Category: REVIEWS

In the midnight hour of British politics, with the current quagmire of Brexit, corruption of power and awful uncertainty, one man’s prison sentence feels eerily, creepily like a dystopian future not too far away. Figuratively speaking, of course… 

One man (Michael Shon, rising to the non-verbal role supremely) is kept in a dingy cell, teetering on a stool with a noose around his neck, with his eyes trained on a constant feed of images coming from a TV. His jailor (James Hyland, superb) appears to be more of a doctor, giving him meals (that disappear and provide no nourishment) and checking his clipboard (showing the man’s extensive crimes). 

Transmission seems to be about the cyclical nature of our entrapment within politics. Just when we think things are getting better, shown by our leading man wandering through a beautiful forest, we get sucked back in the same cell we started off with, with no change and even things getting worse.

The 35MM format gives a really nice touch to the film – the grainy visuals giving a realness to the surreal struggle. The cinematography is great, disorienting us between freedom and prison, until we are confused which is which. 

The questions raised in the film relate to us as active members in the political sphere – how much of the prison we are in have we constructed, signed off on, ourselves? How much are we able to change it, if at all? The corporate attire of the protagonist doesn’t go unnoticed – a regular worker with a serious list of crimes, is it to show what the average Joe is capable of, or what he will be condemned for? Interesting questions from a very creepy, but enjoyable short.

Anthem of a Teenage Prophet is about Luke (Cameron Monaghan), a teenager from the sleepy Michigan town of Stokum, who has a startling vision of his best friend’s death while they smoke weed together.

Producer Robin Hays adds to her directing credits with her first feature, following on from shorts Post no Bills (2017) and Bug Hutch (2009).

Anthem of a Teenage Prophet is a low-key coming of age sci-fi. Strong from the outset, it loses its way as the film progresses. Todd M Duym provides beautiful cinematography: The quiet landscape echoes the usually peaceful lives of the characters.

Anthem feels a little like a short film with extra space injected into it. Inspired by the Joanne Proulx novel Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet. The book is described as darkly comic, but that hasn’t translated into the film. Despite depicting tragedy, Anthem was flat – it should have fostered more emotion than it did. By the end I barely had a mild curiosity to see how it played out, rather than investment in the fate of the characters. The story promised the likes of Special (2006), but sadly fell short.

My interest was piqued at the appearance of Juliette Lewis as Luke’s suburban mom. The wild kids from early 90s coming-of-age films have grown up (see also Winona Ryder in Stranger Things). Throughout the film Lewis and Monaghan’s unscripted interactions play well.

Set in the late 90s, Anthem of a Teenage Prophet is no nostalgia fest, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was watching today’s teens minus the iPhones. There is something so self-assured about teenagers today that these characters shared – even the awkward ones – in the way they communicate. One reason for the film not being anchored in that era is its soundtrack. Despite Luke conspicuously listening to rap on his walkman, the rest of the music shifts back and forth between late 80s and mid 2000s to confusing effect. This isn’t to say that a film soundtrack ought to match the time in which it is set, but it doesn’t help here.

Anthem of a Teenage Prophet is a diluted Donnie Darko. An indie sci-fi that has all the makings of a decent feature, but for a lack of confidence in the material. For fans of Another Earth (2011)

Your father’s dying; you don’t like your sister very much; your father wants to die; but your sister can’t bear to see him go…what do you do? Nothing To Do answers these questions and more in what is an incredibly personal tale based on the real-life experiences of director Mike Kravinksy.

Nothing To Do is beautiful in that it is personal. Its deliberately low budget production recreates a real life situation, as emotional and painful as it is mundane and boring. I both loved and hated Nothing To Do. Most critics love Nothing To Do for its realism, its simplicity and its hard-hitting truth; but yet I felt so much of it was wooden and unbelievable. My reaction is in largely a result of to the characters and the performances, not the story. Paul Fahrenkopf does an excellent job with his portrayal of Kenny, whose father is lying in a hospice bed slowly dying.

I just didn’t like the character and I didn’t understand why secondary characters all took to him so quickly, or in Patti’s case (Patricia Talmadge) fell for him. Now I know what you’re all thinking. You didn’t like the character, doesn’t mean you can’t like the film right? Well, no, it shouldn’t, but I felt like I was supposed to feel for this character, but I couldn’t. It didn’t help that he kept constantly bringing and eating ONE slice of pizza on a plate when he clearly had a whole pizza! I need pizzaplanations please because that makes no sense to me!

Carrie Bowman who has a second career full of commercials shows her commercial talent with a loud and smiling performance, that for me at times felt forced. Bowman rocked the emotional scenes, she made me almost cry with her tears of sadness and pain at seeing her father pass; but when she spoke I couldn’t help but feel she was selling me something. Phillip Lawton may have been chosen to depict the character Erv based on Kravinsky’s dying father because of the way he told an incredibly personal story and the inspiration for the film’s title Nothing To Do, but I felt his performance, and many of the other performances including Patricia Talmadge all contributed to this feeling like a play on film rather than a feature film.

