Direct Mail

USA - 2007

A story of a man that is confronted with the possibility of changing his life....


CAST
Jon Krupp
H. Golightly Perlo
Ross Hewitt
David Trites

Directed by Paulo Costa

Little Victim

USA - 2005

Little Victim ventures into the realms of the supernatural with a straight face. Brian Ronalds is Duane, a shady character meeting his upper crust divorced father Howard (the legendary Robert Wagner) in a parking garage. Howard has trophy Tracey (Lori Singer) draped in the passenger seat, while Duane has his rather lower-class mother Irene (Laura Durant) in tow. Duane has a treasure to deliver. However, he also has a surprise in the trunk that warrants a lot of discussion and debate.

The script is talky, but the talk is quite worthwhile. Dellis likes his humor presented with the kind of delivery that borders on dramatic. All four of the actors prove adept at saying the impossible as though it were routine. Wagner is strong. Always known for his natural suaveness, he uses his sonorous voice to espouse some pretty fantastical lines. In the opposite extreme, Durant is very funny as trailer trash, making her character into a mockery even while proving the most knowledgeable about the subject. Ronalds plays deadly serious quite well, while the weakest performance comes from Singer, who starts off disjointedly as the stereotypical dumb blonde but gains momentum when given more to play.

Dean Ronalds’ camera work is consistent and sometimes clever. The scenes are quite professionally shot and edited, visually keeping the tone of earnestness set forth by the script and actors.

CAST
Robert Wagner ... Howard
Lori Singer ... Tracy
Brian Ronalds ... Duane
Laura Durant ... Irene
Mark Trombino ... Little Victim

Directed by Dean Matthew Ronalds

Skin Deep

BRITAIN - 2001
Romo is a mixed race kid (half Pakistani and half white), but he lives on an all white housing estate. He starts work as an engineer and finds he can pass himself off as white. However when he falls in with a group of NF guys he gets involved in an attack on another Asian youth and is forced to confront himself with emotional results

If films confront racist issues they are usually toasted as being brave or something like that. However this deserves even more praise for looking at racial-self-loathing in no uncertain terms. The plot follows Romo as he tries to integrate himself into the white world around him. This is done well as, at the start, we understand him and almost accept his decision. However we learn how deeply this affects him at almost the same time as he does himself.

The film is violent and has lots of swearing throughout but is all the more powerful for it's realism. It isn't a comfortable watch and the ending is difficult but brave. It almost is a bit OTT and student-film-like but manages to be powerful rather than silly.

Sheppard is excellent in the range he has to deliver on. The rest of the cast are good as well but only really have to do characters where Sheppard must deliver in so many areas. The final scene is delivered with such force and realism that he totally makes the scene.
CAST
Darren Sheppard ... Romo
George Russo ... Skeggs
John Hudson ... Rutzie
Freddie White ... Caino
James Bannerman ... Pete
Scarlett Liebenhals ... Jameela
Mary Sheen ... Mum
Marc Zuber ... Dad
Tanisha Rehal ... Baby
Directed by Yousaf Ali Khan

The Shade

CANADA/IRAN - 2007
On a scorching hot summer day Nima blows a tire and finds himself stranded in a village two hours outside Tehran. A local girl tells Nima of a bus leaving for Tehran 5km away, a bus she was planning on taking herself. Because of the heat and Nima's attire, she offers to take the morning bus and insists on giving Nima her umbrella for shade as a gift and something to remember his visit with. Nima returns a few days later to give the umbrella back to the kind stranger only to realize that the bus she took the next morning crashed into the hillside, killing all on board.

CAST
Aryan Atri
Camyar Chai
Jaleh Chaichian
Shaghayegh Mohammadali
Shahryar Yamini

Directed by Mohammad Gorjestani

In Vivid Detail

USA - 2007
This tender love story profiles Justin, an architect who is face blind, as he begins a new romance. Face blindness, or prosopagnosia, an impairment to recognize faces, is the result of damage to the right temporal lobe. Similar to people who are colorblind and still see colors but are unable to tell them apart, prosopagnosiacs perceive faces but cannot distinguish them. Justin and Leslie must decide whether their new relationship can overcome the obstacles ahead of them as they try to cope with this bizarre and rare diagnosis. In Vivid Detail addresses the following questions: What are the details we notice about other people and how is this information processed? Can elements, perceived in wholes, be broken down to basic math points? And on a simpler note, how is beauty measured?

CAST
John Ventimiglia ... Justin
Piper Perabo ... Leslie
Kylie Delre ... Kim

Directed by Dara Bratt

Soledad

SPAIN - 2007
Every day in Sandra's life is exactly the same: taking care of her mother, who suffers from alzheimer. Routine is a constant in her life. Until, one day, everything changes forever...

