Monthly Archives: February 2011

In The Confession the conventional themes of death and tragedy are presented and altered into an innovative piece of brilliancy, as an innocent schoolboy accidentally commits an act so appalling, viewers are left leaving their theaters filled with a chilling feeling, difficult to shake.

Director Tanel Toom’s live action short film truly reaches the expectations of what a noteworthy Oscar nominated film should possess.

The film begins with the routine of an average day for nine-year-old Sam, filled with school, games, and constant reminders of Christ. As the movie progresses, we learn Sam’s most arduous dilemma is finding a sin to fill his clear conscious. This problem turns into one of entertainment for Sam and his friend as their innocent trick on a tractor driver to cure Sam from his dilemma turns tragic, leaving Sam with guilt so severe that he continues to perform acts of dismay.

Toom executes the film inventively with a shattering climax and conclusion, transforming the once whimsical film into one of both horror and tragedy.

A question I kept asking myself throughout the film was, “where was God?”

Is it fair that a boy, whose biggest sin was locking his sister in a closet, has to now deal with the guilt of causing the death of others? It seems God was removed from Sam’s life once he removed the scarecrow from his position on the cross, which explains why the “tractor driver” drives from the scene moments before tragedy strikes.

“You have to tell the truth, God knows all,” says Sam’s priest. Yeah, well, so does the tractor driver.

The tractor driver is always seen from a distance and is present in Sam’s daily routine. However, is never actually seen by viewers, just as there is no actual figure of God, portraying him to be God. This abandonment of God is a feeling universal to many Christians, feeling a sense of loss in their faith in their most traumatic and heart wrenching hour.

Toom has experience representing religious themes in his work. In his 2008 short film The Second Coming, the portrayal of a man’s struggle with his brother’s death is so immense he refuses to bury his body in hopes of his Christ-like resurrection. This theme is one Toom has excellently used in both films.

The theme and tone of The Confession are similar to last year’s Academy Award live action short film winner.

In Joachim Back’s The New Tenants, the genres of drama, tragedy, and death are also depicted. In the film, two tenants move into an apartment building practically moments before finding out their apartment was the center of a crime scene not long ago. As the former tenant’s past comes back to haunt these two men, they are forced to witness the unpredictable death of a neighbor and her family.

According to viewer Amanda Santoro “After watching the short films, I was not exactly sure what to look for that would make one of them prestigious enough to win the award. After watching last year’s winner, I realized The Confession has all the elements to win, and more.”

The Oscar nominated film “God of Love” by filmmaker Luke Matheny shows to be a riveting comical display of pursuits for unreachable love that has a rather satirical twist. From the opening of the film some viewers would be oblivious to the humorous backdrop, but once the story begins and ends, it’s easy to see the humor in Mr. Matheny’s madness. From the actors and actresses amusing yet serious facial expressions, to the many witty lines that come from the narrator and main character’s mouth all played also by Mr. Matheny, it’s hard not to at least chuckle at the numerous droll scenes.

Ray (Luke Matheny) is a jazz singing, dart throwing ordinary guy, who has a one sided crush on Kelly (Marian Brock), drummer of their jazz group. After stumbling upon a box of love darts, Ray becomes insistent on targeting Kelly for her love.

Luke Matheny’s simple approach to convey how love doesn’t always go as planned and cannot be forced is ingeniously formatted in his attempt to deliver the message to the viewers. Mr. Matheny isn’t new to the conception of entertaining films especially short’s. His previous success in the video short “Earano,” which won the King Award for Screenwriting at the NYU First Run Festival, as well as well as Best Student Short at the Dam Short Film Festival in Boulder City, Nevada, proved him worthy of the 2011 Oscar Nomination for live action short film. Having directed, acted, edited and produced over several short films in his career, Mr. Matheny obviously proved to be no novice.

“God of Love” can be compared with similar romance comedies such as “The Ugly Truth,” which to an extent speaks of another sort of cupid who worked his magic through flirtatious remarks and witty banter rather than the handy love dart. And in the end with all of his handsome flare and dirty seductive conversation, he also learned that love was more complex than originally expected.

