Review: BAR TALK (2014)

By: Chelsea Opperman 

After a long day of labor, it’s an awesome feeling to go sit and relax with a cheap beer in your favorite honkytonk.  Sometimes the world makes you feel empty inside and you just need to chill out in a dusty bar and reflect.  But then sometimes, a chatty stranger completely interrupts the peace you’re trying to achieve, plunks down beside you, and won’t shut the fuck up.  He insists on telling his life story, and it is completely out of this world.  In this extraordinary short, Lowell Northrop brings an authenticity to scenario, ripe with annoyance and dictated by an over-sharer.  

 

Sometimes you need to watch out for people who sit at the bar stool next to you.  Especially those with a story.  It could leave you completely drained.   

 

Review: CROW HAND (2014)

By: Chelsea Opperman 

Most people pick up pennies when they are spotted on the ground. And why not?  You have nothing to lose.  What if you saw a small crow totem in a parking lot?  Surely that would pique your interest, much to the chagrin of your wife.  One warning though:  If you do pick up the crow, get ready to 5, 6, 7, 8 Dance! Packed with amazingly gross special effects, awesome soundtrack and credits, and gut busting humor, Brian Lonano’s micro short CROW HAND is two minutes of what the fuck and bloody laughter.  

 

Maybe you should think twice about picking discarded objects off the ground, you just might poke your eye out and have it handed to you.  

Review: BURN (2011)

By: Chelsea Opperman 

Inside a gritty woodshed, a MacGyver figure peels an orange.  He speaks of survival to a bloodied young man, who is tied up in more ways than one.  Jerry Pyle’s BURN is a tour de force with exceptional acting, a claustrophobic mise-en-scene, stunning cinematography, and a growing sense of dread.  Revenge flicks can be especially brutal, throwing your mind into a vice, and this short delivers nothing less than a squirm inducing finale.  And this end is written straight out of a Satanic Jigsaw’s book.  

 

Want to play a game?  Make your choice.

Review: RUBY'S SECRET (2013)

By: Chelsea Opperman 

Stiff drinks and a dark bar.  Meeting eyes with a stranger, wet and glistening.  This is a scenario most people know, or have a least witnessed firsthand.  It’s something a little sleazy, a pinch scandalous, and a slew of sexy.  When an unsuspecting gentleman follows his drunken and lustful passion to Ruby’s place, who knows what can happen?  Kalen Artinian’s RUBY’S SECRET is visually stunning, twisting an ordinary one night stand into a visceral mindfuck with an incredible and stunningcolor palette.  

 

As she slips on her Victoria’s Secret, Ruby has her own secret.  And her new playmate is about to witness a tale as old as time, Beauty and the Baphomet.  

Review: ALL MEN CALLED ROBERT (2010)

By: Chelsea Opperman 

The French countryside is stunning.  Sun streaming through the verdant trees, opening up into a straw-colored meadow.  This wood brings such beauty in Marc-Henri Boulier’s masterpiece of a short.  But that serenity is shattered by a naked and terrified man tearing through the countryside, constantly looking back and feeling hunted down.  He instinctually follows the sound of a woman’s voice, calling his name for help.  What will Robert do when he reaches the voice?  And who is chasing him?

 

Maybe if he is quiet, he can hide.  But he hears a twig break behind him.  

Review: SINK HOLE (2011)

By: Chelsea Opperman

This was a curious 60 seconds. Most gentlemen have experienced the most extraordinary 60 seconds at least oncetheir lives, or maybe it was just a great and intense 10 seconds (at least the first time). But how far would you go to feel that again?  Greg Hanson’s minute long micro short is nothing more than brilliant and cringe-inducing.  The sallow color adds to the grim finale.  And words themselves can take on a quite literal meaning.  And Jesus Christ, don’t flip that switch!

 

Someone is about to lose every 60 seconds he could ever experience in his lifetime.  Forever.