CAST
Maria Sola
Marga Loriente
Estel Sole
Agurtzane Zallo

Directed by Tony Garcia

Meeting Che Guevara & the Man from Maybury Hill

IRELAND - 2002
During the Cuban missile crisis in 1963 a young woman from a small Irish town has a fascination with H.G Wells “War of the Worlds” and slowly her imagination and reality merge between the potentially real war of the worlds and Science Fiction, as she sets out to meet Che Guevara in a bid to save the world from the Martian Invasion.

Unbeknownst to her, Che Guevara has stopped over on the West of Ireland to refuel on a flight from Cuba to Algeria, and its only a matter of time before she catches up with him to deliver a letter that the Man from Maybury Hill has told her to deliver. The real and surreal become fantastically blurred as they slowly and surely draw their plans against us.
CAST
Vincent Fegan ... Aide to Che
John Hurt ... Man from Maybury Hill
Fiona O'Shaughnessy ... Beth
Karl Sheils ... Che Guevara

Directed by Anthony Byrne

12:01 PM

USA - 1990

12:01 PM is a 1990 Academy Award nominated short film starring Kurtwood Smith in 1990. Directed by Jonathan Heap, it originally aired on cable television in 1990 as part of the Showtime 30-Minute Movie anthology series.

It is the first film adaptation of the short story 12:01 PM by Richard A. Lupoff, which was published in the December 1973 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The major plot device is a time loop or time bounce.

In this version, Kurtwood Smith plays Myron Castleman, an everyman who keeps repeating the same hour of his life, from 12:01 PM to 1:00 PM. The character is fully aware that the time loop is occurring, although no one else appears to be aware of the repeating hour. Each time the hour resets, Myron retains his memory (or as the film puts it, his consciousness), and despite his best attempts to understand what is happening, he ultimately realizes that he is entirely helpless to prevent the time bounce. Myron cannot even break the loop by killing himself, as he reappears, alive, at the next iteration; he is trapped in the loop for eternity.

CAST
Jane Alden ... Stephanie
Kurtwood Smith ... Myron Castleman
Don Amendolia ... Prof. Nathan Rosenbluth
John Bachelder ... Blazer driver
F. Richards Ford ... Junior executive #2
Laura Harrington ... Dolores

Directed by Jonathan Heap

Simone's Labyrinth

SPAIN/GERMANY - 2003
An eerie, atmospheric film which explores the obscure inner world of the introverted and mysterious Simone.
Simone is woken up for her father and, after kissing her sleeping mother goodbye, is taken to school in time for the coach trip to Austria. On the bus, the kids swap stories, but when Simone declares that they are all in her dream, and an accident is imminent, events become somewhat peculiar.

CAST
Laura Sonntag
Catherine H. Flemming
Hilmar Henjes
Andrea Losleben
Nola Nicole Oehming
Jan Kollarik
Fabian von Klitzing
Franziska Birnkammer

Directed by Iván Sáinz-Pardo

The Glitch

USA - 2007
Having commitment issues? Then check out "The Glitch," a hilarious, smartly-conceived comedy short starring American Pie's Jason Biggs, which mixes the inevitable question, "Where do you see us going?" with Groundhog Day-like insanity. Having achieved "immortal" status at FunnyorDie.com since it was posted last week, "The Glitch" has been seen more 13,000 times. While director Mike Samonek always figured the movie would find a home on the web, "it was never my intention to see this become a 'viral' video," he says.

Shot over two days, the film took five months to complete from conception to final cut. Directly inspired by Groundhog Day, Samonek says, "I've always liked the idea of a guy who thinks he can dodge an uncomfortable question only to see it come back and bite him in the ass again and again until he's forced to confront it." Samonek, a self-described "comedy junky" who appreciates the "absurdist comedy of Mel Brooks and Monty Python," and the "character driven, reality based" laughs of Alexander Payne and Judd Apatow, says he's using "The Glitch" as a calling card to put together a feature comedy to star Biggs, whom he met after selling his first screenplay in 2003. "Jason has a very smart, dark sensibility and I think that is a huge part of why this film works," he says, regarding "The Glitch." "Truth is, he's a jerk and the more roles he gets that allow him to be his true self, the better.
CAST
Jason Biggs
Melinda Sward
Ed Ackerman
Directed by Mike Samonek

