glitterfish.com

CineVegas Reviews #1

This is the first batch of reviews from our trip to CineVegas

We’ll try to get a few up a day over the next few days with reviews coming from all four of us who went on the trip.

These four films are from Shorts Program #2. Two of the reviews are positive, and two are negative.

Bugcrush (Carter Smith) - 36:00

Bug Crush This terrifying film, which also played at Sundance, occupies the awkward space between short and feature at 36 minutes, but is so great that it could pull off any length. Innocent Ben has a serious crush on the new bad-boy at his high school, Grant. He attempts to get close to him and find out what the mysterious trips he takes into the woods could mean. Hopefully, it means he’s also gay. Ben maintains an acquaintance relationship with Grant, but tries to make it more than that. Eventually, Grant and his creepy misfit friends invite Ben to hang out at Grant’s house after school one day.

Ben drives them through dark rural areas and woods, up dirt roads to Grant’s abandoned shack of a home. All the while the tension builds as it’s not quite clear what Grant and his friends do after school, or what they play to do to Ben. The driving shots that peer out at the dimly lit road are particularly effective as we hear foreboding dialogue from the car.

Frightening throughout, this is a curious horror film that boasts an unforgettable ending I’m not about to spoil for you. This is director Carter Smith’s first film, but he’s done loads of commercials and makes his living as a fashion photographer. See this somewhere, somehow.

Denial (Joel Kelly) – 15:00

Starring Superman aka Brandon Routh, this short looks great thanks to some nifty 35mm camera work. There’s really nothing else positive to say about it.

The story starts with Routh and his girlfriend playing around in bed and being very lovey-dovey. As the film moves along, Routh’s character can’t seem to get a grasp on the reality of his relationship with his girlfriend. He starts to see her all around their apartment in different moods and outfits, recalling The Butterfly Effect scenes where Ashton is going a bit off the deep end.

In the end, we find out that he’s a heroin addict and as the drug wears off he is unable to maintain the good memories of his former love. As he injects in the bathroom, we see the film go back to the beginning, back to when their love was still strong.

Shot just a few weeks before Superman, Routh is the unlikely heroin addict who has time to constantly lift weights and make sure his hair is perfectly trimmed. All style and no substance, this must be a USC student film. I laughed a lot at this one as the clichés kept rolling onto the screen.

Bob Log III’s Electric Fence Story (Tinka Stock, Sébastien Wolf) - 2:30

Those who aren’t from Tucson probably don’t know about musician Bob Log, who wears a space helmet on stage and dips audience members’ boobs into glasses of scotch. Needless to say, he’s a character who can hold an audience with his music and his stories.

In this short and silly animated flick, Bob recounts the story of when he drunkenly tried to show some friends how to cow-tip, but ran into an electric fence. The claymation perfectly fits Bob’s storytelling, and this clearly surpasses anything I’ve seen on Shorties Watching Shorties.

Pardon My Downfall (David and Nathan Zellner) - 3:00

This film, if you can call it a film, consists of one joke that lasts for about three minutes as we watch the downfall of a rock-a-billy group called the Jibcutters. The joke is that they really like cocaine.

There’s nothing funny about drug addiction people, unless it’s given the student film treatment – like in Denial.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 3:01 am and is filed under reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “CineVegas Reviews #1”

glitterfish.com » CineVegas Report Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 3:00 am
[…] As far as the films go they all screened at the Brenden Theater at the Palms. The first show we saw was the Shorts Program #1. I was really impressed and a little intimated by how good the films were. I could be nit picky (a lot of the films ran a little long) but the fact was they were all well done and entertaining. Interestingly enough, and something that should be encouraging to poor young filmmakers, between the four of us our two favorites also featured the lowest production value. The best short was What the Captive Ate (dir. Matt Lemche), a hilarious video diary about an image-conscious man trapped in his bedroom when his roommate’s guests stay longer than expected. Our other favorite was The Smoking Section directed by Chris Pozzebon). We also saw Shorts Program #2 and you can read Nate’s review of that here. […]
glitterfish.com » CineVegas Festival Winners Announced Says:
June 20th, 2006 at 4:03 am
[…] RELATED: CineVegas Recap, CineVegas Reviews #1. […]
glitterfish.com » CineVegas Recap Says:
June 20th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
[…] As far as the films go they all screened at the Brenden Theater at the Palms. The first show we saw was the Shorts Program #1. I was really impressed and a little intimated by how good the films were. I could be nit picky (a lot of the films ran a little long) but the fact was they were all well done and entertaining. Interestingly enough, and something that should be encouraging to poor young filmmakers, between the four of us our two favorites also featured the lowest production value. The best short was What the Captive Ate (dir. Matt Lemche), a hilarious video diary about an image-conscious man trapped in his bedroom when his roommate’s guests stay longer than expected. Our other favorite was The Smoking Section directed by Chris Pozzebon). We also saw Shorts Program #2 and you can read Nate’s review of that here. […]
glitterfish.com » Interview with Festival Programmer Mike Plante Says:
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:52 am
[…] I want to thank Mike for answering our questions and also for putting on such a great festival. […]

You must be logged in to post a comment.

CineVegas Reviews #1

4 Responses to “CineVegas Reviews #1”

Leave a Reply