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gregmachlin-21143
Reviews
What If...? (2016)
The first George Saunders adaptation: Phenomenal
George Saunders is the gloriously surreal author of CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and In Persuasion Nation and his novels and stories have been optioned since the late 1990s, but the short film "What If" (based on Saunders' story "Victory Lap") is, as far as I know, the first adaptation of his work to actually make it to the big screen...and it's fantastic. Writer/director Lorielle Mallue takes a narration-heavy story that goes deep into the minds of three very different characters, two teenagers and an adult, and masterfully presents all of them.
It's hard to give details without spoiling the story, but it takes a very important event in the lives of 3 characters on a seemingly ordinary day in a normal suburban neighborhood.
There are many ways this short film could've gone wrong; suffice to say Mallue has clearly seen Edgar Wright's fast-cut work and has both a great sense of comedic timing and knows how to build tension, and, along with D.P. John Wakayama Carey, creates images that perfectly fit.
The four main actors--Gabrielle Fleck as Allison Pope, Wesley Zurick as Kyle Boot, Michael Mastro as The Man and Vince Gatton, doing the best narration since Alec Baldwin in The Royal Tenenbaums--are spot-on.
Go out of your way to see "What If...?". (Note: Goes without saying, but I have no connection to anyone who made it.)
Diani & Devine Meet the Apocalypse (2016)
Great (and great-looking) comedy about the end of the world
Full disclosure: I was a Kickstarter backer of this film, but I don't personally know the filmmakers.
"Diani & Devine Meet the Apocalypse" has the same basic premise as "This Is The End"--woefully unprepared comedians stumble through the apocalypse trying to survive-- but is even funnier and relies less on gross-out humor than that film, and it looks shockingly good for a low-budget movie (mad props to directors Diani, Devine and their D.P.) When the movie opens, the male-female comedy duo are doing well on the comedy circuit but struggling to advance in Hollywood hits. Then an unnamed apocalypse strikes and the two comedians, dog and cat in tow, have to hit the road in search of safer and friendlier shelter. As they stagger from one near-disaster to the next, the film never loses sight of their humanity or the people they encounter, even the crazy compound where (spoilers averted). I usually hate phrases like "the triumph of the human spirit," but this film deserves it. See it when it comes to your town!