Hot Picks
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Engaged in Vegas
USA 2021
produced by Kenny Harrison, Abe Schwartz (executive), Jennifer Daley (executive), Pétur Magnússon (co), Joyce Wu (co)
directed by Abe Schwartz
starring Jennifer Daley, Abe Schwartz, Pétur Magnússon, Adam Mervis, Sheila Sarasmita, Joyce Wu, Kenny Harrison, Olu Ajayi, Tomecca Millender
written by Abe Schwartz, cinematography by Pétur Magnússon
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Jen (Jennifer Daley) proposes to Abe (Abe Schwartz) pretty much out of
the blue, and insists the two celebrate their engagement in Las Vegas -
with cameraman Peter (Pétur Magnússon) in tow to document everything for
some sort of docu-drama as Jen's a wannabe actress. This is not totally
Abe's thing, but since he he has just launched a start-up selling barbecue
sauce, really anything that can give him a shred of publicity sounds like
good news. Initially, things go great, but then Abe learns the financier
for his start-up has just bailed, and Jen learns that his grandma is
gravely, probably terminally ill, a grandma she has a very special bond
to. So not really the things to lift one's mood, not even in Las Vegas.
Things get worse, as only hours before Jen proposed to him, Abe had a
little fling with a co-worker (Sheila Sarasmita), and it seems grandma
wants to leave Jen a very respecable fortune if she's married before 30,
making Abe feel very used rather than loved. And this is where things only
start to spin out of control ... Mockumentaries these days are
a dime a dozen, but this movie is one of the few that gets it right and
uses it to amplify the (intentionally) cringeworthy aspects of the story
by its fly-on-the-wall approach, thus adding an extra layer to the story.
Plus, for a movie of its ilk, the camerawork looks pretty posh, only
reinforcing that the documentary approach was a narrative choice rather
than an aesthetic as well as financial shortcut, while the script shows a
genuine love for storytelling. But what really makes the film is its
central actors that really have the right chemistry to pull the thing off
to make it respectively funny, damatic and cringe-worthy in all the right
moments, making this a piece of really good entertainment.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
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