Tuesday, August 21, 2007
OTL - JASON'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 Jason Epperson. 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 Jason.
AUG 7, 2007
Oh, Boy
Starring: Todd Waring, Patrick Kerr, Oscar "Big O" Dillon
I found this to be a mean spirited revenge film that was not very interesting. I don't know why people call Jason's films "sweet" or "kind." I don't like practical jokes. It's just one kind of bullying. When the explosives (which looked like wooden blocks from a kid's toy box) blew up, and sent a pillar of fire higher than the house, it would kill anyone but a cartoon character. Similarly, a punch that sends the guy clumsily flying twenty feet is cartoon stuff. That would be a whole change of genre not justified by the rest of the film. So I think this was a mixed up, nasty and uninteresting film.
JULY 31, 2007
The Move
Starring: Jerry O'Connell, Rich Pierrelouis, Randall Park
Mean spirited. Doesn't make sense. The dialog neither explains, nor is even really consistent with the "payoff". Mean spirited has payed off for Jason before; his Getta Rhoom was a vote getter. His strange ending also worked -- he survived -- in Blood Born. I think he deserves to lose, but the voters may not agree.
JULY 24, 2007
Old Home Boyz
Starring: Allan Wasserman, William Stanford Davis, Lin Shaye, Anthony Vatsula
This film was not good looking -- it was too dark, with an ugly color palette. It was a pretty good story. Jason did fine as an actor. The story was a nice one.
JULY 17, 2007
Sweet
Starring: Kirk Zipfel, Erin Cahill
A sweet film. Nice ending. Yeah... could've been a better bouquet. Not much action.
(But check out Zach's submission film, "Crazy Late," http://films.thelot.com/films/595 for a much more inventive and technically difficult -- as well as earlier -- version of almost the exact same story.)
JULY 3, 2007
Eternal Waters
I wasn't quite sure of the story when I saw this on TV. Watching it online, my first impression seemed to be correct: the dead boy's ghost, leaking water out of the photograph, trips up the slasher. But I still have reservations. I would have liked to see blood showing the stabber actually fell on his knife, or have the ghost more explicitly tell his mother she is safe. I have other reservations. There is no explanation for the slasher coming (just the exposition of a fragment of news). The mother is never really threatened much by the slasher. (Granted, it's hard to put in much buildup in such a short-short film, of course.) On the other hand, despite the judge's comments, I have no problem with the costuming or appearance of the mother, although she does not add much value to the story. Give this 1 fright mask and 1 bonus horror book for a complex story.
JUNE 19, 2007
Blood Born
This is a very interesting film. It does not really make sense to me what is happening, or why the shots look the way they do, but it still feels as if the director understands. So the film almost works.
24 HOUR FILMS
Wilted
http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=25
Jarrett Conaway, Jason Epperson, Tamila D Amico
HORROR LIGHT - He is coming for you.
The script has good and bad moments. The first scene starts out great and looks great. The film kind of goes a bit downhill from there, and some of the acting is a bit off. The music works.
SUBMISSION
BOMB’S AWAY
http://films.thelot.com/films/1619
Student gets up in school to give a talk… there is a music video.
This is an inventive film. Very high energy. However it doesn’t make much sense. Unless the title is a contraction of Bomb is Away, or it’s about the away that belongs to the bomb, the title is a grammatical error – perhaps on purpose. Jason’s intro is essentially, “Pick me because I’m from Kentucky and not LA or NY like everybody else. "
Labels: Adam Stein, Jason Epperson, On The Lot, OTL, Will Bigham, Zach Lipovsky
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
