MALIBU FILM FESTIVAL

Ninth Annual Malibu Film Festival 2008
Friday April 4, 2008
Written By: Linda Overly

The Run
(87m, United Kingdom) Dir. Tania Meneguzzi



Young, beautiful, and in love, Amanda and Rowly have big dreams. She is an aspiring musician and he is a student/ bartender content as a working class stiff. On the opposite of the spectrum, Amanda is frustrated with the roadblocks in attaining fame and fortune. In an attempt to get there more quickly, she convinces Rowly to traffic cocaine from Costa Rica into the United Kingdom.

After a few smooth runs and deals, the couple rapidly becomes addicted to their new found flow as well as snorting up their profits. Soon their reality becomes so sick and twisted that it leaves them hanging on by the skin of their teeth instead of the having the world at their fingertips.



Mentally beaten and physically worn and left with no choice, the two are forced by their distributors to do another run. Finally, both Amanda and Rowly realize the rock bottom lives they have created for themselves.

The feature film draws audiences into the dark, horrid underworld of drugs and dollars signs. Many may find it shocking while others may find it right on the money. In either case, after all the couple has been through, even the most cynical of viewers will find themselves hoping that Amanda and Rowly will come out clean from their downward spiral.

Some say hope burns eternal and everyone deserves a second chance, while others believe that poor judgment deserves punishment to the full extent. The Run simply asks the hard question: How much humanity are Amanda and Rowly worthy of?

HD/DV FILM FESTIVAL -LA

HDDV FILM FESTIVAL-LA
Written By Kim Jindra

GARRISON
Written and directed by Kerry Valderrama

Garrison follows two soldiers as they search for their AWOL superior. Valderrama, who served with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan, got the germ for his movie after his father sent him clips of happenings at Fort Bragg, NC. Valderrama said he had seen a lot of war movies but none had ever gotten it just right especially when dealing with Post Traumatic Stress. He admitted he made the movie for his fellow soldiers. He said he hopes the movie is well received at the G.I. Festival in July.

Garrison takes place over three days with a few occasional flash backs within flashbacks for relationship purposes. The use of black and white is effective. I admit I am not a military person, so the chain of command stuff was a bit confusing but maybe for a military audience it makes the film more realistic. Another quibble is giving too much plot information too soon. The audience knows what happens before the military. It would have been more suspenseful if the audience and soldiers, McManus and Cain, discovered the clues together. There is only one twist at the end.



The movie wasn’t sentimental or gung ho. Plot wise the movie covered old ground, i.e. spousal abuse, recruit hazing, soldiers looking after their own etc...

The locations seemed authentic even though Valderrama admitted finding old hospitals, classrooms etc... to shoot in San Antonio was a bit of a challenge. He had no access to actually military sites. The film was shot on a Canon XL2 and scored by Douglas Edward. I didn't care for the songs over the credits but the score accentuated the movie.



This was not an easy film for me to watch since I have two family members who have either been to Afghanistan and/or Iraq and another nephew who leaves in June. But I'm sure Valderrama knows his audience.

DEPLOYMENT STRATEGY
Written/directed by Mark Cheng



For me this film was a cross between Plan 9 From Outer Space and a poor imitation of the television series La Femme Nikita. It is set in 2055 but the look was cheesy sometimes and downright 2008 at others. It was especially the latter in the big end scene. The plot is the age old man versus machine and for me the most interesting character was the Sex-bot. There were too many characters and the conflict between the humans was overwritten, trite and at times overacted. But, I felt the Major was winking at the audience during his scenes.

AFTERBIRTH
Directed by Scott Belyea

On the surface, Afterbirth appears to be a lab mistake gone even more wrong when the stuttering, and belittled janitor is left to dispose of a beaker of mysterious blue liquid and a fetus from a back room abortion. The end result is murder and mayhem in the standard horror mold.
In a running time of nine minutes, AFTERBIRTH, takes a stab at abortion and stem cell research or does it? See it and decide.

THE HOUSE
Written/directed by Douglas Elford-Argent

The House, revolves around a brother/sister burglary team and a dead body. The pair is interrogated separately but the police has a hard time convincing each of them to give the other up. Not much new here, not even the twist. It felt like the eight minutes it lasted. The script wasn't exciting but the actors gave it their best. The camera work was good though!

