11 Minutes Ago

This movie has lots of innovation, wit and fun with a minimum of gimmicks, other than the premise of the movie. It's made on a budget but it really does compete well with studio movies due to clever writing and production. Often smaller movies have poor sound, but the sound is nice and even throughout.

I'm really at a loss as to how it could end up with this weighted score because it was a wonderful viewing experience. It's playing tomorrow at the 'Best Of' Film Festival, and I'm going to watch it again. I highly recommend seeing it, and I have no association with the writer, director, production, etc.

It's my kind of movie and worth seeing.

Very interesting time line of events add a twist to this film. I had to make sure I paid close attention so I didn't get left behind, but this gave a depth to the movie that held my attention. Acting was very good and made me feel like I was sitting in the same room with the actors. All of the actors truly played their parts such that their characters looked very natural for them to be playing. Editing, from what I understand, left out a few pieces that left a couple of questions unanswered; but not enough to interfere with the plot. I was amazed to hear that the entire film was shot in one day. This fact is testament to how well orchestrated production was.

Years after watching this gem of entertainment i find myself recommending this movie to colleagues. I'm surrounded by innovative technologist that gather for team building discussions. When i reveal that i prefer sci fi, specifically, time travel, i recommend this movie. The final seconds are brilliant.

I love the way i feel when my intelligence is entertained.

The simplicity of conjectures to conclusions moved my focus from laissez-faire to transfixed. I was entertained by the story's ability to induce "Just enough" anxiety and scientific-chaos to keep me quizzical.

You might find it interesting that I only watched the film once in the 2008 timeframe, and haven't seen it a second time. That's over 15 years of me, sharing this movie title. Memorable film.

I'm a little surprised to see low scores on this clever little picture. It was all shot in one day on a very small budget and I think it works pretty well for what it is. It has a nice little romance that plays out in one evening for the female character but the male character has to endure being in love with this woman for months, as he is only able to go back into time to see her for eleven minutes at a time and then wait a while and then come back. And sometimes he comes back before the last time he came back so the work he's done with the girl has to be redone...it's maddening enough to try to seduce a woman chronologically, imagine jumping in and out of the space-time continuum and trying to keep your "game" on straight. Anyway the way it plays out is real fun. Don't let the fact that there are no name actors in this one...it stands pretty well on its own without Michael Caine (new ordinances require Michael Caine to appear in every major Hollywood release in case you were not aware of this). Anyway, check it out...pretty fun.

There's certainly no shortage of low budget time travel thrillers, as films like Primer and Timecrimes have swept the indie sci-fi scene and continued to produced on a fairly regular basis. Ripping a hole in the space-time continuum used to require a souped up DeLorean, but now anyone with a camera and a sturdy screenplay can manifest a respectable character study that's propelled by the always fascinating temporal displacement. Bob Gebert's 11 Minutes Ago is a recent example of how this tendency to create the poor man's time travel yarn persists among those eager to break into the business; unfortunately, though, it's not as crisply written (or directed) as either of the previously mentioned films.

The story follows a guy named Pack (Ian Michaels) who's managed to create a device that allows him to travel back in time. Pack hales from 48 years in the future, and his purpose in visiting the early 21st century is to collect air samples. He's doing this—here comes the environmental punch line—to try and prevent an air contamination epidemic that has drastically reduced birthrates and threatened the perpetuation of mankind as a species. Pack's machine has its limitations, though. He can only stay in the past for 11 minutes at a time, and he has to be in the dark in order to "tumble" (that's what the act of time traveling is called) forward to his year of origin. Why he absolutely has to be in the dark is never explained, but the reason is quite obvious: as already clarified, 11 Minutes Ago is working on a very limited budget. Adding nifty effects a la Back to the Future or The Terminator is out of the question, and it's safe to say that throwing in spectacular CGI sequences would serve only as an odd contrast to the purposefully amateur nature of the footage we're provided with. But I digress. As Pack works to complete his mission, he must navigate the perils of a low budget wedding reception (is there a theme at work here?) and a camera crew who's decided to document his shenanigans instead of the nuptial proceedings. One would think that he'd be concerned about creating paradoxes, so on and so forth, but no; this guy doesn't mind disclosing some fairly sensitive information about the future, and he's a ladies man to boot. His infatuation with a bridesmaid named Cynthia (Christina Mauro) causes him to revisit the same two hour time span over and over again in order to try and woo her. Talk about deja vu.

While there are some smart moments in 11 Minutes Ago, it ultimately feels like a short story that was wedged into a particularly dry issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine as filler. Brief allusions to the future act as teasers, and the chemistry between Pack and Cynthia is akin to a faltering EKG, hitting high and low points at sporadic intervals. It never really achieves any degree of credibility, as it becomes increasingly difficult to accept the notion that these two have fallen in love after only briefly flirting. It's true that after each sojourn to the past Pack must spend 3 months preparing for his next 11 minute session with Cynthia, and as the story progresses his range of emotions suggest that he's had ample time to consider his feelings and has become genuinely smitten with her. Still, he manages to dish out some of the worst pillow talk since Attack of the Clones, and Cynthia's acceptance of this mushy mumbling is a real test of a viewer's patience.

The movie throws in the obligatory item (here, a playing card) or reference that will, of course, be explained later in the film. This has been done to suggest that it's a brainy sci-fi offering, but many of these revelations, which occur late in the movie, feel flat and contrived. It seems that Bob Gebert and company wanted to create something that might pass as a decidedly more calm, maybe even introverted cousin to 12 Monkeys, and one could argue that the lack of tangible effects in Terry Gilliam's piece is proof that flashy effects aren't necessary to get the job done. 12 Monkeys, however, does have one thing that 11 Minutes Ago doesn't—a memorable story that causes the audience to feel like they have a stake in what's happening on screen. Sadly, that sense of urgency is missing here, and this is what causes the whole thing to implode in on itself in a singularity of blinding intensity.

Many people would say that all you need is love; I'd argue that you need one heck of a compelling story, too.