'THE MCCORMICK BROTHERS': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)
Luke Neumann directs this local low budget short film about two Irish brothers feuding over bread and a new romantic interest in one's life that could draw them apart. It stars Luke, his wife Marika Neumann and Pete Dryden. The film runs just under eight minutes and was shot for a mere $250. It was also filmed in just three days. While it does lack any real story or strong character development (that's to be expected with an 8 minute film though) it looks stunningly beautiful, is humorous and feels epic (on such small means)!
Luke plays Neal McCormick and Pete plays his brother Kellen. As the film opens Kellen is upset and stumbling drunk through the woods. His brother has began a date with the lovely Molly O'Conner (Marika) and brought her to a beautiful view high atop a hillside. Kellen has managed to track his brother to this site and is not happy to find he's on a date without him. Heated words quickly turn to drunk gunfire and a battle ensues.
The film was shot with the Magic Lantern hack for the Canon Rebel T2i/550D and is one of the first short films done at -16 QScale (which apparently films at higher data rates than normal). I don't know anything about the technology but am very interested now. Luke is an expert with the equipment and that's why the film looks so good. I know Mr. Neumann and have worked on one small film project with him, he recorded and edited one of my 'MOVIE TALK' reviews for me (on 'THE GREEN HORNET') and posted it to his YouTube page (which has drawn far more hits than my page possibly can). All of his film projects look amazing and he's a fast up and coming film presence because of it.
Like I said the film is very humorous as well as beautiful and it just feels epic. There's not a lot of story and character development they could do with the film in just eight minutes (that's why short films have to be reviewed in a completely different way than features) and it did leave me wanting a lot more. It almost feels like a great opening scene to a big epic film and that were just getting to know these two fascinating characters (and we want to know them better). My one nitpick with the film is that they used the score to another film, 'FAR AND AWAY', instead of coming up with their own original music but that's just me being picky. All in all it's a very impressive and beautiful little short film.
Watch our review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWu8xGgFJco