MarkDarbyshire
1 Entry and 90 Reviews
Entries
Elijah's Ladder
Fruitstorm
Reviews
What's yours is Mime
A really clever film. Very well-written. The understated narration gives a nice modern take on noir tropes.
The dark and somewhat colourless beginning pays homage to the noir genre and creates contrast with the colour of the circus. "There's no colour here. Hasn't been for a long time."
The bookending of the portrait is great. It's set up really well, and then the film goes long enough that I forget about it and am absolutely blown away when we reach the witty ending.
For When You Wake
I forgot to say, this film screens immediately before Ghost PTSD by ScryptTeam, and so we have a film about the loss of the perfect gay dream immediately before a film about the loss of the perfect straight dream.
Cover Your Ears
Such a good film! Great concept and really well executed. The performances are on point and perfectly kiwi.
A more light-hearted take on the culty themes that I raised in my own film, and which come up often in 48Hours. But this really turned the idea of cults on its head. Usually they're big on recruiting. This one absolutely isn't recruiting, making it so ludicrous that the cult even exists and has members. Usually they're so earnest on their beliefs, yet this cult leader will disavow them just to get the potential new recruit off his back. Usually they're a crock of shit, yet this cult turns out to be right on the money. I will admit though, it feels quite culty to target such arbitrary parts of modern culture as lululemon and matcha and blame them on the Government.
I love seeing how passionate the recruit is about every grizzly task assigned to him. The bootlicking gets a visceral reaction of disgust from the audience. Hey, I'm into it!
Birthday Wish
A cool concept. Great performances. Great art direction. A nice pace. Nice lighting. Great use of the portrait for foreshadowing and for building a sinister feeling.
I enjoy the use of sound effects and sparse dialogue to imply a story that we don't see. The "tenant" concept is a little confusing but I think I get the idea. Certainly the sparse sinister elements in this film paint a clear picture in my mind of what is going on, which is exceptionally good storytelling and film-making (regardless of whether my interpretation is "correct").
At times the camera focus isn't as seamless and smooth as one might hope, which highlights the immense challenge of the one-take genre.
I reckon the sound mix needs some attention, as some of the dialogue is too quiet compared with the sound effects. The rumble in particular is exceptionally loud when played through a subwoofer.
I enjoyed this film and I'm looking forward to seeing more from you, Little Frog Studio!
Who is Mr Pickles?!
Yay, there's a part 2! It was nice that teams 2 Fast 2 Rolleston 2 Furious did two films last year, but this time we get the joy of a sequel, taking a leaf out of the Herms Heroes book.
The hand-drawn monster animations are lots of fun – but again, they could be made a lot scarier by going harder on the sound effects.
Really funny ending, turning the Found Footage YouTuber Horror on its head. Nice overlay of scribbles on eye too. Well done!
Hi Santa, it's Charlie
A quaint vignette. Some moments of vulnerability that I really liked. The audience were lapping it up.
USBrie
In a funny way, this film reminded me of Goldstein from the old ASB ads. A man on a secret mission getting up to all sorts of entertaining antics and reporting to the voice in his ear – a higher power who no one else knows about. Of course, this man was rather more unhinged than Goldstein, and I would expect nothing less. It was such fun to sit in the mystery of whether the man's mission was real or whether he was just mad and harbouring an unhealthy love for his USB stick. The actor's commitment to the part really sold it.
I'd never seen the chapel at College House before. What an epic, visually striking location to secure, and filmed so well! And I like how you continue with the geometric compositions as the characters run down the ramp from the New Brighton Pier.
I worry about portraying a man cornering a woman in an alley. It somehow feels off (similarly, a film in the following heat depicts someone's drink being spiked). Are there certain dark parts of our society that shouldn't casually be depicted onscreen just to set up a throwaway joke? I dunno. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe a solution would be to make both characters actively fight, instead of having an active chaser and a passive runner. If she fought back, there could be room for more comedy when we see how incompetent her assailant is in hand-to-hand combat.
I also find myself wondering why so many films this year are featuring Lego men. Is it an easy way to get a miniature into a film?
Well done on a thoroughly entertaining film.
Burnt
You might think you can outnerve a household appliance. You would be wrong. Karma will come for you.
This is an odd movie and I'm here for it.
I love the ominous bass that starts this film. Some great one-liners. The toaster coming alive was a great jump scare if my friend's reaction was anything to go by.
Congratulations on sticking a knife in a toaster without dying.
I'm increasingly wondering though: why are there so many rubber ducks in this competition?
Substance 1
So good! Great black eyes. Great "kids on bikes" vibes. Great sinister plot. I love the cop who knows now isn't the time to be doing things by the book. I love how the trip-wire defies its intended place in the plan, yet still ends up being essential. I love the larger-than-life antics of this film. Great drone shot. Jame Villain – iconic!
Flat Meeting
Aw now I miss my ultra-miniature Bible. I wonder where it is.
A few teams came up with the shrinking things gag this year, but rip focus 2 did the best job of integrating it into the story.
It was lovely to have two films in this heat about men learning to communicate effectively (the other one being Unspoken Words by Sexually Transmitted Cinema). There was a nice lesson here for me about learning how to talk about stuff that bothers me and not feel bad about it. And what a beautiful message about not shrinking each other.
No AI was used in the writing of this review.
SCUM
What's with the weird mask and helmet and the intense sunlight? Is the protagonist sunburnt? Does this signify a dystopian sci-fi future? Suddenly the villains realise it would make a lot more sense to take their coverings off.
The sound effect at the end makes my friend wince. Well done.
DennisChief is right that there are a lot of unanswered questions. Personally I would have liked a few more clues about how to interpret this film, but then maybe that would have deprived me of the gift of my own imagination.
The Clock-work killer
A great story structure for the genre, and a great script. The performances felt nice and genuine. I liked the picturesque opening shot. Some fun touches were the fingerprint and the licking of the blood off the knife.
If you had more time to finetune this film, something to focus on would be the sound levels. You had some great sound effects (e.g. the rain) but they were a bit too loud while the voices may have been a bit too quiet. Overall though, this film was well-executed. Well done!
Spoiler Alert
Shay! Horay!
Great performances. Great premise. Great execution. Sweet vengeance is surely to be found.
I love that you made Hagley Park not look like Hagley Park.
Scrambled
Great writing, camerawork, and editing. An entertaining concept that really played into the cat and mouse genre for a fun time. Funny dialogue and story. Some great twists at the end that elicited a yell of despair from the audience. Really well executed all around.
I wonder if a close-up of a foot hitting a root (or other suitably entertaining obstacle) could have helped sell the subsequent tripping-up shot.
Come Die with Me
I'm impressed that you pulled off a translucent ghost for the entire film, with Jerry sticking his hand through her multiple times. Your actors coped very well with this handicap.
Jerry's line about his future wife is adorable.
I can't help but feel sorry for the chicken.
I can't decide if the film is condescending or affectionate in its depiction of a naive sheep farmer. Maybe both?
The film had a great set-up about the bowl tethering the ghost to the earthly plane. I would have loved to see the consequences of the bowl being broken.