17th PHILADELPHIA FILM FESTIVAL Part 2

17th Philadelphia Film Festival Reviews
Written By Camryn Hansen

American Teen
Directed By Nanette Burstein



Set in the small, one high school town of Warsaw, Indiana, Nanette Burstein’s documentary American Teen explores the lives of four very different Midwestern teenagers as they each make their way through the last ten months of high school, negotiating the harrowing social struggles of day-to-day suburban life while making the important decisions about what to do after graduation that will either solidify or sever their hometown ties. In quick succession, we meet Hannah, the spunky, stylish social outcast with artistic aspirations; Megan, the all-American Homecoming Queen with a hidden inner rage; Colin, the eager-to-please basketball star whose only hopes for college rest on a sports scholarship; and Jake, the video game-obsessed geek who, despite his most fervent efforts, can’t seem to keep a girlfriend for ten minutes together.



Herein lies what seems to me to be the primary allure of American Teen: in its up close and personal look at the dreams, disappointments, romances, triumphs and embarrassments of each of these teenagers’ lives, it allows us access to the inner workings of social circles that to the average American, aren’t particularly exotic or unfamiliar. For many of us, becoming a fly on the wall of the Homecoming Queen and the star of the basketball team fulfills a real-life fantasy that at one time, back in those better-forgotten pimply-braces-glasses years, we actually had ourselves. As far as juicy tidbits go, American Teen doesn’t fail to disappoint. When Hannah’s boyfriend of two years dumps her unexpectedly, she falls into a depression so debilitating it may get her kicked out of school. Colin appears to be buckling under his Elvis impersonator father’s pressure to get recruited by college coaches, and may fail to get a basketball scholarship altogether. Though Megan’s entire family has gone to the University of Notre Dame, she’s not sure she has what it takes to get in. Jake, who in his own estimation, “sucks at life,” might do a lot better with women if he just stops hating himself. It’s difficult not to get wrapped up in these stories, to the point where we’re biting our nails at Colin’s sectionals game; tearing up as a bright-eyed Hannah imagines her future at film school; clenching our fists when Megan’s Notre Dame letter arrives in the mail; and cringing when Jake says to the girl who’s breaking up with him across the table, “This table’s covered with grease…because I had my face on it.”



This being said, it is worth asking whether despite its narrative intrigue, this film is really bringing anything distinctly new to the table. As though to suggest that technology has somehow overhauled the high school experience in recent years, it not only liberally quotes text messages and emails on screen, but occasionally plays out characters’ fears and fantasies in animated sequences reminiscent of contemporary comic books and video games. Overall, however, it is not my impression that anyone who actually went to public high school in America in the last thirty years would feel like he or she learned anything new about the current generation from American Teen: for the most part, it felt pretty much the same as I remember it.

Stuck
Directed By Stuart Gordon



In Stuck, an agonizing black comedy by writer/director Stuart Gordon, one character’s bad luck unexpectedly collides one night with another’s bad decision-making to produce the most unrelentingly gruesome story to hit the screen in a long time. It’s a typical Friday in Providence, Rhode Island, and Brandi (Mena Suvari), a young, hard-working nursing home attendant, has just been offered an important promotion—with the one condition that she prove her dedication to the job by coming in early on Saturday morning. Both to celebrate and to unwind, she makes plans for a night out with her co-worker/friend Tanya (Rukiya Bernard) and drug-dealer boyfriend Rashid (Russell Hornsby). Over the course of the same day, the recently laid off Tom (Stephen Rea) not only gets kicked out of his apartment, but loses a crucial job interview and is forced to spend the night on a park bench. Ordered out of the park in the middle of the night by the police, Tom, complete with newly acquired shopping cart, makes his way on foot across town to the homeless shelter. At a dark, quiet intersection, the now thoroughly soused Brandi, driving home alone, hits what she believes to be a homeless man with her car. Tom’s head crashes through her windshield and blood drips liberally onto the seats. Brandi screams, and panics. And then she drives home…with Tom still on top of the car.



