From what I'd seen of Sean Astin I thought this short film shown at the Sundance Film Festival, which he wrote and directed during the making of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, might be interesting and good. But no, it's simply awful, cliché-ridden, and pointless. It's so bad it's almost like a spoof of pretentious arthouse cinema, but tragically it's the real thing. At 5 minutes long, and viewable at the Sundance website, it's worth watching just to laugh at how bad it is. I was amused and disappointed to see "Written by Sean Astin and Dominic Monaghan" in the credits, as there's so little to it it's strange to think that someone actually wrote it, but it took two of them? ANYONE could have written this "film", there are no words and the message is so simple and facile that it's beyond belief. If someone had shown me the script with the names removed I would probably guess that it had been written by a group of 7-year-olds with help from their teacher as part of their class project on how we can all live together and help each other, so absurdly patronising is this film's message.
Review of The Long and Short of It
