BSFFF Day 3: Shorts made the day!

Limbo (2014) - A strange film that could have been made more coherent with a bit of exposition but decent in setting a mood with sound and music. Keeping the audience guessing it is a story that is still waiting to be told since the film did not go out of its way to finish building the world. The plot of three people who enter a limbo world to bring people trapped there back is a cool enough idea. There are these larger ideas about Saviors (The people that bring back stuck folks) as being around for hundreds of years but it is an underdeveloped idea. Shooting on a small budget we don't get the special effects of the fight with the Reapers (never seen creature who attempt to capture people in the Limbo zone). It would have been nice but so be it, they did create nice sound effects for the creatures. We follow David as he gets separated from his other saviors and ends up with a group less than friendly inhabitants. The bullshit ending was a bit unsatisfying because the story was not filled in enough for it to have consequence.  Their Facebook page

Mythica: A Quest for Heroes - I came in late to this piece of predictable fan fiction come to life. So I did not know that it was designed to be part one of a series and so when we finished the first adventure and the film ended I was a bit pissed. Later I learned the whole story and recovered. Fundamentally a live action RPG we watch as young magician Merek (Melanie Stone), trying to improve her lot in life puts together a team of adventurers Fighter Thane (Adam Johnson) Dagen (Jake Stormoen) and Teela (Nicola Posener) to go rescue Teela's sister from a band of orcs. It goes as expected with battles and close calls with the members through shared dangers bonding as a group.

The Hypnotist (2013) - Elijah uses a device to enter the mind of his comatose wife and hopefully pull her out. Playing out like a video game, first he runs to get the key and then from the loonies in the building to find the door. If he fails he starts over again trying to be more efficient. A bit of a fever dream in which although we get his story the antagonist the hypnotist is less defined as she tries to thwart his efforts.

2043(2014) - Gripping future where physical (intimate) contact can kill you and then reanimate your dead body. Very well defined story asking good "what ifs" and setting up a believable world where the main characters are well defined. Their choices are heart felt because of the drawing of that world and those in it.




Soundwaves (2014) - An excellent short looking at the question of how much responsibility do the creators of a technology need to take for their creation. Centered around Daniel who creates a machine capable of creating a human voice almost exactly, he is confronted with the negative side of his technology in a very public way. The smartest thing about the film is the relationship with his wife and how it is used in furthering the idea.

Beta (2014) -  A writer working hard to impress studio executives who would prefer him to be a hack is thrown for a loop by a new technology. Concise and well drawn this short was very competent. May have worked better if we started in the new app and then came out of it, but that's easy for me to say. Giving notes is always easier than creating.

The Brain Hack (2014) - I liked this one in that it created an entire thriller in 20 short minutes. About two creative students who figure out the mechanism for belief. Always a subject this godless heathen likes to explore. It is not tons of science but it is a lot of conspiracy which worked really well. Good job by Writer Director Joseph White.




Desaffection (2013) - Another pretty good short, about a future where the disease we call love has been cured but suddenly a case reappears and a vaccine must be made to cure it. The futuristic would is dark and bleak but with clever sells of future technologies used in passing. This allows the setting of the world without exposition dialog explaining it and really worked well in this film.   Writer / Director Thomas Charles does a really nice job in creating the world and telling a story about a possible future of mankind without over doing it. Small and clean is often good storytelling.

Anagolous (2014) - I just love that writer Eric Limarenko ( I hope that is the right credit, writer was not defined at IMDB) chose New Zealand as the US's next target in its imperial progression through history. A simple connection between two world that are both drawn and connected well.

Artificio Conceal (2014) - A very good high production value short, sort of a thinking man's thriller. Since I can't make myself write the synopsis well Here is how it is described on IMDB. Artificio Conceal is the story of a man who awakens in an Interpol interrogation room to find his mind 'hacked', his memories replaced and his identity lost. As the engineer of the world's most precise Quantum Logic clock, he must discover who hacked his nervous system and stole the device responsible for time itself. His quest to identify the perpetrator leads him through time and space to a thrilling conclusion that even he could never have envisaged. Written by Anonymous.  I really enjoyed this film and have to say I often find the shorts to be of a high quality.
House Smart or Domestic Technology - Yeah, a bit weird.