Skills Like This

A festival winner! (and should be)

I saw this film at the SXSW film festival in a packed house... I didn't have high expectations... honest, I was with a group of people who wanted to go because they liked the afro marketing posters and I wasn't in a mood to go against the grain.

Yippee... I so enjoyed the film. I thought it was unpredictable... raw... funny... engaging... I actually felt connected to the characters and these aren't the kinds of characters that I normally find engaging. It was a surprise at every turn. I found the humor appealing as did the high school kids who were behind me. This film is a rare treat with brilliant performances from the leading man to the waitress with only a few lines.

Great job and good luck with distribution!

Skills Like This won "Jury Prize" at the Jacksonville Film Festival this week. I had heard about "Skills Like This" through the film fest world, seeing it both in Denver, and again in Jacksonville. Skills Like This will be a cult classic, mark my words. I want to see this film over and over. I can't wait to share it with my friends. This film is so un-pretentious and original. It makes sense, and solves all the problems it proposes which is rare for low-budge film, it is indie film making at its best. The music, the characters, the bike! All I can say it, "I am going to need a ride" to this film again! SXSW Winner and all.

I found this film to be fun and engaging from beginning to end. The secret formula: interesting characters that push along the plot in unexpected directions. No amount of special effects or brilliant cinematography can beat the unique combination of honesty and criminal behavior find in the "Max" character. The supporting characters are strong as well. Max's friends Tommy and Dave balance their trio nicely, providing distinct points of view on what motivates them, why they do what they do. The film uses these three to reflect on what makes a life meaningful. With snappy editing that never feels overwrought, but keeps the story moving, I never got bored.

Monty Miranda's "Skills Like This" has more things wrong with it than just its ungrammatical title. In fact, it's about as innocuous as an indie comedy can be without disappearing from the screen entirely.

Set in Denver, the story centers around four buddies with widely divergent personalities who, nevertheless, remain the best of friends; Dave (Gabriel Tigerman), a straight-arrow salesman who hates his job; Tommy (Brian D. Phelan), a wisecracking slacker with an inflated view of his bad-boy toughness; and Max (Spencer Berger), an unsuccessful playwright who finds he has an aptitude for petty thievery and begins to view it as his very own form of artistic expression.

The theme of going outside the law as a means of finding one's identity as an individual is a fairly amusing one at its core, but the movie makers don't really seem to have much of an idea of how to carve an interesting movie out of it. Perhaps, the script by Berger is just a bit too timid, a bit too reluctant to dive head-first into the realm of slashing satire or hard-hitting black comedy to register much of an impact, settling for feel-good, pseudo-Robin Hood pablum instead. That's a shame, seeing as how most of the actors reveal at least some degree of talent that the material gives them little opportunity to show off for the audience.

Kick *** movie! Total comic ride with a huge fro and some mad skills. Just saw at Denver Film Festival with some of the Cast and Director. This film is shot with in a mod style that gives it a very energetic look and keeps the pacing moving throughout. The acting by complete unknowns (to my knowledge) was pretty amazing.

I can't get some of these classic "dumba**" lines out of my head. There are a few scenes where you are totally caught off guard and there is some true tension but pay off with the laugh or the situation. The film really never lets the viewer catch up and there are surprising turns throughout the movie. Some have called this a quirky comedy but I see it as less traditional indie style and more action comedy style with a killer soundtrack. Oh yes this film is not just pretty hilarious it makes some really cool statements about following your path.