I am the Audience

Nevermore Film Festival – 2016

February 15, 2016

film, Nevermore Film Festival

This year Nevermore received 1275 submissions. From those, they ran 5 shorts collections and 11 feature length films. The collections were:

It’s only a Nightmare, Charlie Brown: PG-13 Animation and Dark Fantasy Shorts

Little Brother (USA) No dialogue, very creepy, uneven black and white line drawings,
The Red Thunder (USA) not animated, funny, if I say anything else, it will give away the punch line,
She’s Mine (UK) fairly standard animation, a stalker creeps into the house of the woman he intends to murder and finds competition,
Pipo (Germany) little conehead, stop motion, weird and sad,
House of Monsters: Frank and the Zombie Girl (USA) Stop motion nicely done, sweet story with monsters,
A Brief Encounter (Iran), there is a dragon and a girl. Not a happy ending.
Life Smartphone (China), line drawings, everybody is totally focused on their cell phones, it’s funny in a too familiar kind of way,
Flight of the Soul (USA) stop motion, there are 4 modified clones, one has a birdcage in its middle. The ending is kind of telegraphed, but it’s sweet.
Cristal Junket (Portugal) stop motion, surreal party, the story is vague
Trolled (Singapore) fairly typical anime, cute
The Seed (Greece) live action, good story, a little Blade Runner-esque, title could have been Monsanto World
Millennium: Eternal Sunrise (USA) live action, daughter trying to get the Millennium Man to reset time so her mother can come back, the ending was unexpected,
Jack is Pretty (USA) live action dystopia, Q&A with the writer and the producer afterward they are hoping to do more with this, planning a couple of “origin story” shorts and a feature film,

Not From Around Here: International Shorts

Gnomes (UK), garden gnomes gone bad, not bad, not great.

5 Ways 2 Die (Cyprus) this is funny and well made, The 5 ways are pills, jump off a bridge, carbon monoxide poisoning, bathtub electrocution and car wreck and that isn’t spoiling.
The Black Bear (Belgium) what not to do in the woods where there are bears, a little Python-esque
The Grandson (Netherlands) I liked this until the very end.
dark_net (UK), the acting was good but the story was uneven, jealous ex hires a hit man online.
A Bite to Eat (UK) at the Midnite Diner, this is cute,
Last Night (France) the story was uneven, it’s the last night in an apartment with friends coming to help move tomorrow, and a threesome ends badly.
They Will All Die in Space (Spain) this was creepy and well made, B&W

Can’t Live Without You: Committee’s Mixed Bag Shorts

The Stomach (UK), A medium uses his stomach to contact the dead.
#Help (Hungary), Very well made, and a good story. I would like to see it expanded into a feature length film
Choice Cuts (USA), This started out making me flinch and I laughed out loud at the end.
A Way Out (USA), Hit men. Entertaining,
El Gigante (Canada), This is straight up slasher gore.
25m2 (Sweden) The wall developed an abscess, which was weird. And there was some grossness because …abscess. And, it was really slow. Not a favorite.

They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara!: North American Shorts

Hag, I loved this take on hag-ridden sleep walking.
The Trap, This was short and funny. There is an alien.
Night of the Slasher, The hero is blond and female. This was fun.
The Fear Box (666 Telemarketing), This is why I don’t answer phone calls from numbers I don’t recognize.
Home Sweet Home, This is what I expect from Alzheimer’s.
Bad Guy #2, How to move up in organized crime. A little cheesy, a little gory, pretty funny.
Never Tear Us Apart, There are cannibals. And grandparents.
Shhh, Older sister Helena deserved to meet the monster. What a bitch!
Thresher, an homage to Guillermo del Toro and H. P. Lovecraft. Locks galore. in Hell. I would like to see more from Michael Dahlquist and his friends.
Knob Goblins, A monster movie where men have to deal with a sexual predator. Made me laugh. A lot.