Terminus

CANADA - 2001
Terminus (Latin for “boundary stone”) is a dark comedy about the self-destructive nature of the human mind and the dangers of urban isolation. In this film, a colossus made of concrete pilings follows a lonely man throughout the city tormenting him as he goes about his daily life on the subway, at the doctor’s office, and elsewhere. All the while, a strong, foreboding sense of mental anxiety builds as the man is ultimately driven to extreme ends.
CAST
Rob Carpenter
Tristam Gieni
Les Quinn
Trent Opaloch
Directed by Trevor Cawood

Der Schwarzfahrer (The Black Rider)

GERMANY - 1993
A young black man rides on a German bus while an older racist woman starts laying in the bigot commentary so harshly that the passengers have no choice but to sit around and listen to her silently. Eventually the black rider (Schwartzfahrer) exacts his deft revenge in a small and clever way.
The short itself could use some paring down, though. It's roughly 12 minutes long and could easily be about 7 or even 5. It introduces at great length one character that doesn't matter, and seems to spend unnecessary time introducing other characters as well. Having multiple characters unable to stand up against the woman's racism is fine, but they don't all have to have some history. For the most part, the film's timing is off enough that it works against its comedic timing. I think it could have used a little reworking.
However,more people care about the story than they do the craftmanship, and it is a good story. Ultimately it's a satisfying movie for what it is.
CAST
Senta Moira ... Old Woman
Paul Outlaw ... Black Man
Stefan Merki ... Biker
Klaus Tilsner ... Controller
Andrea Katzenberger ... Mother
Mark Tiedemann ... Child
Andreas Schmid ... 'Walkman'
Directed by Pepe Danquart

I Love Sarah Jane

AUSTRALIA - 2007
Jimbo is 13. All he can think about is one girl, Sarah Jane. And no matter what stands in his way - bullies, violence, chaos, zombies - nothing is going to stop him from finding a way into her world.
The zombie movie has thrived in recent years, with re-imaginings from 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead, and is still being successfully tweaked—as this Australian import shows. Shot digitally using the Thomson HD Viper Camera, I Love Sarah Jane is set in a parent-free neighborhood where the adults are either dead or undead. Without anyone to tell the kids to clean up the house, it just isn’t going to happen.
What makes Susser’s film so effective is the matter-of-fact way that the kids deal with their bleak situation. It’s nothing special to anyone to be carrying a bow with a quiver of arrows on your back like 13-year old Jimbo does. That’s just survival. Dark clouds loom—literally—overhead as he rides his bike around a trash-strewn, smoldering street. Amidst this awful backdrop blooms a chance for love—at least in Jimbo’s head. As a bored Sarah Jane watches a newscaster on TV describe the proper way to handle undead body disposal (incineration, of course), Jimbo sits down to make his move.
Any movie, even a short one, is reliant on a strong ending to make a good lasting impression. Without giving anything away, let’s just say that I Love Sarah Jane, written by Susser and David Michod, has a very satisfying one.
CAST
Brad Ashby ... Jimbo
Mia Wasikowska ... Sarah Jane
Vladimir Matovic ... Joey
Beau South ... Rory
Peter Yacoub ... Gram
Richard Mueck ... Zombie
Anton Enus ... Newsreader
Directed by Spencer Susser

Jungle Jail

FRANCE - 2007
A prisoner arrives in a wacky prison . Smaller than others,he is becoming fast the new scapegoat of the prison until the day while rocking ...
A movie created by french students of ESMA (Ecole Supérieur des métiers artistiques / School of Artistic Trades).
Directed by Mathieu Arnoux-Hugo Cierzniak-Bruce Nguyen Van Lan -Aymeric Palermo

Alive In Joburg

SOUTH AFRICA - 2005

In 1990, Johannesburg is home to a number of Extraterrestrial refugees, whose large spaceships (estimated to be nearly one kilometer in length) can be seen hovering above the city. When the visitors arrived, the human population was enamored with, among other aspects, the aliens' advanced "bio-suits", and supposedly welcomed them with open arms. However, later on, the aliens began moving into other areas of the city, committing crimes in order to survive, and frequently clashing with the police. The film goes on, playing as a documentary, complete with interviews and footage taken from handheld cameras, highlights the growing tension between the civilian population and the visitors, especially once the ships began to steal electricity and other natural resources from the city.
According to individuals "interviewed" in the film, the aliens were captive labor, forced to live in "conditions that were not good" and had escaped to Earth. As the film takes place in 1990, while Apartheid was still effect in South Africa, the aliens were forced to live amongst the already-oppressed black population, causing conflict with them as well as the non-white population.