In the farsical aftermath of the accident, Brandi attempts to cover up her irresponsible behavior and still earn her promotion by hiding her car, and with it, the brutally mutilated Tom, in her garage…eventually planning to kill him with the street-wise Rashid’s help. When Tom, far from dead, realizes he’s a prisoner and tries to escape, a battle of wills ensues. As it progresses, it becomes one of the bloodiest, grossest, and ultimately most ludicrous battles of will imaginable, as Brandi develops progressively sicker and more elaborate ways of taking revenge for the accident on her victim, Tom, who simply refuses to die. While the sheer audacity of these two characters sometimes affords a laugh, the film seems much more hell-bent on making the audience sick to their stomachs in a way that does not, contrary to various claims, teach us about the nature of humanity vs. inhumanity. I was not particularly thrilled to be stuck in the theatre for 94 minutes.

17th PHILADELPHIA FILM FESTIVAL Part 1

Opening Night Film Philadelphia Film Festival
By Camryn Hansen

I Feel Nice. Like Sugar and Rice.


Young@Heart
Directed By Stephen Walker


At first, it was hard to know what to make of the ninety two year old woman in a tuxedo shirt and jeans whose deadpan rendition of The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” made up the opening scene of Stephen Walker’s courageous new documentary, Young at Heart. I had heard of the film only as a charming, feel-good piece about a chorus of quirky seniors who performed rock and roll songs with the implicit message that growing old doesn’t have to keep a person from pursuing her dreams. For me, however, the reality of experiencing a ninety two year old woman singing “Should I Stay or Should I Go” was instantly more complicated than that. It was a little bit morbid. It was a touch uncomfortable. It imbued me with a sense of impending doom. And then I laughed. And laughed again.



Indeed, Walker’s debut film, which documents the lives and co-operative efforts of Young at Heart, a chorus of twenty four seniors aged sixty nine to ninety two, to prepare for their upcoming “Alive and Well” concert with the help and encouragement of chorus director Bob Cilman, does not hesitate to embrace the darkly humorous side of this group’s unusual and oftentimes insurmountable-seeming enterprise. At moments it also appreciates as well as dignifies the daily struggle of many of the chorus members to simply show up to rehearsal three times a week, let alone master the diverse and challenging pieces that the charismatic, rigidly un-patronizing Cilman prescribes. (For “Alive and Well,” these include James Brown’s “I Feel Good,” Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia,” and Allen Toussaint’s “Yes We Can Can,” a song containing a daunting 71 iterations of the word “can.”) When shortly before their concert, two key chorus members die unexpectedly of health complications, the film strikes a remarkable balance between mourning the group’s losses, and finding honest inspiration in the resolve of the remaining members to carry on with the show in spite of them…or, as we discover, perhaps because of them. For this reason, it is difficult to unequivocally condemn the occasional off-notes of what seemed to me to be ill-placed humor, chiefly in the film’s collection of MTV-style videos featuring clownish, caricatured performances by the chorus of such hits as “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Staying Alive,” and “We’re on a Road to Nowhere.” All told, this is a film which explores a way of growing older that most of us didn’t realize was possible. Like most things worth doing, it doesn’t always feel good. It does, however, feel real.

DC INDEPENDENT FILM FEST PART 4

Pop Foul
Director: Moon Molson
USA 2007 Run time: 20 min.

When a young boy heading home from Little League game sees his father take a "beat down" from a local thug, the pair enters into a secretive pact designed to hide the disturbing incident from the boy's mother.

DIRECTOR: Moon Molson
WRITER: Moon Molson
CAST: Danielle K. Thomas, Keith Bullard, Sekou Laidlow, Steven Clark
PRODUCER: Moon Molson
cinematographer: David R. Jones



“You dropped the ball…deal with it.” It is fascinating to see the relationship reveal itself between Lavonte and his father, and then the added dynamic between Lavonte and his mother.

Pop Foul opens with Lavonte venting his rage from a baseball field error onto a fence. His father, who was there to support him, cuts to the chase, and has very direct and logical advice for his son.

Issues quickly arise, however, when we see that Bobby, Lavonte’s father, literally cannot walk his talk.

How much issue burying can one boy take? We wonder just how much this young man has had to deal with before the film even opens that he reacts to simply missing a pop foul by needing to release his frustration with such physicality.



One cannot bury secrets in the backyard…they only fester, and erupt with a vengeance. One cannot hide the truth, without it eventually needing to free itself, and one cannot continue to absorb violence without it needing to find a release and expel itself onto a new target.

The direction that Pop Foul heads is not unexpected…but that should make it all the more shocking. Pay attention.

The Sculpture
Director: Rodgers Dameron
USA 2007 Run time: 2 min.
http://www.scad.edu/



The Sculpture is a stop motion animation that depicts the surreal transformation when man alters stone to fit his image.