The “God of Love” was quite different in that the good guy doesn’t get the girl but the other guy on the side who has no interest does. In the end, Ray is granted the gift to become the God of love which seemed to be slightly confusing seeing his many mistakes in making other women fall for him as practice towards Kelly’s heart. The only proper and righteous choice made was using a dart to make his friend Fozzie (Christopher Hirsh) see the love stricken face of the one who desired him for so long. But who knows, maybe one good choice out of several bad ones were all that was necessary to be given the opportunity to give a gift to others Ray never really received, Love.

Sarah Palin, a skilful self-promoter and consummate actress, is a savvy user of social networking–Twitter, Facebook–and also a highly marketable brand. Say ‘Palin!’, and presto the media and paparzzi appear, and in the background the kerching of cash registers.

Palin is self-advertising in motion. She has the looks of an angel but the tongue of a devil. And from her Etna-hot mouth spews a stream of lava to scorch and dry and wither her enemies. To her camp followers, it matters little that she lacks logic or that she displays her ignorance of general culture or the wider world or that in her private life she strays from her evangelical Christian beliefs; for them, she’s the ‘little woman‘ from a humble background, who has had to work hard in life for everything in this earthly life; for them, too, she’s a who knows how to stick it to the big, privileged rich kids, born with silver spoons in their mouths.

Palin’s a media star with the same tawdry appeal of a ‘Kooki‘ Her antics and hijinx resonate with the very people who relish putting the ‘rich’ into uncomfortable and awkward postures, while at the very same time that she is laughing all the way to bank and hobnobbing with the very people she socially despises. She’s, in other words, a parvenue and in a perverse way a grand entertainer of the masses. The country’s right-wing moneyed and political elite have made a place for her in their midst for the plain and simple reason they believe that the American people are too lazy or stupid to understand what the powers-that-be are talking about, even if they have an interest in politics. For them, it takes a great effort to approach things logically. To get them on your side, say the big guys, requires a shoot-gun effect. And, that packet of pellets of the right-wing is Sarah Palin.

Writers of two ‘tell-all’ book on Sarah Palin are engaged in a ‘battle royale‘ over whose book is going to cash in on the life of the woman who had the ears of the world stand up by proclaiming that she was like a ‘pitbull with lipstick‘ in 2008, thereby instantly becoming a recongizable, global household name.

Frank Bailey, Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon‘s ‘In Blind Allegiance‘, soon to be published by St. Martin’s press has been blindsided by Joe McGinniss who ‘leaked an early copy of their book’ on his blog, Mudflats. At the same, he was keeping his own book ‘The Rogue: searching for the real Sarah Palin‘, to be published by Broadway Books in September 2011, under wraps.

Bailey, Morris and Devon, through their lawyer, have accused McGinniss of behaving with malice of intent of wanting to destroy their book’s ‘marketability’. What’s more blame him of more than being a ‘jealous author sabotaging a competitor,’ but a man who would stoop to get his way ‘vai unlawful and unscrupulous means’.

McGinniss at the age of 26 burst on to the best seller list with The Selling of the President, describing the marketing of presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1968. His book was a ‘tour de force‘ in the way it described the staging of political theater in getting the ‘new Nixon’ elected as president. His book became a classic in campaign reporting, as well as a key to the sleights of hand used by the old media in projecting a man who, after his defeat to JFK in 1960, famously announced to the press that ‘they won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.’ And there he was eight years later the 37 president, thanks, in part, to a favorable manipulation of the media.

McGinniss did play dirty pool. Leaking his competitor’s manuscript, he torpedoed any hope that ‘In Blind Allegiance’ would sell like a hot-ticket item. Unfortunately, Bailey, Morris, and Devon may not have taken the full measure of him, nor appreciated his telling how a man like Nixon could be turned into an ‘Abraham Lincoln‘. It was though a bully had come into the children’s sandbox and threw dirt in the kids’ eyes.

Yes, McGinniss by leaking his competition’s manuscript played dirty. He learnt his lessons well during the 1968 campaign, it seems. He was out for the big bucks his book will bring to his publishers and the royalties he will garner. Nonetheless, as he might have had Wikileaks in his sights, a leaked document has news value but hardly turns a profit but for the ones who leaked it.

McGinniss may not be Mr. Nice, but like the subject of his book, Sarah Palin, he knows where the beef, oops, the Greenbacks are.

Comments:   “Alas, unlike old generals who fade away, dirty tricks are here to stay.”

“The ooze of deceit percolates through them thar Mudflats.”