Julia

The film was never completed for a wide range of reasons but a work print is available to the public that has been scored. Sadly I cannot be lenient on the movie for that reason. The film is such a pretentious piece of plagiarism it's almost funny. Anyone familiar Nicolas Winding Refn's work should find it plainly easy too see where this film spawned. Now I'm all for paying homage but this does NOT fall under that category, it is plagiarism. I can't pick on the editing too much as the film was never completed, so it is understandably really sloppy. The acting is poor, mostly with Stuckmann's performance as "The Man" which comes across as a 4-year-old trying to be Ryan Gosling in Only God forgives. I would go as far as to say that Stuckmann should stick to plagiarizing movie reviews because he obviously has no talent in the acting/directing department. Avoid this one.

Before I start, I just wanna say I have nothing against Stuckmann and if anything I'm a huge fan of his. He has been a huge inspiration when it comes to loving film and therefore I critique this short with as much respect I possibly can give.

The positives: the first 2 minutes have some decently shot angles and some shots that probably looked better in his head and not in his execution. Which is what the majority of this film feels like. Interesting ideas, but bad execution. This would be a great short, if it was a home movie made by him and his friends when they were 15.

The negatives: unfortunately, the rest of this review is going to be negative. The acting is atrocious! Stuckmann doesn't fit the role of a tough guy, at all; he just seems to nice. It feels like he is really trying to be Ryan Gosling from Drive. Which reminds me, this film is way to similar to Drive; to the point where it feels like a rip off. The lighting in a lot of the shots look like they were recorded on an old IPhone. I don't know the camera he used, but good grief. Not to mention the majority of the cinematography goes out of focus. I don't know if he was rushing but was he unable to go back and do some reshoots? Probably would've helped. Plus, the film isn't even finished! Apparently it was so bad Chris decided just not to finish it.

This was definitely not a good film from a professional standpoint. It's impressive that he filmed what he did but I think a lot of this was just poor execution (and an awful screenplay); but at least Chris is improving. Despite being flawed, his recent short, Notes from Melanie is significantly better in almost every way; maybe besides the acting. The more Chris films the more experienced and professional he'll become. Nice effort, Chris but you dropped the ball on this one. Let's hope for better films in the future.