DIRECTOR: Rodgers Dameron
WRITER: Rodgers Dameron
PRODUCER: Rodgers Dameron
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Rodgers Dameron

“When a stone is made into a sculpture, it ruins the stone forever….”

Point taken. Dameron makes a valid one. Who are we, as mere transient occupants of the planet, to take something that nature (or God, depending upon one’s belief system) has taken millions (or thousands) of years to lovingly create and destroy just because we call it our art? Just because we make it into our image?



The execution of the waxy stop-motion animation, however, was so crudely put together it reminded me of nothing so much as the California Raisins commercials from the 1980s and made the film’s theme a challenge to take seriously.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A398VraSBwY

The Good Mother of Abangoh
Director: Nadine Licostie
USA 2007 Run time: 22 min.
http://www.abangoh.org/



The Good Mother of Abangoh is the story of Sister Jane Mankaa, a woman who defies her family to join a contemplative religious order then leaves that community to care for the orphaned children in her village. The inspiration, dedication and willpower of this amazing woman sustains her family of 43 children. Shot on location in Abangoh, Cameroon, this film captures just how Sister Jane helps her children recover from their suffering and flourish in their newfound lives.

DIRECTOR: Nadine Licostie
PRODUCER: Nadine Licostie
cinematographer: Daniele Marracino
composer: Salvadore Poe

It is often said that the camera picks up thought. Filmmaker Nadine Licostie has done a stunning job of carefully designing an environment where her cameras can pick up the thoughts of some extraordinary individuals.

Before Licostie arrived in Cameroon to tell the story of this miraculous orphanage in Abangoh, there was Sister Jane Mankaa. This exceptional woman began a home for the neediest of needy children in Cameroon out of a specific kind of emotional empathy. She says that “Love is such a powerful instrument to make people feel at home.” Having experienced cruelty in her own home in early life, blended with her willful personality and unconditional love upon entering a religious order, Sister Jane somehow developed the genius-level skills necessary to save these children.



It is so lovely to see her share the children’s joy. That joy is the success of her project that we see on the children’s faces. In turn, it is heartbreaking to see her agony: that she is limited to only 40 children in her “family” at one time.

How can one not be completely absorbed in the personal accounts of the children of Good Shepherd: Gilbert, Mirabelle, Kelvin, Juliet, Kevin, Petee, Divine, and Doreen? These are children who literally did not consider themselves to be people before they arrived to live with Sister Jane. Through the lens Licostie has provided us, we are able to share their stories of the new home they are a part of as they can at last let their pasts begin to fade.
Carolan

DC INDEPENDENT FILM FEST PART 3

Volcanic Sprint


USA 2007 Run time: 53 min. Director: Steven Dorst & Dan Evans

The sleepy town in Buea in the Southwest Province of Cameroon hosts Africa's most grueling footrace: the Mt. Cameroon Race of Hope, a marathon-length sprint 10,000 feet up a live volcano and back down again.To conquer the mountain, racers must overcome some of the cruelest conditions in sport: temperatures fluctuate 50 degrees, altitude sickness claims the weak, and loose volcanic stones can cause serious injury and even death as runners fly back down the mountain.For a select few, the rewards are lucrative: the top runners earn more in five hours than the average Cameroonian earns in four years. But nearly half of all runners will quit the race conquered by Mt. Cameroon.

DIRECTOR: Steven Dorst & Dan Evans
WRITERS: Dan Evans, Steve Dorst
PRODUCER: Steve Dorst
cinematographer: Ryan Hill
composer: Steve Steckler

http://www.volcanicsprint.com/

Volcanic Sprint is a compelling film that shows us how much is possible when means are truly limited. How else would a farmer from Southwest Cameroon become a revered extreme racing icon?

The fact that this film was a low-budget endeavor even speaks to that. The filmmakers suffered altitude sickness right along with the athletes while in production.

We live in a global society where affluent world citizens regularly pay in the neighborhood of $100,000 to challenge Mt. Everest (not to mention the added gratuity of their lives should she so require it.) They climb for the challenge and love of climbing.

On Mt. Cameroon, the majority of the people who annually run the Race of Hope are driven by a completely different force. Most of them are citizens of Cameroon who race for the prize money. They see it as a type of job opportunity, as the financial reward for a first place finish can equal five years’ salary toward family survival. There is a very specific sense of greater purpose to the race participants, a conscious superobjective.