This is my friend, Trey, meeting Knobby and Writer/Producer/Director Christopher G. Moore after we saw the film.

How to Survive a Horror Movie Anthology: Long-Form Narrative Shorts

He Was His Friend (Russia) about a wannabe serial killer and his first victim,

Dance of Death (Latvia) a guy sees a HELP sign in the window of a car he passes, does nothing and is haunted by regret. (See what I did there?)

Don’t Fall Asleep, Motherfucker (Puerto Rico) her snoring is worse than you imagine,

The Fisherman (Spain) set in Hong Kong, special effects are very good, story is good. I could see this being expanded into an interesting feature film.

Feature length films that I saw:

Reverie of a Solitary Walker This is awful. There are 4 story lines that hop around in time and don’t seem to have any real connection. I was excite about it and very, very disappointed.

13 Cameras. This didn’t go where I thought it was going to and it creeped me right out. There are many cringes, many jumps and several I-can’t-looks. Should get some mainstream play.

I meant to see Clinger, but it was sold out for the time I expected to be there. I’ll see it via Amazon sometime soon. I could have gotten tickets early, but I didn’t.

Fan Favorites were:

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE – Idila (“Idyll”)

Best North American Feature – 13 CAMERAS

BEST NORTH AMERICAN SHORT – Bad Guy #2

BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT – The Black Bear

BEST LONG FORM NARRATIVE SHORT – He Was His Friend

The Jury Awards were:

BEST NORTH AMERICAN FEATURE: Everlasting

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE: Idyll

BEST LONG-FORM NARRATIVE SHORT: The Fisherman

BEST ANIMATION SHORT: Tie She’s Mine and A Brief Encounter

BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT: A Bite to Eat

BEST NORTH AMERICAN SHORT: Bad Guy #2
because it made me laugh, i’m inflicting it on you

February 10, 2016

dancing in the field of dreams
Baked Potato Day

February 10, 2016

a day in this life, food & drink

Saturday, we had Baked Potato Day at work. Usually, we have our breaks and meals whenever we can fit it in to whatever we have to get done. But, sometimes, we eat together. LabCorp feeds us 2 or 3 times a year for some festive occasion, like a Winter Holiday between Thanksgiving and Xmas. There will be something around the 4th of July. They do a meal during National Medical Laboratory Week. And last year, Amy was pregnant so we did a little baby shower. And we, sometimes do birthdays if we think of it.

It always makes us cheerful on the days we have food together. The days when Nick picks up our LC meal from a local restaurant are nice. But, the times when we all make food to share are the best.

Last weekend was Amy’s birthday and next weekend is Zack’s birthday. So, we celebrated both of them on the Saturday in between. I don’t remember who thought of baked potatoes. I might have been me. It might have been Nick. Night shift has done something like this in the past, so it wasn’t original.

Nick went by Wendy’s on his way into work around 5:30 PM. I made chili. Amy brought steamed broccoli and crumbled bacon (not in the same bowl). Michelle made an Italian Love Cake. Marla is brought 6 kinds of cheese. Zack brought Salsa.

Victor was very puzzled by the whole thing. He has only lived in the US for 5 and a half years and baked potatoes just haven’t been on his list of foods. He said the only way he has ever had a white potato is slices with boiled eggs on a sandwich with a sauce. What his wife finally decided on was an appetizer of shredded vegetables (eggplant, red bell pepper, potato, and tomato) that was a delicious topping to a potato. (Victor is a lovely man, but Zena does all the cooking.)

I posted on FaceBook when we started planning this a month ago and then, again, on Ello, asking “If you are having a baked potato, and you don’t have butter or sour cream to put on it, but you do have your favorite (other) potato topping available, what goes on the potato?” I was told

1. cheddar cheese, (with chives)

2. chopped garlic,

3. salsa,

4. olive oil, raw garlic, and a little Parmesan,

5. Ranch dressing,

6. malt vinegar,

7. ketchup,

8. yogurt,

9. salsa, cheese, broccoli

10. DARK brown sugar “It’ll melt into molassesy goo & get down into all the nooks & crannies you made fluffing it up.”

11. guacamole

12. cottage cheese

13. mustard

14. A-1 sauce

15. Marinara/tomato sauce, cheese of any kind, gravy…. Now that I think about it- anything that I would also put over pasta.