Nothing Personal
Some great stuntwork with fluid, dynamic camera movements and tight editing to really sell the action. Smooth performances. The speed bump gag was brilliant. I love the commitment to repeatedly throwing yourself in a creek.
The story was secondary to the action. I found myself enjoying the action without having any understanding of the "why". At the start of the film, more time could have been spent on selling the importance of the characters all converging on this location, to draw the audience into the mystery of what was there. Some clues could have been given (or character relationships shown) that would make the grand reveal more satisfying. The last shot of the film could have been longer (as I missed it entirely on my first viewing).
Some shots would have benefited from better sound, either recorded at the time or through ADR.
Great work, you gave exactly what was asked for – an action film – and it was a pleasure to watch your commitment to delivering.
I MetaMan™
A polished film with entertaining characters who were a delightful caricature of real life. The indignation was palpable. We all recognised those moments of insecurity, frustration, and loathing that permeate our existence, alongside the moments of perfection that we all dream to have.
This film really gets you thinking about how we deal with each other's foibles. Is the perfect partner we imagine real, or is it a commoditised construct that we sell each other? Are we looking for love, or are we looking for a fairy-tale facade?
PREG-GO!
This is comedy of eminent quality with some really enjoyable performances.
The deliberate pace of the edit builds a sense of frustration about the slow, interruption-ridden drive. As the urgency of the film ramps up, the team has some great fun contrasting the pace and intensity of consecutive shots. The punctuated use of music to contrast between calm and hectic shots is exquisite.
Overall a really logical plot, with intentional absurdity along the way bringing so much of the comedy. For example, the McDonald's asides make no sense but are a fun commentary on how in love young kiwi couples are with McDonald's and how essential this love story is to any road trip.
The crash scene was really well executed, with great integration between the miniature and interior shots and great use of slow motion.
The best use of parallel parking I've ever seen in a film. Period.
I would love to see more from this team as you collaborated really well. Your first placing in the heat audience favourites and your appearance on the Christchurch shortlist were well-deserved. This film could absolutely have reached the finals had the cards fallen a little differently. The comedy is high-quality and the film is dripping with 48Hours energy which is exactly what I love to see. Perhaps bringing in some fancier camera equipment, colour grading, etc would help tip you into the finals. Also more extras to call in if needed (for example in the protest scene).
You were far from the only team to feature toy cars and pedestrians being run over, but you did a great job of these gags and made them really entertaining.
Ghost PTSD
Coincidentally, this film screens immediately after For When You Wake by Screen Qweens, and so we have a film about the loss of the perfect straight dream immediately after a film about the loss of the perfect gay dream.
This film is really well executed. The slow realisation that the dad is present but dead. The way he successively disappears from all the real-life settings, and transforms into the bearer of bad news. "It's like I'm not even here" is a great tipping point for this realisation.
The little boy's performance is a real highlight. So proud of his dad.
It feels odd to have a patriotic military film in a New Zealand context. It begs the question, where did this man die? His death being described as an accident feels sinister, like something is being covered up.
Stuck in Invercargill
A cute bromance with some nice humour along the way. Making fun of small towns is a risky business, but this film was affectionate in its portrayal and redeemed itself with the premise that an even better town is an even smaller town.
Rumour
Visually, this film is exceptionally polished. Great cinematography. Great "hacker" user interface on all the computer screens. Really believable $100 notes in the envelope. Well done!
In many ways, the film sounds great too, with good music and sound effects. The main area for improvement in this department would be capturing the dialogue better using a boom mic, lapel mics, ADR, or even a hidden phone near your actors' mouths. Clearer dialogue would help the audience understand the storyline better. I caught a passing mention of NFTs, but I didn't really understand the film until a second viewing with subtitles turned on.
Adjusting the sound levels may also help, to ensure the dialogue is louder than the music and sound effects. If you're using a video editor with an audio meter, the 48Hours film submission guide gives some advice on the peak decibel level you should see in the audio meter for speech (-10dB), the loudest sounds in your film (-6dB), and background/atmosphere audio (-18dB).
NFTs are a cool basis for a story, but what's missing is some kind of plot twist or surprise ending. Next time, think not only about what could be a cool concept for a story, but also the emotional journey you can take your audience on with some twists along the way. Can you trick your audience into thinking one thing, then surprise them with something else? Can you find a clever, subtle way to foreshadow your ending right at the beginning of the film without giving it away?
You're a very skilled team and I look forward to seeing what you bring to the competition next year!
In Light of the Day
I love that this film gives itself room to breathe and revel in a beautiful view that all we Cantabrians know – a view that helps us all put life in perspective. Then slowly the film reveals that all is not right. We are left to ponder the significance of a wedding ring.
This film is a touching comment on the harshness of corporate life and the way modern capitalism chews us up and spits us out. It's a timely reflection.
The performances in this were great. Sensitive and touching.
The end of the film has less plot advancement than I was expecting, with no explicit link back to the wedding ring, and yet it is perfect. We see that the character has grown. Even if something in life has gone wrong, something else in life has gone right.
This film features Lego *and* a rubber duck, both of which I've already seen in other 48Hours films this year. I can't help but wonder if these are required elements and I somehow missed the memo. Or maybe my absence from 48Hours in recent years has left me in the dark on some fun recurring gags.
Murdered by a Bad Review
48Hours violence doesn't get much more gratuitous than this! The extended hoe murder has us laughing so hard. So much blood splatter! And the tongue is so horrifying. Perfectly executed comedy horror, well done!
A brilliant concept. Some brilliant in-jokes. Some great one-liners. Perfectly tailored to the 48Hours audience. I love this film.
If you want to see something trippy, watch 5:09 in this YouTube video with closed captions turned on.
Connection Lost
Please forgive me while I go off on a tangent.
The year is 2016. I leave the cult I was born into. I am still deeply in the closet. I unexpectedly find myself in a 48Hours film where I play Charlie Flowers – a gay partner who gets sick and dies. I'm terrified of what the Christians I left behind will think if they hear I'm in a gay film
The year is 2026. I make a queer film about leaving a cult. The ending is deliberately ambiguous. A highly credible interpretation is that the gay protagonist gets married but dies.
Two years in a row, the Screen Qweens have likewise made a film about a queer partner who dies. I alluded to this last year, but I wonder if we make these films because a happy queer relationship seems so unattainable. We grieve for a relationship that never arrives. This grief invites comparison with beautiful relationships cut tragically short by death. Or perhaps queer love feels so precious, and queer lives so traumatic, that we fear the loss of love or see it as inevitable.
I have no answers, but I wished to muse over those parallels.
Anyway, Connection Lost is beautiful. What an innovative use of the genre! Believable sci-fi and earnest modern romance weave together. The emotional performances must have been exhausting to deliver. The compositing at the end was a great way to visualise the hacked brain concept, with memories fading away for the final goodbye.
I love how Screen Qweens have some continuity of actors between their films, yet never exactly the same actors, so that we are always presented with a fresh duo.
I selfishly would like to see something different from Screen Qweens next year, but what I want doesn't matter. If Screen Qweens choose to keep honing their treatment of these intense emotional themes then that is their prerogative! A film that has multiple people in the theatre crying is a triumph. Long may we continue to see moving queer stories in the performing arts!
