Thursday 24 March 2011

A most exciting review of Shooter

The sun came out today, and yes it warmed my shoulders and took some of the pale winter complection from my head as I drove down the road from Killin today. Having had lunch with my Mum and cleaned up a little round the cottage, it was nice to blow the cobwebs from my winter recluse.

I returned to sunny Bowling, and fired up the laptop to find a number of interesting messages, one of which I will speak of in the near future, and one from Brett Gerry, who wrote a very impressive review on my wee film Shooter. I have listed all the recent reviews on the right of this blog for you to read , however I want to put this review on this page as it made me very proud of the accomplishments of this little film

'Shooter' Review from Brett Gerry Films

Honesty, they say, is always the best policy – and here Goodwin successfully marries his own life-story to an effective short film, at the same time forging an innovative visual style that demands the long form treatment. Shooter has already won some impressive awards, and been a firm success on the festival circuit, so is therefore perhaps the quintessential short film – initially anonymous, provocative and brief – which could possibly also be its undoing. Many filmmakers and theorists insist on the importance of ‘story’ in cinema, but, as demonstrated here, many of the best short films can only suggest story in their runtime; often they are only slightly longer than modern commercials, and feature about the same amount of narrative information. Such innuendo, schtick and bravado that many adverts and short films contain do not add up to a story but a sketch that only implies more.
But we could likewise imply that, in an exacting cinematic sense, this suggestion of story is what gives Shooter its depth and apparent popularity. Goodwin, acting as director, producer and writer as well as cinematographer, treats his film with a visual style that is nothing short of brilliant: a digital collage technique that blurs the lines between past and present, and marries some impressive nature photography with abstract stylized imagery. It’s a fascinating way to disseminate narrative information (that suggestion of story) which reaches, with the full power of the cinematic spectacle, through the screen and into the audience, and cries out for a feature length exploration. Hopefully, the attention given to Goodwin and his achievement will bring such an exciting possibility for the man who has chosen cinema as his weapon of choice.


Just great Brett, thanks for putting so much into this review, totally blew me away
You can read the entire review here Brett Gerry Films  and please leave comments

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