Lee Kern's A to Z...

Lee Kern's A to Z sees Steven and Lee Kern selecting streets and exploring themes related to the street name with those that live there. Film one sees him talking about God and religion with residents of Salvation Place. Film two looks at love and romance on Lover's Walk, Singleton Road, Bride Street and others. The view of the Monarchy on Regal Close, Kings Road, Princes Lane and others. Finally Lee and his microphone talk modern times on Palestine Grove, Crusader Way, Freedom Close and so on.

One of the good things about being registered on shootingpeople.org is that I will occasionally get short films brought to my attention that I would have missed otherwise and so it was with this series of short films shown over four nights in the 3 minutes between the news ending and something else starting. The series was a mix in terms of approach and quality. The film on God seemed like it was almost a talking heads look at the subject. Modern times felt like it was too serious although I thought it was clever that, unlike the other films, it made a point by having the visuals focus on the empty streets (although focusing on an airplane through some trees didn't come off as clever as they must have thought it would have been – trying too hard and too obvious).

The middle two films are actually the best by far because, where the others are basic talking heads on subjects, they feel like complete anti-sound bite and are a wonderful p1ss take on the style. Love sees Kern doing most of the talking and there is lots of healthy cynicism, while Monarchy is a collection of funny comments with Kern on good form coming over like an evil Shane Richie (although of course this is impossible because Shane Richie is the evil Shane Richie). The central hook of using the streets is used well enough to grab the attention and create a theme but other than that it is just street signs flashing up (which I suppose is all it needed to be). I found the direction and visual style of the film hard to call. On one hand it was befitting the rough and disrespectful style of the films but then on the other hand the regular blackouts were really irritating.

An interesting and enjoyable collection of films then, even if they are not all brilliant. God is interesting, Modern times felt a bit too heavy and roundly obvious (even if the visual selection was clever) but the films on Love and Monarchy are the best thanks to their humour and lack of respect for the style they are delivered in.