A.I. Dream of Genie
Soooo gooood! The perfect opener for the adult heats!
I'm here for the shade thrown at AI, TikTok-shaped dopamine buttons, and KPI-driven storytelling (I'm looking at you Netflix). I have it on good authority that 19 Christchurch 48Hours films this year touch on AI/tech (including five arguably also on death) but this is the best. The concept of a genie that escapes, thus trapping the one who set it free, is ingenious (oh I see what I did there).
Now I shall live in fear of the world's "agency authorised" moment. In our own words.
Between Us
This is a really lovely film and it looks like a million bucks. So nice to see contestants originally from overseas bringing diverse voices to this competition – with the added benefit that I imagined the husband and wife may live in two different countries. Perhaps that's the whole idea.
The film leaves a lot to the audience's imagination. How did the couple meet? I assumed they only knew each other through their fridges which left me wondering when they got married and how the wife got pregnant. Perhaps that isn't the intended interpretation. What happens to the husband and wife at the end? I was surprised to learn I had a more optimistic take than everyone else I talked to. I had missed the explanation about the magnet at the start and didn't notice it fall off the fridge.
I love how the two kitchens are placed side-by-side so carefully that they basically look like the same kitchen. I love the occasional animated cut. There's some great playing with colour and lighting at the start.
The main thing that could have elevated this film further is better-quality recording of the dialogue. It sounded to me like the husband may have been recorded using a lapel under some clothes (resulting in muffled, rustly audio) while the wife may have been recorded using the camera itself (resulting in echoey audio). I could be wrong, but regardless, a boom mic would be the gold standard for capturing crisp vocals. But these things can be impossible if you don't have the budget, the equipment, enough people, or enough time.
Well done on a beautiful debut 48Hours film with a lovely story and some clever twists. I can't wait to see what you come up with next year. Hopefully see you at the finals!
The Mob
The team intro is a lovely nod to last year's masterpiece.
I'm sorry to hear the writing process was difficult and time-consuming this year. Understandable. Noir seems like a tricky genre and I'm glad I didn't have to tackle it!
Setting the noir on a farm and having a sheep as the mob boss were strokes of genius. The line "No one ever suspects the sheep" is iconic! I love the subtle rotating shots to emphasise the lead's unease as she watches the sheep emerge. I didn't for a moment doubt the sheep's performance. You've blown out of the water the old adage of never work with animals or children!
It's not clear enough that the farmer is a translator. Maybe a line could have explained this.
There are some lovely moments between the detective and her dad, driven by both the performances and the camera framing.
I struggle to follow the story. The audio issues won't be helping, but maybe the plot needs to be simpler or hammered home a bit more.
The sheep poison is a striking set-up and it would be nice to see more of a pay-off by using the poison to resolve the story or create a twist (instead of introducing a gun right at the end). The ending with the gun was abrupt, but at least it creates some questions for the viewer.
The music is catchy, distinctive, and often very effective. I love when it swells then cuts off with percussion for dramatic effect. I also love when it becomes really quiet and subtle to build tension, but these understated orchestration sections would be even more effective if they were drawn out a lot longer, maybe with a gradual crescendo.
A shame about the interlacing that appears to have been introduced by the 4:3 project (or camera) settings.
I like it when 4:3 is tight and claustrophobic in its framing – which is a handy way to get the camera closer to the actors and pick up their dialogue better without needing a separate microphone. Some shots were close up like this, but I would have loved to see more of them.
Some scenes would benefit from cutting between more camera angles to drive the action. All that being said, there were some excellently framed shots and the contrast of black and white was used to great effect.
Hopefully that's helpful feedback. You're a very talented team so take what you will from my musings and only if it's useful for giving you more ideas to play with next year. Likewise I'm sure you'll find useful ideas and techniques in other teams' films and reviews. I can't wait to see what you make next!
For When You Wake
Yay for queer cinema in 48Hours! This film is beautiful, poignant, and moving. The earnest writing and acting pierce straight into my soul.
The pet names are so cute. Mister. Precious.
The transition from the partner being in a coma to being dead is devastating. Everywhere aches. There is silence in the theatre.
The repeated view of the Southern Alps as a way to process loss is so beautiful.
This is the cruel loss of the unattainable perfect gay relationship. I'm a sucker for such films. The sting of gay desire! The guilty pleasure of watching cute gay shit, regardless of whether it's happy or sad! The addiction of feeding on someone else's gay love story because you can't feed on your own!
For the reference to "our show", I thought some specificity by naming the show would have been nice. Little details can add realism and say something about the characters. I don't think it would have felt forced.
The Little German Boy and the Cave
True 48Hours energy. Multiple animation styles smashed together with stick puppets and miniatures for a frenetic, action-packed film with heart. Some moments in this film were hilarious, and others touched my heart. Fun characters with amusing accents. An epic stormy battle where the filmmakers are as gods breaking the fourth wall and getting in on the action. Music and rain build a strong atmosphere.
I'm sure more stories could be told in this team's style. There's room to grow with better camera focus and sound recording quality to make this fun format even more immersive.
I have a buddy for that
Unfortunately I can't rewatch this private video to remind myself what happens in the film, but I've got some scribbled notes from the heats.
The editing, music, shot composition, colour grading, and lighting all came together for a professional-feeling film. One scene in a crowded room could have used some better audio (i.e. lapel/boom mics or ADR). Other than that, the audio was good.
The complicated story got me a bit lost along the way, but the ending was really strong.
Well done for your two award nominations!
Extermi-Nate
Okay I'm not the sort of person who's watched many 80s actions movies but this is lots of fun. I love the laugh-out-loud fight sequences and earnest but not too-earnest performances. The gun gags and stilted stunts are brilliant. So much falling down stairs! Such a memorable line about bullets and chains to sum up such a delightful fight sequence. I enjoyed the history of the characters that is revealed in the final scene. The dry performances and entertaining action show this is a team with lots of potential for the future.
Back to the Drawing Board
What a triumph – well-deserved crowd favourite in the heat! Just a really enjoyable film to watch. Great idea and great delivery. A real treat to see the surprising moments in this film such as the cartoon characters being yanked out of the smoking VCR and the FBI agent saying what she's going to do with them. The bit where the tied-up cartoon characters float out of their chairs gives this some important 48Hours energy. I don't envy you pulling together all those animations so quickly.
A Helping Hand
A visually pleasing film but a bit light on story. A "whoops the person is dead" kind of movie, but the way this was revealed was really nice and said something about the relationship of the two characters. Then a bit of time for the audience to think and realise what has happened.
I too wondered if there was an autism aspect to the film.
There was definitely room for more depth to the relationships and more story or something to be revealed.
Misplaced Death
The best film of a very strong heat. From the very first shot, you use every technical tool and trick at your disposal to set a compelling mood and tell a funny story with some great dark comedy. Titles, red colouring, video filters, music, substitution splices, smooth camerawork, and great editing all stand out for their contribution to this film. The dialogue is sparse, purposeful, and brilliantly delivered.