Kravinsky’s choice for an ultra-low budget production filmed on location in Washington using an all local crew and his choice to use a cast largely from his earlier feature film Geographically Desirable all contributes to this. I feel it was an intended outcome, but for me it took from the performance and I think it’s a shame he didn’t take the time to gain a budget.

Nonetheless, and despite all my complaining I would recommend Nothing To Do on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Its beauty is in its realism and its lack of shine or exaggeration, and I do love that about it. It’s a good watch, but not a great.

By Fergus Henderson. When we first meet recently divorced Dave Hopper (Stephen Shane Martin), a psychology lecturer at a Christian college, he is a void of passion and energy. He is practically begging for something to kick-start the journey of self-reflection he seems, silently, to need.

Soon enough he is challenged by one of his students, Nate, who asks him why God hates gay people. Dave responds that homosexuality is a choice, and the wrong one at that, but he doesn’t seem too convinced, and tosses it out with the upward inflection of someone asserting something they have barely even thought about. This question, “the issue of your generation” as Dave sees it, forms the crux of dramedy At The End Of The Day, writer/director Kevin O’Brien’s debut feature length film.

Dave’s appropriately villainous boss, dean Gordon Woodman (Tom Nowicki) seems to sense this inciting incident, and sends him to an LGBTQI support group which intends to bid on property that Woodman has plans for. They hope to use it to as a homeless shelter for LGBTQI kids. Woodman simply wants to expand his religious franchise.

Dave is tasked with infiltrating and sabotaging their fund raising, lying about being gay in order to win the group’s trust. Eventually he will have his heart and mind changed by the ideas he must consider, and the sheer force of love and goodwill he finds in this previously alien community. This goodness, he will come to realise, is conspicuously lacking in his own community. How long will he be able to keep up his charade?

O’Brien has crafted a film which probes the hypocrisies and double standards of the church, one which interrogates the real world outcomes of its judgements on the LGBTQI community. It is a calm film, which floats through its run time on a narrative thread that, whilst dramatic, is never played for melodrama.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2xZ5gEROY8

It is thanks in part to O’Brien’s script that the film never becomes overtly preachy, but is rather gently insistent on what it is saying, gathering cumulative force by slowly upping the ante as it progresses. The more we learn about the characters, the more the emotional stakes increase. Characters that appear first at the periphery slowly make their way into the story’s centre, their stories and experiences adding weight as they emerge.

This gentle quality is perhaps due to writer O’Brien’s own conservative Christian upbringing. The film seems to address people on that side of the political fence, in a refreshingly understated way. It assumes an intelligence and sensitivity in this more conservative audience, and if one doubts its genuine empathy at the offset, by the end we are sure that it has been made by someone who has become fully aware of what it is to be compassionate.

There are still a few moments in which this background hampers the script, certain scenes feeling very much like they are written in order to explain gayness to an unfamiliar audience. Luckily it largely avoids the stereotyping one might fear.

There is a tangible earnestness to how the film makes its case. In one of its most transparent moments it collects a group of people from the LGBTQI community and presents them as talking heads addressing the camera with tales of cruelty from their religious families. O’Brien seems to be addressing similarly conservative people with the fervour of someone who has finally seen the truth, asking them if they can see it too.

It is certainly a noble film with an undeniably righteous message of inclusion and acceptance, but is not a perfectly made film. In the macro it finds a compelling central tension, develops at a fast and entertaining pace, and lands at a happy resolution. Where it falls down is in its tone.

On a scene to scene basis there are broad comedic strokes that do not land. On the surface the film knows which beats to hit, and then curiously does not hit them, leaving moments of dead air. It makes jokes about how scarves are ‘gay’ and features a set piece involving an erotic car wash. The humour is relatively lightweight throughout, never veering too close to satire (lest it become a more polemical film?)

It is much more compelling, and the actors seem more comfortable, when it is solely dramatic. At times it occupies a liminal space with scenes transitioning from drama to comedy somewhat awkwardly, the film and cast appearing eager to return once more to the drama.

Similarly the cinematography, largely workmanlike and understated, finds itself a little lost in these moments, and even with the soundtrack hitting the prerequisite emotional notes you still feel momentarily adrift, waiting for the film to find its footing again.

At The End Of The Day is at its strongest when it is unabashedly serious. It features a lively and realistic ensemble cast who are devoted to the plot and to their characters and who have an easy, believable chemistry. Stand outs include Danielle Sagona as Alyssa, the head of the group who harbours painful secrets, and Chris Cavalier as troubled student Nate. Both actors shoulder the film’s weightiest moments. Tom Nowicki plays his thankless role as villain Woodward with cackling zest.

Most interesting of all is lead actor Stephen Shane Martin, who is somehow both deflated and confident, nonchalant yet deeply invested in his own spiritual awakening. When he does speak he is deeply unsure of himself and what he thinks. Martin is necessarily quiet so that he can be taught

He is really a proxy for the audience that At The End Of The Day will speak to most, those that might need to be reminded of the importance of love and understanding, and of questioning their beliefs if they stand in love’s way. Technical and tonal issues aside, this is a positive film, with a message that deserves to be heard by its audience. It will make its own small change, for the better.