The alien species in Alive in Joburg are never named, and are frequently referred to simply as "them" or "the aliens." One black citizen referred to them as "the poleepkwa." In their biosuits, they resembled bipedal, humanoid robots. Outside of their suits, their most obvious non-human features are a lack of hair and ears, and protruding tentacles where a human's mouth would be, features very reminiscent of H.P Lovecraft's fictional monster Cthulhu. In the film, the area where one would expect eyes to be is pixelated.The aliens' language is not clearly defined, and seems to be made up of gurgles and animal noises, not unlike Wookies in the Star Wars films.One scene in early in the film, shown as television news footage, shows an alien fending off an attack by two police officers by telekinetically, while wearing one of their biosuits, throwing large vehicles towards them. Whether or not they themselves have this ability or whether it is done through the use of the suit is never explained.

CAST
Dawie Ackermann ... Afrikaans Professor
Jason Cope ... UN Official / Alien
Sharlto Copley ... Sniper
Braam Greyling ... Cop 1
Godfrey Seome ... Cop 2

Directed by Neill Blomkamp

Asparagus

USA - 2007
Guy Camilleri (Danika, Rx) and Charles O’Hair (Secret Agent, Shamelove) star as brothers in this dramatic story of a seemingly perfect family, and the forbidden desire between two cousins that threatens to put an end to the family’s Christmas dinner.
During this reunion of both brothers’ families, Daniel’s existence is immediately threatened by Uncle Guy’s free spirit. When Daniel’s daughter Brie refuses to eat her asparagus, Daniel feels the need to teach his brother a lesson in parenting...
While their parents are arguing in the dining room, cousins Jacob and Gwen are sent to Jacob’s room to play with a jigsaw puzzle..
CAST
Guy Camilleri
Ho-Jung
Charles O' Hair
Caroline Bielskis
Renata Su Obal
Michael Jolly
Natalie Vigil
Directed by Roman Wyden

Fait D'Hiver

BELGIUM - 2001

On a cold winter evening a young manager gets stuck in traffic on his way home from work. He takes his brand new mobile to call his wife, not knowing that by doing so he’s about to cause irreparable damage…

Cast
Tom van Dyck
Ellen Van Cutsem
Aza Declerq
Kris Swinnen

Directed by Dirk Beliën

Witchwise

USA - 2006
Everyone adores Andrew, including his old Aunt Mary. Rather, she did... until she died. Now, standing at her funeral, his Aunt's casket open before him, Andrew reflects on the last time he saw Mary alive, as well as the shocking, secret chain of events that led to her death: While raking leaves outside his Aunt's house, Andrew hears a thunderclap overhead, followed by a flash of light. Only the sun is shining bright, not a cloud in the sky. The light came from the upstairs window and curious Andrew just has to find out the source. But first he has to deal with Aunt Mary, a doting old lady Andrew believes has everybody fooled. He suspects her of hiding great power and aims to uncover her secret. As he tip-toes around the house, up the steep staircase and into his old Aunt's bedroom, Andrew shows he's up to the task. What follows is a frenzied search through a spooky old house where magic is discovered and unleashed, a frail old woman is revealed to be a being of great, enviable power and a little boy thought innocent by all is proven to be anything but. Is Andrew's Aunt Mary a witch? What's the source of her power? And, most importantly, how can he make it his? WITCHWISE is a swirling tale of horror and magic, murder and vengeance in which one bad little boy learns an important lesson- Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it!
CAST
Amy Anzel ... Mother
Spencer Daniels ... Andrew
Colby French ... Father
Mary Eileen O'Donnell ... Aunt Mary
DIRECTED BY Joe Harris

The Trainee

SINGAPORE - 2006

Somewhere along the equator on the Far East side of the world lies Singapore— a city made famous by beautiful, ever-smiling Singapore Airlines stewardesses. At 30,000 feet these dainty and demure creatures are only too happy to serve you beef, chicken, or a vegetarian option. But on the ground, customer service is a different story. Meet “The Trainee”. She works the long haul, late shift in a 24-hour convenience store along Keong Saik Road – a road better known for the special customer service received in the brothels here. Tonight she’s broken a freshly painted fingernail while closing the register. So you better think twice before venturing into her inconvenience store …

CAST
Sunny Pang
Serena Sim
Directed by Craig Rosenthal

Nothing Serious

FRANCE - 2004

A passenger plane in great danger is about to make a crash landing. Luckily, a flight instructor is speeding towards the airport with his trusty mobile phone giving instructions to the plane's crew. Everything is going fine and a catastrophe is being avoided when suddenly the call is dropped.
CAST
Jean Dujardin
Artus de Penguern
Karim Adda
Philippe Bénard
Directed by Renaud Philipps

AtomFilms.com: Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | Comedy Central