Well, there are some advantages to digital cable: for one, getting the Sundance Channel, which I have never watched before. Anyway, I was waiting for Futurama to start on Cartoon Network (yeah, I think I am going to bomb this week’s computer program, too) and I realized there was a short film playing on Sundance called The Good Things.
I figured it was worth a few minutes, so I started watching it. I think it was already 10 minutes in or so (it is only about 25 minutes anyway). It is about a toll both operator on the Kansas Turnpike whose ex-girlfriend is getting married and he doesn’t know what to do with his life. Should he move on, leave Kansas, and see the world or should he cling to his friends and family in his hometown? It was cool how the whole short (or the part I saw) was shot at the toll booth and how his interactions with other people were with those who drove past his booth.
I thought the photography was cool, really slow paced showing the slow pace of the job and it had lots of wide angles showing just how empty and pancake-flat Kansas really is. It made me think about and understand better what makes a good short, I think with my shorts (short films, not clothing-under or otherwise), they are usually a bit ambitious, too much. Where as a feature-length film is a story, a short is more of a single moment in time (I think I remember my teacher saying something about that, but whatever). It has already gotten me thinking.
[rating:4]