Tuesday, August 21, 2007
OTL - WILL BIGHAM'S FILMS
On The Lot (OTL) is going into its final episode (Fox, Tuesday 8/21, 8:00), The Finale!
There are three finalists, Adam Stein, Will Bigham, and Jason Epperson, one of whom is going to be the grand prize winner of a $Million dollar development deal at DreamWorks.
Each of the contestants made a series of films. I'm posting my reviews of several films of the three finalists, and, later perhaps, some other directors as well, notably Zach Lipovsky who was the #5 finalist, and may have been the most gifted, proficient, and original director of them all.
Here are reviews of the films of Will Bigham. As of now, when this post is posted, these films can be seen by going to On The Lot, looking at the tab marked CONTESTANTS and selecting Will.
The Yes Men
Starring: Greg Collins, Lin Shaye, Fred Koehler, Travis Wester
This was a well-told story. It carries many characters and gives them all an individual life. It has a lot of sly satire throughout. And it more-or-less completes the story with a nice joke at the end. (But left dangling is the question of how or why he got into the dress without remembering.)
JULY 31, 2007
Road Rage 101
Starring: Kirk Zipfel
This had some great shots in the beginning; the initial set up, the eyes... It kind of makes sense all the way through. The driver's road rage leads him to beat up on his car. The car takes revenge, goading the other driver to pummel driver. He (driver) apologizes (questioningly, to be sure) to the car and then the car helps him. I haven't seen or read Christine, Steven King's take on a independent car, so I don't know how derivative this is.
JULY 24, 2007
Unplugged
Starring: Randall Park, Tatyana Ali
This was a cute idea, but I didn't think it was particularly well executed. I couldn't find a real logic in the things that the lamps were able to do and not able to do. I was confused by that noose-looking thing. (Was the lamp about to commit suicide for love?) It was quite dark and not all that beautiful to look at. The ending was lame. It could have been terrific if somehow the lamp romance had deliberately facilitated the couple's romance (but in any case all they did was look at each other).
JULY 9, 2007
Spaghetti
Starring: Erin Cahill, Travis Wester, and Todd Waring
This film has a nice look and a nice sense of humor.
But it is completely incomprehensible that the guy from the present world isn't scared when someone completely menacing says, "Today's a good day to die." That ruins the whole thing for me.
Present-world-guy seems to know he's in a movie. Cowboy seems to be totally oblivious. Neither character acknowledges the other. (If each one is supposed to be seeing something different from what we see -- something from his own world -- then that's gotta be established -- for example, in some POV shot -- without being corny).
JUNE 26, 2007
Nerve Endings
This film was also OK. It had good slapstick humor. Maybe that went on too long without being inventive enough. The pretext for the doctor to leave was ridiculous, and tainted the beginning. I felt a little cheated that the camera mostly hid the way the intern was manipulating the patient. The end was cute, but not strong enough to match the energy of the slapstick.
JUNE 19, 2007
Glass Eye
A pretty good film. However, the main character never seems to be really trying very hard to get his eye back. It's also careless that you can see his eye from time to time when it's supposed to be out of its socket.
24 HOUR FILM
Sponsored By
http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=22
Kai Soremekun, Daniel Tenkman, Will Bigham
Drama -- Suicide prevention
OK story. The bat bit doesn't work too well. The ideas of realizing the log line "Out Of Time" by "raising the stakes" with a suicide prevention is a little bit film-school-exercise-ish. Will does OK as an actor in this film.
also
http://films.thelot.com/films/2040
In this film, directed by Danny Tenkman, Will appears as an actor, doing a nice job.
Labels: Adam Stein, Jason Epperson, On The Lot, OTL, Will Bigham, Zach Lipovsky