LARVAE GIRL THE ROAD TO REVENGE PART 2
The crowd goes wild. The sequel we knew we wanted arrives in record time. We have been expertly duped by a fake film name in the heats schedule. And now is the time for the glory we had already been teased with to ramp up into full-blown action. The tables of the ghost cult are turned (like Jesus in the temple).
Trying to decide the better of the two films is futile. They are an inseparable pair. A lighthouse built on a foundation. The first film sets up, tantalises, and entertains in its own right, allowing the second film to shine.
Here we have the makings of a feminist anti-capitalist cult classic.
A Silence In Sam's Town
Sad reflective films about the past death of a loved one are hard to pull off in 48Hours, but this film was pretty good. There were some heartbreaking lines that really spoke to the experience of loss.
This is a visually pleasing film. It's great to see the new townhouses in New Brighton used to great effect with their soft pastel colours.
The shot of the hands, the tide, and the sunset was stunningly beautiful. You couldn't ask for it to be any better. A perfect visual encapsulation of the story.
The reflection shot must have been technically challenging to pull off. A lovely concept, and maybe with more than 48 hours to finetune the edit it could have been pulled off more seamlessly.
Stick
A fun film. I hope you'll be back next year.
You took a risk having an isolated meow sound, with no explanation until later in the movie, but it really paid off. To suddenly understand why the character was angry was really quite funny. It would have been great pay-off if we could see what happened to the human in the same way as we saw what happened to the cat.
There's some good camerawork in this. I wonder what you could achieve with a gimbal or steadycam to take it to the next level.
Gates To Castle Yonder
Oh my word what a film!
I was ready to groan. I thought you were going to go somewhere very tired and cliche with the two doors riddle which has been done to death in recent times. But instead you took it somewhere fresh with some brilliant comedy.
And suddenly the film is riffing on workplace politics and moralising about worker rights. Beautiful! I love it!
An impressive miniature for the opening shot, though we got only the briefest of glimpses.
I've only just realised that you used Sign of the Bellbird. What a clever location choice!
The crown was the perfect blend of shiny and flimsy. Got to love a crown that can reflect some light around the place.
Reset Day
A sweet film with heartfelt, authentic performances and some funny beats. What really made it for me was the moment where you see Pete's memories come flooding back and you see how much it means to him to remember all the beauty and love.
Some practical suggestions for next time would be:
Try and get the sound levels right (even if that means editing in post-production). The 48Hours submission guide includes some helpful advice about what decibel levels you should aim for.
Consider using a boom mic for more consistent and less muffled sound.
Try and get the exposure right on each shot for a consistent look throughout the film. Some of the scenes looked a bit dark. You should aim to get the settings right on the camera, but tweaking the exposure slightly in post-production is also an option.
Overall, this was a lovely film with a good visual look. I can't wait to see more from this team.
Precision Response Enforcement Command Intervention Operative Unit Specialists
Four films in and this heat is still weird as shit. This film is so everything that I don't know what to comment on or how to review it.
We have the Egyptian villain we didn't know we needed in our lives. The vulgar team intro with censor beeps that fail to censor. The exquisite helicopter car. The characters who are unperturbed by a propeller slashing through their head and splashing blood everywhere.
The old-timey newsreel announcer is on point. The actor who dashes out of his own death VFX shot is perfection.
Michael is in hysterics. Joel yells out "Best comeback ever!" (I hope it was him. I'm making a fool of myself if it was someone else.)
Should I be offended by a film that has misogyny in its team name and a bin Laden rip-off as its main character? Fuck knows.
The True Story of Billy the Horse
A cautionary tale about allergies. The right balance of stereotypical western, true love story, and absolute bonkers. Billy 2.0 is visually striking, exactly as he should be. I love it.
Singularity
Oh so good. I was geeking out to see such a well-depicted (yet delightfully cartoonish) black hole. What an excellent set. Excellent effects. Excellent everything. I love the use of VHSs. I love how expressive the computer is. Even the craft that went into your escape pod is brilliant.
Clearly your preparation paid off and you had a great vision of what you wanted to achieve. You've set a really high bar with this one.
After everything, I couldn't quite believe the ending. My heart goes out to your poor space traveller. I hope her favourite song isn't Defying Gravity.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The Pursuit Of Murder
This film alternates between the sinister and the humorous, which is fun. The pumpkin look is great. I love that the protagonist is the villain in the story. I can't help but root for the evil pumpkin and even feel sorry for him.
It's not the only film this year to feature a poisoning – in this case unsuccessful!
Does chloroform come in hand sanitiser dispensers these days?
I love the momentary mystery in the final scene about just who has been stabbed.
The Host Unknown
Oh this film was wonderful. Excellent building of suspense. Great puppetry. Chilling portrait reveal. Cool idea to include a Zoom recording as part of your found footage. You're really good at implying rather than showing, which forces the audience to imagine an incredibly gruesome scene for themselves. Excellent foreshadowing and jumping through time – a great way to mess with the audience. The bookending of the distinctive yellow puffer jacket and the callback of "Why am I on a Zoom call?" were really effective. I loved the range of feelings this film instilled in me due to the nuanced performances and skilled filmmaking.
Tautoko Chester's suggestion to think about how you could make the closing shot hit harder. You've clearly got it in you given how much tension you built with your deliberate cuts through the rest of the film. I know it's hard to get all the shots and edits perfect when you've only got 48 hours.
I find myself wondering if the difference between a colon in one security camera timestamp and semicolon in another was deliberate or accidental. Not that it matters.
RED RAIN
This film is the surreal fight of a man against his own demons – with a committed performance to really sell this struggle to the audience. The film does a great job of leaning into the ghost genre for comedic effect.
The team intro got a great laugh from the audience, and then was perfectly matched into the opening shot of the film.
There was some great cinematography. Switching the colour grading mid-shot was a fun touch. The sound was good but had some room for improvement in places (understandable given this film was pulled together to such a high standard in only 48 hours).
The actors were all teenage boys, yet played a traditional family. They pulled this off with a bit of drag and some clever camera work, which I found entertaining but also heartwarming. The three wives were comedy gold but the first wife has to be my favourite.
I loved the slow-mo gun fire to Mozart's Requiem.
Finger Ring: The Proposal
My friends in team Breadstick, I was so pleased to be in the same heat as you, and I'm so glad we've both made the shortlist. There's nothing I would love more than to see your beautiful, character-driven film in the finals.
Breadstick is an A-team delivering excellent acting, writing, directing, cinematography, art direction, editing, and music. It's great to see how you're growing as a creative team and showing strong skills that I didn't even know some of you had! This film is a big step up from your already brilliant film last year.
The actors commit to their roles and it absolutely works. Such strong physical comedy and character comedy. I am completely vested in the story. Don't change a thing! It is the absolute conviction, commitment, and physicality in your characters that makes this film work.
The comedy of errors is so good. Constantly upping the ante, building tension and setting me on edge as we await the climactic conclusion. I am gushing over the charming romance and rooting for the characters, even as I anticipate Emily's inevitable sticky end. Then you turn the tables on my expectations, for a surprising, beautiful ending. The precise flight of the ring amazed me both in its execution and in its mirroring of your flying gnome of yesteryear.
