Expiration Date

Honestly, I was disappointed in "Expiration Date." Super clever title and interesting premise, but I don't think it delivered. What was it about? The main character's desire to reconnect with his Native roots? Or, more likely, it was his need to overcome his fear of death. But, he wasn't set up as someone who has lived his life in fear -- it seems as if his life was going fine, but since doomsday is approaching he should now start worrying. I didn't buy it. Meanwhile, the supporting characters in the film didn't seem to have needs that blended into an overarching story. They were all just doing their thing, running parallel to the main character. Also, what was treated as a "curse" looked more like a coincidence. Who cursed the family? Why? When? Finally, why didn't he just plan on staying in his apartment all day on his birthday? Those are my criticisms, but I did love the shots of Seattle, cinematography was beautiful, acting was good in the times it wasn't outstanding.

A great film. Truly enjoyed the story and acting. Very funny film. Catch this film if you can and you won't be disappointed.

Just won Best Feature and Audience Award at the Omaha Film Festival. The presence of Rick Stevenson at the festival answering questions made the event and film really enjoyable.

Hopefully a wider audience is able to get to see this movie soon. Look forward to whatever is next on Rick's list.

The Omaha Film Festival was in its first year and was run like a top notch festival with quality films, documentaries and shorts. This festival should be a huge success for years to come.

This is a great movie that you can take the whole family to see. Clever storyline and clever writing. Well acted and just an all around great movie. You should see it. It's a very original story line.

This is made in the way that more movies need to be made. There's a lot of garbage out there and these are the kind of movies that should be popular.

This is the kind of movie that just puts you in a good mood and makes you feel better. Please go and see it.

Dee Wallace Stone is great as the mother in it. I also enjoyed the Native American backing of the movie. I thought it was a cool element. It's a unique twist on the romantic comedy.

A film with a core idea that should work but really just doesn't. This film has all the ambition of a quirky indie comedy and especially reminds me of garden state but really lacks the finesse. Its very much a film that suffers from poor direction, editing and some bizarre sound. The way the sound has been mixed on this film is really quite bizarre with the dialogue sounding almost dubbed in due to the lack of atmosphere sound and over use of soundtrack which with a guess is down to the use of radio Mic's over a boom leaving us with to clearer sound. But the biggest faults i have to pick are that the script feels under developed and forced while a large selection of the shots leave us feeling disconnected from the characters, its really a film that feels like it could have needed an extra 6 months development.

So there's this young man, see, and he knows when he's going to die due to an old family curse, and he spends the last two weeks of his life preparing for his grisly demise.

Sounds gloomy, doesn't it? And a bit corny.

Happily, Expiration Date avoids both of these two pitfalls adroitly, and what could have been an 'artsy' bit of gallows humor is instead a very surprisingly warm romantic bildungsroman. It is often cheeky, sometimes hilarious, and never self-indulgent.

After a brief framing narrative (think of the boy-and-grandpa bits in The Princess Bride) we are introduced to our hero, who believes that, like his father and grandfather before him, he is doomed to be crushed by a milk truck on his next birthday, just a few days hence. The preparations he makes for his imminent demise certainly occasion a few obvious bits of black humor (measuring the view from his burial plot by stretching himself out on the grass) but that takes up a lot less of our character's attention than the young woman who has entered his life and who keeps encouraging him, despite himself, to get involved with living instead of with dying. Her performance, sometimes a bit shrill, is the only sour note I felt in this movie, but I was able to overlook it because the lead character is so charming and she is clearly trying to serve as a foil for that.

The plotting is neatly reflexive, with lots of little detailed sub-plots which are brought around later in the movie and wrap the whole bundle up so that it's more allegory than realism. But that turns out to be okay (minus, again like the Princess Bride, the unnecessary framing story), and the leads generally keep things light enough that we excuse the poetic bits. I certainly hope this one finds a distributor. It deserves it.