Customer Reviews

Short 4 - Seduction

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The quality of films presented notwithstanding I feel cheated by the manufacturer/distributor which is Time/Warner. Nowhere do they warn that the DVD comes WITH ADVERTISMENTS THAT CANNOT BE ZIPPED PAST! I did not want to go through an for BMW's, for Henry Jaglom's personal phone call and a few Hollywood schlock trailers. Bad, because short independent films are good for your soul.

Usually when I take a chance on a collection of films (or songs, or short stories), it's with the expectation that the good ones will offset the bad ones. In this DVD, almost all the films are first-rate. The rundown:

TUNNEL OF LOVE is an expertly-filmed tale of seduction with a twist with a nice 1960s British feel to it.
KOM is a brief sweet tale of love, age, and nostalgia.
ANTICIPATING SARAH-- a World War II story of a woman testing a soldier's love that has a nice O'Henryish twist to it.
LILY AND JIM-- Hands down, the best film on the DVD. This is a tale of a blind date gone horribly wrong, and is as screamingly funny as early Woody Allen.
HISAO is a look at a Japanese singer hoping for success. This experimental film is a bit perplexing and doesn't really fit in with the others, but is interesting nevertheless.
TALE ABOUT THE CAT AND THE MOON-- A simple fable-like tale of a cat who falls in love with the moon, with a beguiling visual sense.
THE LAST SUPPER-- Friends dining in a restaurant decide to play a joke on one of their own by tricking him into thinking he has won the lottery, with shocking results.
T.R.A.N.S.I.T. is a superbly animated tale of love and betrayal told in reverse order based on travel stickers on a suitcase.
THIS IS HARDCORE-- a music video by the band Pulp takes a lush look at some vintage Hollywood cliches.
DIGIPET-- pointless and dumb.
OPENING MOVIE-- a repeat of the opening segment.
CREDITS-- a look at two losers (one of them Ryan Stiles of The Drew Carey Show) who cause trouble in a grocery store. Slight but amusing.

The only reason I am not giving this DVD five stars is because of the stupid commercials that open some of the films (and which cannot be fast-forwarded through or skipped over, two worthless items in the JUNKDRAWER (DIGIPET and OPENING MOVIE), and the fact that the list of films listed on the inside of the case have some of them in the wrong section. Otherwise, a superb collection. This is a good DVD to suggest the next time your girlfriend wants to see a movie but doesn't want to see another action film, and you don't want to see another chick flick.

This issue of Short Cinema Journal continues to provide a forum for excellent short features. LILY AND JIM is a hillarious look at dating. KOM is a touching look at aging and love.

The one down side is that advertisements have been added to the begining of each feature. And don't think about skipping over them because the "fast forward" function has been disabled for most of the ads (at least on my DVD player). It's about as tasteful as an art museum putting ads in the spaces between the paintings. I hope they drop them from future issues.

The descriptions on the back cover sounded interesting, so I gave this disc a try. It was worth it.

"Lily and Jim" alone is worth the price of admission. It kept me laughing throughout.

"Kom" is a sweet short that will surprise you, and make you smile.

"Anticipating Sarah" will be no surprise to anyone who has read the story in one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

"Hisao" was a little disappointing, but still kind of interesting.

"The Last Supper" is fabulous, a perfect example of "watch out what you wish for, for you just might get it."

"DigiPet" should be DigiPutDown. It's annoying as hell.

It would be nice to be able to fast forward through some of the commercials, but a couple of them are kind of fun to watch.

There's audio commentary tracks and production notes galore throughout, pretty much insuring that this won't be one of those things that you sit through once and never watch again.

Seduction is the first issue I experienced from the Short collection. I was hooked. It's definently not for the simple-minded. The issue of seduction is one that is in all of our lifes and these short film takes our minds into realms of thinking that might (as my friends have said) leave you a little disturbed, in a good way.
Watch in the company of mary Jane.
In regards to the commercials I found them very entertaining. It gives a nice break between each film.

I was delighted to view SHORT: SEDUCTION last night...The Shorts were spectacular!
"KOM" actually made me (nearly) cry.
"THE LAST SUPPER" actually Stunned me!!
"THE CAT AND THE MOON" was so sweet I ooo'd and ahh'd til I nearly swooned!

I didn't mind the comercials too much...this is a DVDMAG after-all. It's probably how they cover the production costs. They've got to have advertisers.

This is a MUST OWN for any fan of INDY-FILMS or SHORTS.

I bought this DVD in order to have the beautiful short film "KOM". The rest didn't really appeal to me that much.