Change Your Image
kerrydouglasdye
Reviews
Sarbane's-Oxley (2007)
A well-acted, knottily plotted tale of corporate intrigue and sexual malfeasance
It's always refreshing to encounter a low-budget indie film that sets out to be about more than a bunch of friends sitting around yakking, dating, and complaining about how hard it is to turn thirty. Sarbane's-Oxley takes as its jumping off point issues of SEC compliance and the merger between two technology companies ... but wait, don't start yawning yet! This is just the backdrop for a twisty, tangled, often very funny tale featuring greed, corporate espionage, double-crosses, and illicit sex.
That acting level is a solid grade up from your average indie (almost all the leads, along with notable work from a couple of very funny side characters), as is the cinematography, with its gracefully mobile camera. The story gleefully piles on the complications, wrapping its hero in a firm knot of familial, connubial and fiscal tensions that cathartically unravel as the movie climaxes. There's a lot of fun stuff here.
For a first feature, this is an amazingly accomplished production. If I had one complaint, it might be that I would have liked to see a little more nuance from the C.E.O. villain -- there's nothing particularly unrealistic about a character who's just a greedy, manipulative jerk, but I always enjoy characters who have more than one side on display.
But that's a nitpick. In general, Sarbane's-Oxley is an unusually mature and complex achievement from first time filmmakers who undoubtedly have more great things coming.
The Halls of Jacob (2006)
An emotionally potent short ...
The Halls of Jacob is a short film that will stick in your mind for a long time. A child named Jacob finds himself in a dark hallway with many doors. As he explores the rooms off the hallway he learns the story of a young boy whose life has been a difficult one ... eventually building to a personal discovery that is emotionally jarring for both Jacob and the audience.
This movie gets a lot of mileage out of what is, presumably, a small budget. The cinematography uses video to great, moody, very cinematic effect. This is a movie shot on video that doesn't feel like it's shot on video. Other technical aspects -- the sound design (nicely used classical music) and editing -- are polished and professional.
Halls of Jacob succeeds in dealing thoughtfully with sensitive topics that will make you think, but also in delivering a creepy mood piece that will make your skin tingle wondering what lies behind the next door ...
Short films can often be frustrating to watch -- in the worst cases you get the feeling that the filmmaker had some money and a camera, but nothing in particular they wanted to say. With this film, the writers and director clearly have an issue they want to talk about, and they present it in a way that's cogent, emotionally powerful, and creepily cinematic. My hat's off to them.