Amateur

Seriously, that's what all the waiting, hype, and bluster was for? All the obsessing over which camera is "best," how indie filmmakers should work, what technical composition rules to follow, etc and the director can't even do anything interesting with form, let alone create any sense of atmosphere/mood/tone.

This just goes to show what BS the film festival circuit is. Sundance selects this for their "Writers Lab" for the same reason they select others: their own self-serving interests. Funny how they always give grants, labs, and backing to people who already have a large following (a blog with lots of fans in this case), which will only bring more people to buy their tickets, attend their events, and pay attention to them. Maybe Sundance should support more artists who don't have a loyal fanbase, a website that generates lots of traffic, or a wealth of social media followers to tap into for funding.

Amateur sees a high-school basketball star being approached in the gym by an agent, keen to influence him as to where his next move should be and happy to help him out of his difficult situation if it will mean he has a shot at managing this kid as he makes his shot at the big time. The film was made as part of an attempt to raise funds to make a full feature and as such it should at least be given credit for doing that as opposed to so many aspiring filmmakers who really don't make as much effort to get people onboard with their potential projects.

Credit given, I do have to say that I'm not sure this project was the best way to get excitement because it really doesn't say too much about the feature and as a standalone short it isn't much good. It is well made technically with good shots in a two-hander of the two actors but the dialogue and content is a little bit clichéd and obvious and this makes up most of the short film. There is a twist at the end of the film which adds something to the character and helps us understand who he is (we also see it in the game at the start) and that he knows the game well. On the flipside we see the thankless, smarmy job of the agent. Which of these characters would be the focus for the feature I'm not sure, but neither of them really appealed to me here. I guess the bigger picture of what we see a small example of here would be the feature but if this is the case I hope Koo can bring more insight and originality to the subject than he has here.

An average film then – I liked the handling of the dialogue sequences from a direction point of view, but the dialogue is obvious, the performances fairly forced and the twist at the end really was too little too late, although as a conclusion leading to the feature it does at least do a good job of saying "this is the game, now let's take a better look". I'll keep my eye out for Man-Child, but I hope it is better than this short suggests.