A challenge for next time could be to push boundaries with camera angles and colour grading to create an even more distinctive look. Also get a cleaner recording of the dialogue to add the finishing touches to an already-strong soundtrack. There's no substitute for a boom mic (with a windsock if you do another outdoor film).
Brunch Solstice
An examination of the ridiculous lengths to which people will compromise their values just to get what they want.
I loved this film. Some great visuals and hilarious dialogue.
As someone who was raised in a cult, I was tickled by the protagonist's pitiful attempts to fit in. It really is easier said than done to learn the right language, the dos and don'ts, and avoid any faux pas. You can spot an outsider a mile away.
I missed the bit about not touching the sock, so the film's ending – while funny – came out of the blue. Maybe that warning could have been clearer? You wouldn't want to overdo it though, and I did pick up on the chainsaw warning.
A Delicate Situation
I wasn't sure what to make of this film. It has some touching moments, great wordplay, and a fun take on smart home AI. Each device has its own personality, sense of humour, and an ability to take sides or make a point.
I found the film surreal and a tad slow, but the audience really enjoyed it. I loved the ending. Perhaps there's room to play with more cinematic and storytelling techniques that could build tension and entice the viewer along the way.
Chaos Cabin
I didn't click we were about to watch an animated film. The beautiful opening shot fills the audience with awe. My first glimpse of the dimly-lit characters lands me in uncanny valley and (to my shame) I wonder if some real-life footage has been processed through AI.
Great characters are at the heart of this film – with witty dialogue, riveting performances, and believable chemistry breathing life into these computer-generated pixels.
Sound is wielded to excellent effect. Even before the imagery lights up the screen, our protagonists' invisible conversation places us in a familiar real-life situation. Likewise, foley paints a picture of the indoor setting before we ever see it with our eyes.
Awesome slow-mo shot, perfectly set to music. I thought the lady must have a cut, but no, she had a broken arm – giving rise to the most iconic line of the film.
I wasn't as clever as Felix. Like so much of the audience, I was swept up by the bizarre physics of this world (thankfully not literally).
The audience's "awwww!" of realisation at the end was immensely satisfying, although I think I was the loudest "awwww!" in the room.
From awe to awwww, this is a very solid 48HOURS entry, and highly deserving of its place on the shortlist.
Mon Amour
Mon Amour unfolds at a nice pace, steadily revealing the key characters and plot details. Suddenly, everyone is assembled for the will reading. Nicely executed! It must have taken quite some writing and rehearsal to pull it all off. Well done for roping in that many actors and successfully directing them all.
We suddenly hear muffled piano when we enter the house. It suddenly gets louder when the lounge door is opened, and louder again when we enter the lounge. This is a really nice touch.
We witness the witty spats of a family of brats. There are some great jokes, puns, and flauntings of wealth and ingratitude.
I find myself wondering, since Jayden gets a 20% share in Theodore Windsor's prized yacht, who gets the other 80%? I can't help but briefly notice the cinematographer's reflection in the window of a kitchen cupboard.
One-shot is a tricky genre, but gives a pleasing result as we weave in and out of the interactions of lots of different characters. It reminds me of live theatre I saw at Riccarton House where the audience could move between the rooms at will to take in different parallel scenes – but of course this is quicker and more controlled.
Great marrying of house, script, and characters in this film!
Nice name for the film, and nice idea to have some shock factor upon the reveal of the "painting" – though the sketch felt maybe too ludicrous. I wonder if the shock factor could have been heightened by having a real painting that was nevertheless incriminating in some way, or just really terrible.
Throughout the film, conversations about the painting got lost in the busy dialogue. It would have been nice to see more purposeful foreshadowing of the painting so that we the audience were on the edge of our seats to see it. It would also have been nice for the relationship between Katerina Jones and Theodore Windsor to be built up over the course of the film, rather than revealed suddenly in a line of dialogue immediately before the painting was revealed. Perhaps then we could have inferred more about whether Katerina was Theodore's true amour, whether in death he did something deliberately to hurt her, and why.
I enjoyed this film and the eclectic nature of the one-take genre. Well done!
The Plot Thickens
What the Julian Garland is this? A film that is guaranteed to tickle your tuber-lers! What a delight to be transported to a patch where frostbitten spuds can be the scandal of the year. But the scandal this year will blow the frostbite out of the water.
It's a joy to see a film have such fun with language and the quainter things in life, and to watch this ramp up to a higher-stakes situation.
Studio Mask
Since the movie isn't currently online, I'm writing this review based on illegible notes and my bad memory. Hopefully they haven't failed me!
I was really impressed by this film. You used the location really effectively. The film had excellent camerawork and a great look.
You had a great vision for how you wanted to bring this genre to life, and you absolutely delivered.
Spooky vibes. Great makeup. Fun monster. Intriguing concept. Great work setting everything up so that the creature could pick off the characters one by one.
Trying to remember the film to write this review, all sorts of interesting sounds, visions, and twists are popping into my mind. I don't know how accurate my memory is but clearly your creative vision left a strong impression on me.
G.P. Taylor
A 2000s-era AI-infected cassette tape with a killer moustache is too immature to accept a bit of queer attraction between good friends. The younger generation, on the other hand, knows how to have a mature conversation about it.
This film is a genius instrument of intergenerational warfare. For one thing, it has aged me (a sprightly 35-year-old) into my 70s. Minimum. I feel so old. How could the teenagers be so cruel to me?!
Seriously though. I love this film. It is beautifully crafted. A witty visual treat.
Where's Larry Scrapp?
This is a great film with some really well set up jokes. The lines in this script are banging! It's visually very pleasing too.
I love that this eclectic family's story is told from the poor bartender's perspective. You've got to love Corran as the larger-than-life Larry Scrapp who ties it all together.
Thanks to the beer pouring, I can't for the life of me understand what Corran says you can hear scream when you put a conch shell to your ear. Is that deliberate? It hits harder if you leave it up the audience's imagination? I assumed it was Uncle Larry delivering that line, but maybe it's meant to be some other unknown family member.
Rather predictably, I loved the near-kiss. Give me a bit of queer baiting any day! Wait, they're cousins? 😬
The Deadumentary
I loved the crowbar gore. The documentary format was fun. Hugging the detective was funny. Brodie the Stoner was hilarious. The sinister pivot to the briefly adorable Betty was a lovely touch. The comedic error at the end was entertaining. Well done for having your patriotic hero Detective Zinc reach one conclusion while the audience reaches a completely conclusion.
You might need to check if your camera has a volume control for the microphone, as the sound was clipping at some points. A goal for next time could be to lean more strongly into the tropes of the genre you get assigned.
Kingdom Animalia
God this is weird but well-executed. Great performances. Visually striking animals. Adorable animals sounds.
The totem made my friend jump, because apparently anything can give Michael a jump scare.
Staircase Nation embraced the beast within but unfortunately they didn't win.
Emergency Key
A surreal action chase with unclear motivations through some iconic Christchurch locations.
I particularly liked the shot of the guy being pulled backwards away from the camera through the sand.
It felt a bit weird and light on story, but I believe you made exactly the film you wanted to make and achieved the vision you were going for.
The Loch Nest
Such a fun play on reality TV, ramping up the stakes while making it incredibly silly. Really such an excellent parody with some well-crafted humour and a strong story. This was an odd choice for a monster movie, but you managed to get a monster chase in there so I think it counts.
