Dir - Chris Skotchdopole
Overall: MEH
There are several issues undermining writer/director Chris Skotchdopole's full-length debut Crumb Catcher, but the overarching one is that everything that happens in it is either implausible or aggravating. A thriller which plays on social niceties and extortion to fuel its plot, it grows so ridiculous on paper that one could argue that it is trying to be a black comedy, and maybe it is, but the people on screen are so unlikable and moronic that one can scarcely find humor in their asinine behavior. When our protagonists are a newly married couple who at no point seem to even like each other let alone love each other, that is a problem as far as caring about what happens to them. It is also a problem in believing the lengths that they go to in order to keep it together once things go south in the third act. The antagonists seem unhinged and "on the spectrum" long before their tormenting starts when things fail to go their way, so the film becomes an icky waiting game as every viewer will be yelling at every person on the screen to either shut up or stop careening into danger. This is all how Skotchdopole builds tension, and the small handful of performers know their assignments well, but every situation presented seems like it exists in a screenplay that simply needs things to happen in order for more things to happen. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect is that one can see a better movie hiding in here somewhere. There is style and ambition, and the stakes would matter if the characters were completely rewritten, but the actual results are just a mess.
Dir - Yoko Okumura
Overall: MEH
While a seventy-six minute feature in this day and age is always appreciated, the second full-length from director Yoko Okumura still overstays its welcome. Scripted by Brian Rawlins and Salvatore Cardoni, Unseen has its heart in a noble place, pitting two Asian-American women up against violent, entitled, and discriminatory Caucasian scumbags while they each empower each other to do so. The problem is that the plights of Midori Francis and Jolene Purdy are neither interesting nor plausible, despite Okumura's often successful efforts to make them white-knuckled. A woman who is so blind without her glasses that she needs another woman via video call to inform her if she is going to walk over a expansive geographical ledge in broad daylight is a stretch, as is a scenario where people are cartoon character-level rude, bust out firearms, and scream in slow motion. Of course this all creates a schlocky tone that is meant to be heightened, engaging us in exaggerations in order to emphasize the theme of women having to work that much harder to still garnish no respect or boundary adherence from white privileged psychopaths. Perhaps the whole thing flies too close to the sun then, since it is an exhausting watch that is too miserable to be funny, too silly to be believable, and too extreme to land its commendable ideas.
Dir - Aimee Kuge
Overall: MEH
Not without its commendable qualities, the slick indie debut Cannibal Mukbang from filmmaker Aimee Kuge comes up short in its warped, blood-soaked trajectory. The set up has been frequented before where a socially awkward guy meets the girl of his dreams, and all signs point to the situation being too good to be true even before it is proven to be too good to be true. As our disturbed couple, Nate Wise has a metal plate in his head from a childhood car accident, and April Consalo seems out of his league as a flirty professional mukbanger, which for anyone not familiar is when people eat food in camera on their social media platform and actually make a living doing so. Their chemistry is believable enough even if the circumstances of their romance start off dubious and only get more off-the-rails, but Kuge seems unsure of her tone. The premise is ridiculous and needs to be played for laughs, (which it is at times), but once we realize how twisted the couple's co-dependence is, the film becomes tragic and uncomfortable. Kuge can be applauded for what she does NOT do with her script, as there are several instances that could have had Consalo wielding her manipulation in a more hackneyed "crazy hot girl" manner. The movie looks fantastic and the two leads turn in solid performances, (Clay von Carlowitz as Wise's scumbag playboy brother, not as much), but Kuge opens too many doors that she fails to go through. We are presented with an impossible scenario, but nothing is said about these broken characters, the nature of their addiction, nor the consequences of their actions that has not been better explored in better movies.
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