My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York

This is the first film by director Barbara Schrock, and it is a great offering. This short is nominated for an Oscar this year in the best live action film short category.

The plot is pretty simple, but in the end, it is very unique. Basically, a widow from Sioux Falls, SD goes to visit her daughter in New York's East Village. When she first arrives, she is very scared, and this feeling is not helped by the fact that her daughter lives across the street from the headquarters of a large motorcycle gang, The Satan's Disciples! She is overcome with questions like, "Is it safe?" and "What do they do over there?"

In the end, it gives plenty of laughs and just enough sympathy and drama to keep everybody amused. If you get a chance to see this movie, don't pass it up.--9/10

A slyly deceptive film about a midwestern widow who journeys to New York to visit her daughter who lives in the East Village across from the Satan's Disciples' (a fictional biker gang) headquarters. The short is surprisingly rich, both poignant and funny at the same time. Helen Stenborg delivers a beautifully nuanced performance, one that could have easily slipped into the mawkish, but never does. The writing, direction, and cinematography are highly accomplished for a so-called student film. It is a rare balancing act that weaves fantasy and reality and dream into multi-layered whole. Eminently deserving of the 2000 Oscar.

I recently saw this film and thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was very funny. I thought the actress did a wonderful job showing her feelings of going from a rural place to a "scary" city. I also enjoyed the positive behavior from the bikers. Highly recommended!

.....funny what a simple name can do,,,I recently saw a 2004 Best picture nominated film titled "Sideways" and knew I had seen the name Rex Pickett for writing credits in a film a few years back...It was for this 2000 'best live action short Oscar winner...I fell in love with this movie in its first release,,,its story line was fantastic with the perfect mixture of mother,daughter tenderness without it being corny!!

The production was first rate for a short film and it wasn't until a few yrs later that I learned it had been a student film from AFI.Producer Tamara Tiehel and director Barbra Schock deserve great praise for never letting this film slip into the "student project" genre...It's pace is perfect and the kinship between "Biker" and the Mother are first rate,,,the technical end of the film are up to snuff also....the cinematography is warm and subtle in the countryside, and hard and gritty in the inner city ex.(Scorcese's Mean Streets)..a great short film with some great laughs..

Appalling because a student film had won the Academy Award for best live-action short. My fellow film students and I were hopeful when we watched it.

Appalling because it is so bad. As cornball as it gets. It's competently made (you don't question the technical aspects of the film), but it's utterly charmless, bland, and unfunny. It's like watching bad television. It thinks it's a lot better than it is. So, apparently, does the AMPAS.

Maybe I shouldn't be at all surprised that it won an Oscar. Winning one these days seems to be more of an insult than a compliment.