CalebLisitsin02

Before I start, I just wanna say I have nothing against Stuckmann and if anything I'm a huge fan of his. He has been a huge inspiration when it comes to loving film and therefore I critique this short with as much respect I possibly can give.

The positives: the first 2 minutes have some decently shot angles and some shots that probably looked better in his head and not in his execution. Which is what the majority of this film feels like. Interesting ideas, but bad execution. This would be a great short, if it was a home movie made by him and his friends when they were 15.

The negatives: unfortunately, the rest of this review is going to be negative. The acting is atrocious! Stuckmann doesn't fit the role of a tough guy, at all; he just seems to nice. It feels like he is really trying to be Ryan Gosling from Drive. Which reminds me, this film is way to similar to Drive; to the point where it feels like a rip off. The lighting in a lot of the shots look like they were recorded on an old IPhone. I don't know the camera he used, but good grief. Not to mention the majority of the cinematography goes out of focus. I don't know if he was rushing but was he unable to go back and do some reshoots? Probably would've helped. Plus, the film isn't even finished! Apparently it was so bad Chris decided just not to finish it.

This was definitely not a good film from a professional standpoint. It's impressive that he filmed what he did but I think a lot of this was just poor execution (and an awful screenplay); but at least Chris is improving. Despite being flawed, his recent short, Notes from Melanie is significantly better in almost every way; maybe besides the acting. The more Chris films the more experienced and professional he'll become. Nice effort, Chris but you dropped the ball on this one. Let's hope for better films in the future.

I never heard of the creator or any of her previous work so I went in blind. What I could say is the strong points for this is some of the characters are interesting and I wouldn't mind seeing where their stories go. Not to mention the voice acting isn't to bad either. The plot is original but full of plot holes (which I guess may be cleared up later since this is a pilot after all.) Since I'm a musical fan, I was "interested" when I found out it was a musical; and the singing is alright, I guess. The songs can be sometimes hard to understand. Charlie's song "Inside of every demon is a rainbow" is what I'm referring to. Out of all of this, I have to acknowledge the fact that the animation is stunning at times. I'm no animator, so I have no clue if I'm correct in this category, but some of the imagery is breathtaking.

That also leads into my negatives, which is that the animation can also be very off. Yet again, I'm no animator, but sometimes the animation seems very inconsistent (probably due to many different animators working on it) and the character designs can be very overwhelming. Speaking of characters, I found Angel Dust to be on the annoying side. I think he has potential, but the writers seem to think non-stop sex jokes and swearing is funny. Which also is my problem with the humor. I can't see anyone over the age of 12 laughing at the jokes in this pilot, and it's not like the humor in other films like Dumb and Dumber, it's basically summed up as *enter sex joke here* and everyone is supposed to laugh. Maybe that's just me, but come on.

Overall, it's a miracle that this thing got made. It took over 5 years to get this thing in action and we finally got it on October 28th of 2019. Was it worth it? As I said before, I really can't say because I just now heard of it. But from my perspective I see it as a pilot that has some major problems (as all pilots do) but could be something great. You can definitely tell the blood, sweat, tears, and passion that went into this project, and I respect the creators for that.

This is it, where it all started. M. Night Shyamalan's first movie "Praying With Anger" is a film about an Indian-American boy going to India, the place where his parents were born, so he can learn of his families way of life. I'll start out with saying that the concept is very intriguing. The plot is well written enough, but not perfect. Some characters are a bit inconsistent with there goals and behavior. The acting is decent, but again not perfect. Shyamalan himself is the strongest actor in the film, everyone else is okay. I'm not knocking the actors though, I know it's a hard job. And finally the filmmaking. It's a bit amateurish, but than again, Shyamalan was an amateur when he made this. It's his first film after all, it's good for what he had. If he made the movie now, I guarantee it would have better acting, cinematography, writing, and editing. In general, the movie is an impressive feat. Especially for his first movie, being self funded and all, I'd give it about a 6.6 out of 10.