There is no thought to high tech footwear for the locals, and rehabilitating an injured knee for a regional athlete is unheard of. They race with only what little they have, as we watch shoes fall off on the mountain trail, and knees give out while runners somehow continue….Magic happens on screen before us.

While reflecting upon Volcanic Sprint, I have started fantasizing about a dream Celebrity Deathmatch: Five-time Female Division Champion Sarah Etonge (did I mention she accomplished most of these as a grandmother?) vs. Mt. Everest:Beyond the Limit athlete Tim Medvetz. http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/everestbeyond/climbers/tim-update.html

Sarah Etonge would kick his ass, I have no doubt.

Dorst and Evans do a beautiful job of weaving into their film that this community is anything but a sterile “sporting” environment. This race doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Singing, dancing, and libation ceremonies are interwoven into the fabric of preparation for this race along with a rigorous training schedule. We see how the people of Mt. Cameroon lead whole, integrated lives whether they are rich with material possessions or not.


Testing Hope: Grade 12 in the New South Africa
USA 2007 Run time: 40 min. Director: Molly Blank


Testing Hope: Grade 12 in the New South Africa's chronicles the lives of four young people in Nyanga township, South Africa, as they work towards their crucial Matric exams, which one student calls, "the decider". These students began school in 1994, the same year apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela became president. While this is the new South Africa, many vestiges of apartheid persist. "Testing Hope" follows the students as they prepare for the exams which they believe will determine their future. It explores what hangs in the balance if students pass Matric and what awaits those who do not. How do they achieve their dreams in a country where so many obstacles remain?

DIRECTOR: Molly Blank
PRODUCER: Molly Blank
cinematographer: Kristin Pichaske
composer: John Keltonic

http://www.testinghope.com/

Filmmaker Molly Blank introduces us to South Africa’s Matric exams through the lives of four remarkable students: Babalwa, Noluyanda, Mongamo and Sipho. These students take nothing for granted and treat every day and each sliver of opportunity as a blessing. This documentary is remarkably personal as we see just how high the stakes are for each of these students. We know that they represent an entire generation fighting for opportunity and denied a fighting chance.

Striking details include footage of students preparing for school doing things like shining their shoes. Do American students even know how to do this? Have we, as a culture that has become accustomed to such a high level of ease and comfort sacrificed a high level of drive as well?

One constantly wonders during this film what the next step will be for those who pass the MATRIC. What will South African society offer them next?

See Testing Hope, and then try to look at education in our country the same way you did before your experience.

Carolan

DC INDEPENDENT FILM FEST PART 2

NAKED BRANCHES
Director: Will Kim
USA 2007 Run time: 5 min.



http://www.willkim.net/animation.html



And the plot synopsis:

While a male peacock and a female peacock (peahen) exchange a spiritual, love talk, a snake makes his own journey to connect the two lovers and to take away the peacock's desire till the last moment of the peacock's life. Emptiness is what the snake leaves behind after he accomplishes his wants in this film, 'Naked Branches.' The filmmaker Will Kim uses watercolor to explore his one hope that's vanished into air.

DIRECTOR: Will Kim
WRITER: Will Kim
PRODUCER: Will Kim
composer: Kirin Kapin



Naked branches are, of course, without leaves. They are a foundation without that which they support. In our contemporary Western culture, we often strive to impose a linear plot upon any film we experience, whether there are spoken words or not. Will Kim has given us a reprieve from that with the lyrical Naked Branches, which is an experience much closer to that of dance.

The warm realm of recognizable characters, an almost Eden-like world of peacock and peahen flows through a life-altering encounter with a snake that is violently depicted through negative space…all seamlessly and liquidly woven together with Kirin Kapin’s music so that what Kim shares with us isn’t just a visual experience. Instead, it is able to seep in through our ears and pores, bypassing our intellects, and affecting us on a very emotional level.

RUBY BLUE
Director: Jan Dunn
United Kingdom 2007 Run time: 112 min.



