“On the Lot” finally delivers
Wow, what a difference a few days (and some really poor ratings and reviews) makes! Last night’s “On the Lot” was a completely different show and I mean that in the best way possible. Instead of the “Apprentice”-like format from last week (and we all know how I feel about “The Apprentice”) we had something much more akin to “American Idol”. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the judges and contestants, I probably wouldn’t have recognized this as the same show. Best of all? We finally got to see some of these films! It was “comedy week” and each of the 18 directors had a 1 minute short film to show us. And it felt a lot more like a film festival than a cheesy reality show and that really worked for me. I’m not going to go into all the films and the nitty gritty details (the show was two hours long last night, I’d be sitting here typing all day and we’d have a fricken’ novel on our hands). I will point out my three favorites and the three films that I voted for last night.
The first was “Dance Man” by Adam Stein. This guy left Harvard Law School to make movies and from the looks of this short, he made the right choice. I thought it was hilarious. The short was about a man who could not speak, but instead had to communicate via dance. We saw how this disability affected his life, including his love life until finally he met a woman who also communicated via dance and they lived happily ever after. It was, in a word, hilarious. The judges loved it as well and didn’t have a bad word to say about it.
Zack Lipovsky, our resident special effects guru from last week had a little film called “Danger Zone” about some bad ju-ju going down in a safety lab. The entire short was shot in 360 degrees and one take. It was amazing to watch and pretty funny. The judges nearly wet themselves over this guy and I don’t think he’s going anywhere for quite a while. He’s got talent, I’ll give him that.
Sam Friedlander had the final short of the evening and it was called “Replication Theory”. Basically, it details the history of people blaming their farts on other things by replicating the sound. Sounds goofy but it totally worked. Loved it and I don’t generally tend to go for that sort of humor. But it was delivered with such honesty and friendliness, you couldn’t help but enjoy it. The judges loved it too, despite the farting.
Who do I think will be leaving us tonight (tonight??)? I fear the future of Kenny Luby (his short was PAINFUL), Hilary Weisman Graham (her short was just disgusting) and Jess Brillhart (her short was confusing). I don’t know if we’re going back to last week’s format or not. I’m sort of hoping not because last night’s show was SO much fun for a change.
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