16. ghee, salsa and black beans, cheese, cottage cheese

17. honey mustard

18. soy sauce

19. Sesame butter and hot sauce

20. roasted garlic mashed in and chipotle infused olive oil…a little sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

21. Shredded cheese is #1 but I have tried ranch, blue cheese, and garlic as well. And of course BACON! I think that for our little get together we should sauté some garlic to mash in there.

22. Cheese, bacon, sautéed mushrooms… Or, you know, gravy.

23. Pesto

24. Sauteed mushrooms and onions

I want to get a bag of potatoes and start working my way down the list.
nothing exists

February 9, 2016

dancing in the field of dreams

Nothing exists; all is a dream. God—man—the world—the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars—a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space—and you!…And you are not you—you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Oscar Nominated Short Films – 2016

February 4, 2016

film

We saw 2 collections of Oscar nominated short films today. My husband will go see the documentaries when I’m at work this weekend. I don’t object to the documentaries. These were just easier for me to get to and when I had to choose between 2, these were my preference.

The link in each title is to the Oscar page. I don’t know if it will last for more than a month. The link in the country of origin is the best I could do to show you about the film away from the Oscar website. Or, at least, is a decent starting place for you to try to find out about it for yourself.

Animated: I have put them in the order they appeared in the collection

Sanjay’s Super Team (USA) This is the Pixar offering. And it is very cute and very sweet.

World of Tomorrow (USA) The animation is fairly simplistic. The story is existential and interesting. I won’t hate it if this one gets the award.

Bear Story (Chile) This has a very touching story and clever stop motion animation. I like it very much and would be happy to see it take the award, too.

We Can’t Live without Cosmos (Russia)This has pretty straightforward animation and a nice story. I didn’t find it as interesting as World of Tomorrow or Bear Story. But, I’m glad I saw it.

There were some fun films that got Mentioned, but aren’t actually up for the award. They were inserted between the first 4 that ARE nominated and the last one. They are

If I was God (Canada) Claymation, cute.

The Short Story of a Fox and a Mouse (France) Good animation. Sweet story. Nice. Sadly, absolutely nothing for me to link to to show it to you.

The Loneliest Stoplight (USA) Voiced by Patton Oswalt. It was good but not amazing.

Catch It (France) This is a throwback to Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. But with a Vulture and Meerkats. I wish I could show it to you because you would laugh. I will look for it later to see if I can find a useful link.

Then, the final nominee was Prologue (UK) This is the one that you get a warning about so you can remove your children from the theater. There is nudity (free willies) and violence (with spurting blood). Sadly, there is skill in the animation but no real story. Men kill each other and little girl is sad. The end. If it wins I will be pissed.

Live Action:

Ave Maria (Israel) This one as funny. And a little sweet. I don’t expect it to win but I was glad I saw it.

Shok (Kosovo) This one made me cry. I don’t understand how people can be evil to each other and this is about that. It’s also about what it is to be friends when you’re 12.

Stutterer (USA) This is uncomfortable. And sweet. I’m glad I saw it. I don’t expect it to win simply because of what it’s up against.

Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut) (Germany) This isn’t an entirely surprising story. But the little girl is excellent. Keep an eye out for Julia Pointner.

Day One (USA) This one should win. It is hard to watch. One couple left the theater because it was going to be so very hard. But, it got less hard. And, then, different hard. It is sad. It is War. It is life and death. This was perfectly made.

Nevermore Film Festival – 2016

because it made me laugh, i’m inflicting it on you

Baked Potato Day

nothing exists

Oscar Nominated Short Films – 2016