I love that you went in a direction that came naturally to your actors. You clearly all had a blast and it was very watchable.
I was concerned at the sight of one of your characters spiking the drink of another character, but when it turned out to be fatal that somehow made it better.
Tiny Pricks
I had to watch this a second time to understand the story but mmm the succulents are so succulent. Some great shots in this film and some fun word play. Who knew a succulent could jiggle so well in slow motion.
Music To Die For
Own a CD at your peril!
This film runs with a fun concept, and the final gag was especially funny – although far from the only misfortunate pedestrian in this year's competition.
It was great to see an action/adventure film with some actual fight scenes! Not all this year's action/adventure films managed that.
I struggled to follow the finer details of the plot. This could have been fixed with clearer audio, close-up shots of people talking, and more commitment to character when delivering the key lines that revealed important plot points.
It's hard if your team can't get your hands on dedicated audio equipment, but you can also achieve crisp, high-quality audio by having the camera or phone close to your actor for close-up dialogue shots. For example, the dialogue while the cards were being flipped onto the table was really easy to understand.
The dying-and-then-waking-up trope would be more effective with tighter/snappier editing and louder sound effects (e.g. gunshot, gasping upon waking up).
Great work with the visual effects for the sword. It's nice to see that kind of ambition in the competition. Also I liked the artistic choice to make certain scenes black and white.
These school teams sure know how to make a millennial feel old! I'm pretty sure that's actually a Panasonic Blu Ray player?
A Product of My Imagination
I'd love to see what the small-size meeting room in this office looks like!
A Product of My Imagination is highly polished. I would expect nothing less from An Evening With. Everything in the story has its place. Everything drives the plot forward, or sets up a delightful surprise for us at the end. The performances are of course on point, as is the music. The twist is perfect. You can't help but feel sorry for the protagonist who seems bullied by his exploitative employer and colleagues.
We find ourselves in a delightfully ambiguous time period. The office and job descriptions are decidedly modern, the helmets are oh so sci-fi, the eMacs and screen graphics are delightfully retro, there's an overhead projector, there's flat-screen TVs, and one of life's greatest conveniences hasn't been invented yet.
On my first viewing I didn't notice that this is a (neo-)noir film because I don't care that much about genre. The film was simply entertaining on its own terms. But on subsequent viewings, I see the noir tropes are there and they are strong. The black-and-white narrative asides are excellent and don't feel remotely out-of-place. The thematic elements are there as alluded to in reviews above. Taking the heart of an old-school genre but shaping it into a fast-paced modern piece is oh so compelling.
At this point the joke has become a 48Hours Christchurch meme (in both the Dawkinsian and millennial senses) but I feel sorry for Chester constantly having to affirm that his idea ideation does in fact occur during the 48-hour period and not beforehand.
The best 48Hours films are rooted in a simple concept. You can rely on An Evening With to deliver that simple concept with class and precision. Now it's time for the sequel about diced onions and sliced radishes.
Smoke and Mirrors
This is a fun film that the heat audience enjoyed, with exactly the vibes that we love about 48Hours.
The film begins with one earnest voice in song, but one by one, every family member succumbs to the power of the acapella musical! Fun, cheesy rhymes abound.
The gang of judgy women at the garage sale look visually distinctive as they form a united front against the lead.
Alongside the story of a family turning their life into a heartfelt musical, we have a great genie-style story about a magical mirror. The team didn't have enough time to do their greenscreen composite, but I could see in my mind's eye the shots they were going for and completely understood the storyline.
This film takes the realities of parenting an adolescent and ramps them up to a supernatural level of absurdity. What better way to do this than with a story about dating gone wrong?
The moment where the mirror-girlfriend-genie offers the guy her bracelet was clever storytelling. The fact that she couldn't put the bracelet on him (he had to do it himself) had vampiric undertones, strongly implying that he would become trapped in the mirror. But while I could see it, he couldn't. After brief protestations, he relented. It's great when an audience figures out what's going on but a character doesn't.
I'm not sure what to suggest for the future. Keep experimenting. Keep having fun. Keep honing your art and figuring out what works. Keep finding more people to collaborate with. 48Hours is the perfect space for it!
Exploring an abandoned prison... at 3am *GONE WRONG*
Nice use of the found footage genre via lots of YouTuber tropes. I love how creepy the drawing of the monster was, which really painted a picture in my mind of the supernatural entity in this abandoned prison.
The film could be further elevated by creepy sound effects. Don't be afraid to put long pregnant pauses in your film to build tension, with sound effects layered in that make the prison at night sound like a really creepy place, and that give the monster more of a presence. Think about what the monster should sound like. Give the audience jump scares with sudden loud sound effects when the monster attacks someone. Use sound to add shape to the film and slowly ramp up the tension. The foundations were all there with the script, your performances, and the creepy monster design, but these are the details that would add realism and fear. Also, you could use sound effects to make it sound like night-time, and to add continuity between the shot of the moon and the shots of your actors outside.
Trying to fake night-time when you're shooting outside during the day is really hard. Sunlight is harsh and extremely directional, making it really obvious if you're outside in daylight. One trick you could have used is shooting only in the shade, out of direct sunlight, and never showing anything in the background that is in direct sunlight (especially not the bright green school field). This is because light in the shade is nice and scattered, not coming from any one direction, like at night-time. The alternative would be only filming indoors, but I imagine that would be too hard for faking a prison setting. Or of course film just after sunset (which thankfully isn't so late during winter).
Glove Box
I'm not sure I've seen a nighttime drone shot before. I like. As others have commented, some good cinematography in this.
The escalating dynamic between the two main characters is great fun. This film is delightfully absurd.
I miss the shot of the polaroids on my first viewing of this film so I am very confused. Now that I've rewatched, I'm not confused, but my imagination hasn't managed to fill the gaps of what image could be so precious to the protagonist yet so shocking to the policeman.
Dead Colour
This is a film of deliberate contrast. Contrast through selective use of colour. Contrast of genre tropes. Contrast of different time periods through the striking use of different aspect ratios. Contrast through different video filters. Visual contrast even in black and white. This film forces you to think – about time, about art, about foreshadowing and destiny.
I loved the title cards. I loved the intense sequence at the end.
Maybe it could be fun to work out some kind of dolly, steadicam, or gimbal so you can reduce camera shake of fast-moving action shots in future films? At one point there was a distracting discontinuity in the music, but I guess it's impossible to find music that perfectly fits your edit when the clock is ticking to hand your film in.
LARVAE GIRL THE ROAD TO REVENGE PART 1
I never knew feminist ghost gore was missing from my life, but now I am complete. Who is this heavenly creature venturing into the bush to fight the forces of evil? A truncated bonanza of understated humour.
You broke my space laser!
I really loved that space laser!
This a perfectly gratuitous 48HOURS film. I would have loved to see it at the finals. The fact that we won't really speaks to how hard a time the judges are having in Ōtautahi this year, with so many good films to choose from.
Space Laser is a big improvement on team Mad Scientists' 2024 film (in which I had a fun cameo). Well done! It's awesome to see a team always stretching itself and moving on to greater things.
