you can realistily portray and pull off in 48hours your limiting the kinds of storyies you can tell, and by fully embracing the Swede style they are free to just do what they want and let the jokes shine* *so obviously the Swede style is set up to help comedies, so now lets see a team do a dramatic film in the Swede style. That would be a hell of an achievement (but i digress) This film is sharply written, tightly constructed and beautifully delivered. It has all the DNA of Toot Toots film from last year, but it improves upon that film in every way imaginable. I suspect this film will shine quite well once it’s available online, (put it on youtube with the right title and tumbnail, and just let the views roll in) Bring on the finals.

Oh man I laughed so hard throughout this film! Well done guys again. You take this absurdity style you're doing and do it so well it creates this incredible paradox of awesome every time. (I need to look up this Swede style that Rowan keeps mentioning) Anyway your jokes and humour were sooo on point and well done and well timed. I barely caught my breath the entire film. Also I loved the beat poet bit and seeing Michael playing the double again! Overall guys, incredible work and one of my absolute favourites of the heat. Easy finalist! Well done.

Toot Toot were the surprise hit of the final heat last year, a breath of fresh and silly air. I was worried that their 2017 Christmas movie might have been just a flash-in-the-pan moment of absurd comedy greatness, but I'm happy to report that their follow-up, while less unexpected, is at least as fun, if not more so. Which is surprising partly because it is constructed around one of my most loathed 48hours story formats. The premise is simple: a guy walking along the beach one day comes across a lamp / teapot / something, and a genie appears. As per usual, the guy gets a wish, but there are some Ts & Cs to cover off first. The genie's clearly a bit rusty to this part, so finds the relevant smallprint in his pocket and hands it over for his new customer to read. What follows for pretty much the rest of the film is a sequence of the guy reading a clause about what you're not allowed to wish for, the genie sheepishly shrugging and admitting that maybe he might have broken that rule once, and then a cut away to a flashback gag built around that breaking of the rule. Rinse and repeat. (And this is the format thing I was referring to above - not really developing anything, just going over the same narrative ground again and again, which can be extremely frustrating to watch when there's so little screentime available to play with.) The first few times, the genie's reaction is funny, partly in how this ostensibly high-status magical being emotes like a naughty schoolboy. But it really does go on a bit, and the constant shots of the genie making pretty much the same expression in response each time got tiresome after a while. I guess that once we'd established the routine, we didn't need to see all the steps every single time, and I would have liked the edit to somewhat accelerate and become more efficient with this device as the film progressed. Beyond that, it would have been nice to see the story develop beyond this pattern, although of course that would have become a totally different film. In any case, it seems the filmmakers are clearly self-aware about all of this, and to prove it have capped their film with an ending which is essentially a get-out-of-jail-free card, effectively lampshading any perceived deficiencies of the five minutes we've just been an audience to. It's simple and disarming, and I honestly can't think of a better way they could have ended the movie. Of course, what I haven't yet mentioned is all the stuff in between, the stuff that really makes this film sing. We see the genie meeting Jesus (a recurring gag), we see the genie getting picked up / hit on at a bar. We see beat jazz in a smoky bar (it was only later that someone pointed out that this was their use of the compulsory action element - not 100% convinced that slamming The Doors teeeeeechnically counts, but meh, it was awesome anyway). I think my single favourite moment was the shot of Michael Bell's Jesus running on water, not so much the shot itself as the infectiously childlike squee-ing sound that he makes as he does so. This film, like last year's before it, are great examples of *pure* 48HOURS creations, which is to say they'd probably make little sense to anyone outside the context of the competition, but within it, they are a rare and special delight.

I actually found this film a little less entertaining than last year’s. It started off really strong but after a while I got a little sick of the genie’s character and continuously going back to the bar seemed a little on the lazy side. If a little more thought was put into the structure of the story rather than solely focusing on great jokes, I think we could’ve seen a really great film.

Great set up which carried all the way through. Super fun and funny. Filming was really nice to. I loved the playfulness which had me feeling like I was part of the joke.

While I enjoyed the conceit of this, and there was some fun moments, ultimately it felt a little bit underwhelming unfortunately. The Doors Slam was genius, and breaking the fourth wall with the puddle was great, but it didn't really add up to more than the sum of its parts for me. I felt like we spent too much time at the bar for all those cutaways, and the final wish of no bad films fell a bit flat for me. Also, and this is a huge nitpick, but when he was holding up the terms and conditions it bugged me that you could see Term 1 was on the outside (not what he was reading), and that it was mostly lorem ipsum. If you're about to rattle off all these terms, you could have at least written them out properly (or hidden them from camera completely if you didn't want spoilers). Still, some good laughs along the way - looking forward to see what you do next year.

With this film, I defy anyone who thinks Toot Toot won't make it into the finals every year, because rounding out the night with an infectious inside-joke ridden series of sketches which wouldn't make much sense outside of 48hours is something I want to see done every year. It's the equivalent of those comedic openings to The Oscars where Billy Crystal/a Billy Crystal type meets with a bunch of that year's nominated actors from their nominated films and jokes about sexy fish monsters etc. I mentioned in my "PC High" review what some of my favourite gags of the year were, and completely forgot to mention the sandals slapping the puddle which might actually be my favourite, sold entirely by the sandal slapper eyeing the camera with kind of a "How did it come to this?" expression. The sandal slapping might only be second to the Slamming The Doors joke which is so insane and so clever that there was never any question over whether or not it would win the award. Absolutely hysterical. What a joke. What a film. I feel there's not much else I can really review here, I guess I could suggest ways to improve, and talk about how with a less formulaic story the film would have felt fresher, but I kind of don't want to say any of that because the film kind of falls into being exactly what it needs to be and while I'm all for you guys as a team experimenting and trying out new genres and stories, at the same time I selfishly just want you guys to make something similar to this next year. This is your call, I'm sure I'll love it either way. As for your title "The Wish (hopefully nobody else picked that title)" is so perfect for a film which unashamedly wants to be a self aware and contextualized to the competition as it is.

Funny, and at moments, insanely clever. I bet the judges are thankful for the new requirement to list the time-codes of the required elements - I'm ashamed to say I didn't pick up on the door(s) slam until the nominees were played back in the finals. Absolutely genius. Normally I'm not a fan of films that use obvious in-jokes to 'remind' us all that it's all part of 48Hours, but looking at both last and this year's entry from Toot Toot, I think that may entirely be the point. That, and to hide a 'message' in plain, comedic sight - last year political, this year religious. "Oh, but M, you're reading too much into it!" Maybe. But I thought one Jesus joke would have played well. The sum of all it's parts made this film remind me of Crash Test Dummies 1993 album, "God Shuffled His Feet". And again, maybe that was the point. All in all, it is clear that Michael and team are having a lot of fun with Toot Toot, and I really hope that continues - because from this, we all benefit.