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Category:    Home > Reviews > Shorts > Short Fuse (Shorts set)

Short Fuse (Shorts set)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Shorts: C+

 

 

In another set of short dramatic pieces, Short Fuse offers eight recent projects that have even received critical acclaim.  They are:

 

Bullet In The Brain (1.78 X 1/ directed by David Von Ancken) – A college professor (Tom Noonan) is incredibly philosophical as a dangerous group of men headed by a gun-toting Wildman (Dean Winters) holds up his local bank.  Is the professor trying to talk the gunman out of killing or does he have a death wish, sick of his life, or is that philosophy causing him to consider his life is a failure or success?  This is one of the DVD’s best.  George Plimpton narrates this exceptionally well.

 

Cliché (1.78 X 1/Karl Horstmann) – The first and lesser of two convenience store holdup stories, this one more quirky and brief, as a hold up is eventually foiled by unexpected intervention.  Though somewhat amusing, this is too pat for its own good.

 

Shoot! (1.85 X 1/Tiffany McLinn Lore) – Blind poet/playwright Lynn Manning is a man in conflict with his streetwise environment, sick of being tormented and ready to kill, unless he is killed first.  Not totally thought out and it relies too much on its star personality, but it is at least gritty.

 

Crank Calls (1.85 X 1/Terry Rieta) – Loser gets happy by doing the title action, even getting the victims to kill each other, but this is too smug for its own good, not really exploring why people enjoy this kind of thing.  David Fincher did better briefly in Fight Club with the group therapy equivalent.  The subject has yet to be explored properly.

 

Upheaval (1.78 X 1/Itamar Kubovy) – Francis McDormand is not bad in this average piece on a missing piece of jewelry that sets off dysfunctional family conflict long lingering.  Almost Dogme-styled in its look and approach, which sabotages it somewhat.

 

Fueling The Fire (1.66 X 1/Jorg Ihle & Tanja Mairitsch) – The best work on the DVD here involves two panicked points of view of a violent robbery at a gas station convenience store, then we see what they may have missed.  This is a very well thought out, savvy work that is remarkable.

 

Inside (2.35 X 1/Trevor Sands) – Jeremy Sisto is a victim of multiple personality disorder in this smart, important short that goes into the territory that is still sadly being ignored by the mainstream media and cinema.  If you are laughing, you missed the point.

 

The Quality of Mercy (1.66 X 1/Stephen Marro) – Mary-Louise Parker saves this revenge tale of an actress killing a critic for being arrogant and giving out bad reviews.  This is often the revenge fantasy of many artists, but there is a point where the school of thought emerges that there should not be critics at all, which is a big mistake in a free society, but is the wet dream of a politically correct one.  This is not developed enough to tell where it stands, which is another problem with a short that relishes revenge and murder.

 

 

Despite the fact that this is the first such set we have seen where every short was widescreen, the DVD is not anamorphically enhanced, which is still possible to do, even when the aspect ratios vary.  Upheaval looks the poorest, shot on faded-upon-arrival digital video.  All have been remixed for Dolby Digital 5.1 AC-3, but none of them are truly 5.1, including the Dolby theatrical Fueling The Fire.  Crank Calls, Inside and The Quality of Mercy have better sound.  There are no extras, but there are just enough good shorts to check out Short Fuse, another interesting such set from Vanguard.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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