Space Laser starts with a found footage film inside a found footage film. How meta! Although it took a rewatch for me to figure this out.
The zoom out from the found phone footage was flawless. The car running off the road was so cool.
I couldn't believe my eyes as I found myself skiing backwards down a mountain, looking up at my pursuers as I shot them with both hands. I wondered if the arms had been rotoscoped out of a first-person shooter computer game. I now know they were green-screen footage of the same arm, flipped to create two arms. Brilliant! The fact that it looked a bit computer-generated just made the sequence so much more fun.
I'd be fascinated to know when and how you filmed the aerial footage of the mountains.
I'm racking my brains trying to figure out if this film contains this year's only possible blowjob reference.
The true miracle of team Mad Scientists is the way you can rally an entire community behind your mad vision. That is the essence of great film-making and you have it in spades. Thanks to your wide collaboration, we got to enjoy some wonderful characters, insane mountain stunts, and a killer rap.
Nature's Calling
I loved this film. Good cinematography and editing. Great performances – entertaining and authentic.
MILK!
A thing of beauty.
I loved the subtle foreshadowing of the art on the wall. I also loved the not-so-subtle antics that ensued.
Discerning viewers will note that this film contains a G-string.
Cover Your Ears
I forgot to say, I'm a fan of the 14:9 aspect ratio. It gives this film an early-2000s vibe (the weird transition from "square" TV to widescreen).
Party Disrupted
A fun examination of teenage rebellion and coming of age, with a brilliantly executed ending. Great to see some NZSL in the competition. Thank you for finding a way to tell your own authentic story with some jokes along the way.
Data Management and Security Training
You guys nailed it. Not the only 90s-ish VHS aesthetic of the competition, but so so good. The medium might have been vintage, but the subject matter was oh so modern. Data management is a beautifully niche goldmine of material to geek out on.
It takes great skill to satirise corporate politics well, and you did it perfectly.
Delightful dialogue. Salaciously inappropriate workplace behaviour. Sinister even. I love it!
Little Re-Writing Hood
Bizarre film.
I like how the story's action starts to blend into real life. Some fun gags and some characters who aren't afraid to call out each other's crap.
It peters out a bit at the end. I struggled to follow the plot and character arcs.
I got distracted by the "action" gag (because we did the same thing in an early edit of our Toot Toot film). As a result, I didn't notice the twist ending of new characters and presumably a new fairy tale.
Pop's Precious Pranks
I love the dark comedy and multiple twists of this film. The way it can flip from one emotion to another or even hold them both at once. Really well-made. Really entertaining.
This film really spoke to my experience of caring for an elderly relative. The worry and stress of it all. You took that and channeled it into pure comedic gold.
What a pleasant surprise to see Krysta on the screen. She was my introduction to 48Hours back in 2016. This time she moves from the directors chair to a compelling, emotional performance in front of the camera.
Room of UR
This is a fun film with a witty script, sharp editing, nicely mixed audio, good performances, and some imaginative shots. The film is dripping with comedic value – from carrying a random mop all around the house to all sorts of random and well-choreographed tool shenanigans. The exaggerated comedic errors make me cringe in horror.
The two parallel storylines and abrupt ending were great. It would be tempting to call one of them a red herring, a distraction from the true plot, but actually they both feel like satisfying storylines that raise big questions I have to answer for myself.
I liked the use of quick pans, and a cross dissolve to show the passage of time. Animating a change of aspect ratio for the broken fourth wall was a nice touch.
Some shots were a bit crooked and could have benefited from ensuring the camera was level and facing exactly straight ahead. If you want to up the ante next time, you could use manual focus, boom or lapel mics, and play even more with camera angles and framing.
I too noticed the echoes of Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie, but was impressed that the cleaner managed to be even more stupid than Mr Bean.
Unspoken
A thought-provoking glimpse into a relationship at breaking point under family pressure. It's hard enough for a couple to manage their own devastating struggles, without having to worry about what other people will think.
I liked how the start of this film built suspense about what was happening outside the car. What was the phone call about? The mystery continued even as a conversation unfolded inside the car between the two main characters.
My improv brain was expecting a joke at this point – that the mystery of what serious thing they were talking about would be resolved when it turned out to be something very silly and inconsequential. But no, this film isn't a joke. It is about a very weighty topic.
It's hard to pull off drama in 48Hours but the performances in this film were sincere and authentic, drawing me in.
The final shots of the film were magic. A simple editing trick completely fooled me, leaving me blown away at the conclusion. How could my eyes be deceiving me? The symbolism of the final shot spoke volumes.
Safe Streets, No Crime
I'm here because of the article "Film Festival Strategy with Ross Ozarka".
What a joy to watch this commentary on the blinkered and hypocritical "tough on crime" rhetoric that permeates our society. Such a ludicrous animation concept that tells such a compelling story. We even get to see a perfect neighbourhood by the end of the film.
A fun animation style that works really well for 48Hours.
No Time To Die... Again
The impressive thing about team Mad Scientists is how Jullian manages to get an entire community behind him – not just a community of actors and artists, but the entire community of Hanmer Springs!
This film was a crowd favourite. It's rough around the edges, but that speaks to the sheer ambition of the scale of this thing!
Mike's throwaway lines this year were absolutely crackers. The character title cards were a nice touch. The characters themselves looked great – all dripping with personality and charisma.
The crowd went wild for the bungy jump. It looks amazing. It would be cool if the cut of Mike's bungy finished at the bottom, rather than on a rebound. Then it could cut straight to him on the boat (maybe with a bit of a drop) to imply one continuous action of him disconnecting himself from the bungy at the bottom of the fall. Connecting it to the lady on the boat and bouncing her back into the air? Brilliant!
Most of the shots in this film look amazing. Here and there, a bit of colour grading wouldn't go amiss. It's a great shame about the audio issues. I wonder if you'd get on better with a wireless lapel or boom mic connected straight into the camera, so you know you can always rely on the on-camera audio, without having to sync up any other files if you don't have time.
Again this year, the images and text in the credits didn't quite scroll at the same speed. Maybe there's another way you can produce the credits for more consistency?
Team Mad Scientists help illustrate a debate that is raging in the 48Hours community about how much preparation is okay, and how important genre adherence is. The team aren't afraid to make the film they want to make – taking full advantage of the relationships they've built and the locations they've arranged. This makes genre a secondary consideration that can be hard to shoehorn into the film. Maybe one day the stars will align and they'll get a genre that fits perfectly with their ambitions, allowing them to sail right on in to the finals. The other option is to come up with a game plan that allows more flexibility, so the genre can be the foundation upon which the story is built.
Hopefully that's food for thought, though I'm sure there are those in the competition who never want team Mad Scientists to change!
Unspoken Words
Two guys learn to be best bros no matter what.
What a fun film! The botched interaction between the guys and the girls was a highlight.
It was lovely to have two films in this heat about men learning to communicate effectively (the other one being Flat Meeting by rip focus 2).
And what a great intro!
Turn It Off
Ooh I love those spinny playground things. How did they even find one in this day and age? Here's a playground that needs modernising for the sake of our future generation's safety!