And the plot is:

At 65, Jack (Bob Hoskins) is consumed by past guilt and regret. His strained relationship with his son is severed on the death of his wife. Jack is lost and alone in his self loathing, and spirals into decline. Hope arrives in the unlikely form of eight-year-old, Florrie, a soft-natured girl who moves in next door and delights in his long neglected racing pigeon Ruby. When his glamorous French neighbor, Stephanie (Josiane Balasko) takes pity on him, Jack cannot help but fall for her charms. Encouraged by Stephanie, Jack helps a local hooligan by giving him his prized Ruby. When an innocent friendship with Florrie is thrown into question and Stephanie reveals a well kept secret, Jack’s life is thrown into turmoil once again. Jack finally cracks, consumed with sadness and humiliation, until tragedy forces him to confront his prejudices, face his fears and challenge those around him in a bid to win back Stephanie’s love.

DIRECTOR: Jan Dunn
WRITER: Jan Dunn
CAST: Bob Hoskins, Josiane Balasko
PRODUCER: Elaine Wickham
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ole Bratt Birkeland


http://www.rubybluethefilm.com/


Most of us love to play detective. Just look at the popularity of shows like Law and Order. All versions of Law and Order. We love to put together the clues in the comfort of our loungewear and accuse strangers daily and feel good about how we solved the crimes brilliantly. It is a powerful feeling. I’m as guilty as anyone. With Ruby Blue, Jan Dunn taps into that very human tendency. This tendency can lie where it is in our loungewear, progress out of us to a bit of gossip with another, or steamroll into to a full on slander fest in the true spirit of The Children’s Hour where law enforcement is involved and peoples’ lives are literally at stake. Ruby Blue has us on the edges of our seats, and seeing ourselves everywhere we turn.



There are four pivotal characters: Grumpy Jack (Bob Hoskins, who has never been better), the glamorous Stephanie (Josiane Balasko), Ian the hood (Jody Latham), and eight-year-old Florrie (Jessica Stewart). Three are fronting…the world knows them only by façades. In reality, the three fronters have so much more on the inside than their façades let others get away with thinking they are.

The fourth, Florrie, is the key to unlocking all of them. Florrie is beautiful on the outside, beautiful on the inside. With Florrie, what you see is what you get. She keeps it real. She doesn’t ever see the façades to begin with because she doesn’t have one of her own. She sees that Jack is a sweet, if lonely man in need of straight talk….She tells him that he smells because he smells. She tells him that if he were nicer, people wouldn’t call him “Grumpy Jack.” Her attitude is infectious. The characters start to open their eyes to one another.

Likewise, Jack gives Ian some plain talk, probably the first he’s had. Ian springs to life almost magically, at the opportunity to take some responsibility with the prized Ruby Blue. It might, in fact, be hard to believe his 180º turnaround had we not heard earlier from his little sister that he’s actually nice...he just fronts. Most of all, it is Ian that eventually gives Jack the key perspective on what is important with Stephanie, who starts out good and just gets better the deeper you dig. One just has to accept her issues. See Ruby Blue just for Josiane Balasko’s performance, if for no other reason, by the way. She is a powerhouse.



What is so fascinating in this film are the clues that Dunn sprinkles for us as viewers along the way. We start piecing together Jack’s past…what has he done that is so horrible that his own son kicks him to the curb the very day of his wife’s funeral…that he won’t let him see his own grandchildren…ah…he resists the temptation to go into the pub…and again he leaves a bottle of whisky untouched with great effort…and is quick to lose his temper….

We also play detective with Stephanie…did her daughter just say she was talking to her mother? The daughter just mentioned a secret that her mother tells people and they always leave afterwards. Jack comments to Stephanie about how strong her hands are….

We are not alone…most of the neighborhood has been playing dime store detective just like we have. They have been whispering in their loungewear, piecing together their own clues about Jack, and they have decided that they sum up to him being a dirty old pedophile, instead of being happy at being given a second chance by fate and his own goodwill at becoming a decent human being.

How ironic that due to the neighborhood whispering, Florrie’s mother leaves her with her friend’s neglectful mother, who in turn runs off to the pub leaving the two unsupervised to wander off and get into trouble.

Dunn does a beautiful job of utilizing juxtaposition in a scene where Ian’s mother is judgmentally griping about her erroneously drawn conclusions about Jack’s supposedly inappropriate behavior. She rants on and on while swearing in front of her 8-year old daughter and halfheartedly forbidding her to watch violent cartoons.

There is more than one prize in this film, more than one Ruby Blue. One just has to have Florrie’s perspective to see who it is.

Carolan