The dialogue takes us back to the time of the Christchurch earthquakes. Intriguing. Few in the audience will know what a toll the earthquakes took on this very house in real life, but this nugget of reality will be used at the end of the film.
This team has really run with the found footage concept. I love the look of the path whizzing past our feet as we run towards the house.
"Heh, the filmmakers have deliberately hidden the fact there's a grand piano in this filmset," I think to myself. Then suddenly we hear the grand piano but we still don't see it. Hilarious. We see a miniature drumkit though.
We see fear in the man's eyes. What can he see that we can't? Suddenly we're running again.
I like the sinister ending.
This film is a nice concept. It comes across quite hectic and meta.
There Came a Big Spider
A "What the hell did I just watch?" movie to start the "What the hell did I just watch?" heat.
I like the claustrophobic 4:3 framing. The black and white works really well. A great performance. It's lovely to see the full cycle of a relationship, although it takes a second viewing for me to fully grasp this.
Some of the plot points go over my head on the first viewing. I don't recognise the man lying face-down half-naked in his bed. I think it's a woman in a skimpy outfit, and I think the spider has come in to kill her. Rather disturbing. Anyway, I eventually cotton onto the love story, and I understand the film better on a rewatch.
I've contemplated doing a solo entry before, and this film makes me feel more inspired to give it a go.
Turpe
Thank you, I have just learned a new Latin and Italian word!
I imagine Turpe – like Hi Santa, It's Charlie last year – will be divisive. There is no rhyme nor reason to my own reactions. I disliked last year's Olax film but I like this year's. I found last year's indulgent but this year's amusing. Probably last year I was just jealous that it wasn't me doing the long drawn-out character piece.
Anyway, enough musing on my own personality defects. What do I love about Turpe? It's the fact that the naughty child sitting at the back of church, who really doesn't want to be there, has somehow become the priest standing at the front. He doesn't know the words to the hymn and he really can't be arsed with it all. Organised religion can't help but make a mockery of him and it just isn't fair.
The attention to detail in this piece is striking. A carefully written script. A carefully executed 4:3 greyscale one-shot. Careful little touches in the interaction between the congregation and the priest, with a cough. The mind boggles trying to imagine what foul incident is being hinted at – let alone how it could impact on the entire rural environ and the sheep within it.
At first I assumed this was a POV, but then I wondered why the camera didn't move up and down in sync with the congregation standing and sitting. Then I realised it must be a "found footage" church recording, almost Songs of Praise in its style. But this made me think the footage was too crisp for the era many decades ago in which this footage was presumably captured. Anyway, turns out that wasn't even your assigned genre, but well done for covering off more than one 2026 genre in the film.
Olax is the master of character vignettes, beautiful in their simplicity, that perfectly suit the 48Hours five-minute time limit.
Road 2 Revenge
Reading through these reviews, I'm reminded of Sherlock Holmes, the fictional legend who rebelled against his creator, for he could not be bound by the chains of death. Just as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried for eight long years to hold his creation within the grave, but ultimately failed, one can't help but wonder if the legendary Larvae Girl is destined for resurrection by the baying of her loyal 48Hours fans.
It's impressive how much Herms Heroes (from the creators of Hindsight Productions) can cram into a five-minute film. So much action. So much drama. So much spectacle. So much colour. So much ethereal aura. So many characters and locations. So much cringing at gore and broken bones. Too much purity. Just enough haunting opera. And almost enough pretty hand-drawn animations that embody Larvae Girl's true superpower: retro analogue vibes.
My favourite line of the competition this year is "Revenge me!" because of course Tony Chestnut isn't educated enough to swap out the noun for the verb, and of course I'm enough of a snob to mock him for his dying words. But what a delight it was to see our beloved Tony on the big screen, and what a shock to see him shot so soon!
48Hours is getting so meta and I love it. So many in-jokes. I'm 200% behind you Larvae Girl. It isn't self-indulgent to serve your community!
This film (or a prototype) could have benefited from a bit of what we in the survey industry call cognitive testing. In other industries it's called user experience testing. And in the film industry it's called a test audience. Anyway, the point I'm trying to get to with all this wankery is… I'm not very observant and so I didn't scratch my sniff card when I was meant to. When Tony Chestnut was wafting doughnuts and colas under his nose, I was thinking "Hmm, this would be a good time to have the audience scratch their sniff cards, but I can't see any numbers on the screen so I'm going to stubbornly keep watching the action." Minutes later, when I finally saw a number at the bottom-left of the screen, I thought "Hmm, unusual choice not to start the counting at 1." Towards the end, when 2 appeared for what I thought was the first time, I thought "These numbers are all over the place!" And when the film ended, I thought "Weird, I never got to scratch number 1." So for dolts in the audience like me, the number needed to be bigger, flashier, animated, in the middle of the screen, or accompanied by a narrator yelling out the number with the hyper-masculine hyper-American energy of a WWE commentator.
I leave it with you, oh mighty Herms Heroes, to decide whether to heed Conan Doyle's advice: "my literary energies should not be directed too much into one channel" and "If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one."
Long may flashy camp crowd-pleasing 48Hours films continue!
Whoopies Daisy
I loved this! A great take on "found footage" and a very very funny story that is very well executed. Great, authentic performances. You have a strong instinct for comedy. I love that each dashcam or body cam has a distinctive look and feel. This is exactly the kind of film you should make in 48Hours. Short, sweet, and hilarious.
One Star
Well this was clearly a crowd favourite.
Some highlights: The girlfriend's echoing accent. The sunglasses. The unexpected punctuality of the delivery driver. The tongue. The mini car chase. The emotional turmoil of the doggo's demise. The fruit ninja antics. The twists at the end.
The King of the Playground
An affectionate fantasy parody that plays on the way that schoolkids who eat apples for lunch tell tall stories to schoolkids who eat chips for lunch. Only in the playground must all tall stories be believed.
This is a comedy duo with great potential. They have an impressive ability to do physical movements completely in sync, to great comedic effect. They are funny just by staring at things together.
Pariscope
Finally, two weeks after the heats, Pariscope is in the clouds now!
This film fits right into Heat #7, where everything is WTF. This is crazy, bro. I never seen this before. What's going on? It's a hobby, man. This is so oddly specific to the 48Hours context and culture that I don't know what to make of it.
I enjoy the retro low-fi analogue look that comes from the periscope, messing with the colours and catching lights and reflections in all sorts of interesting ways.
The characters are fun and distinctive. The gags are humorous. I will admit I am completely lost by the plot, but I like how everyone goes on a journey that takes them to the same intriguing destination.
Apparently wagging tongues are a thing now in 48Hours, and I wonder if I'm a mid-30s has-been incapable of understanding modern references.
Walk It Off
You had me just with the team name.
The dad has a yellow backpack like me in Toot Toot's film – except he has a proper hiking backpack. I'm jealous.
Some great dialogue relationship dynamics and metaphorical dialogue in this. I love the simultaneous "We go north"/"We go south". Great gag on the bladder.
This is a rare contender for the most wholesome and normal film of the heat. A quaint look into navigating a child's anger over parental breakups. A difference of opinion about the direction that life should take. A coming of age where daughter knows better than father.