FILM INFO: When a lonely middle-aged man is bequeathed a beautiful apartment by his Grandmother, he sees it as an opportunity to get inventive in his search for true love.
WRITTEN BY: Michael Mastrangelo DIRECTED BY: Michael Mastrangelo GENRE: Comedy TIME: 12 minutes.
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Room For Love ( 2016 )
Feature Film Review
I'd be lying if I didn't see some potential here for a mighty funny movie or series. All the pieces are present and accounted for. The only thing we seem to be missing is some experience. True, with low budget independent film it's always a mixed bag... but here the lack of knowledge is quite clear. Yet contained within this short film is some real promise. There is comedic value once you look past the indie nature of this title. To be honest? The final segments of "Room For Love" actually looked alright playing on my screen. It's the opening scenes, straight through until around half-way, where things were really rough. Once past that point, things get better and better production-wise. In a nutshell, Edgar has just got a nice apartment and with very little nudging, he decides to rent it. This is all a charade however, Edgar's true purpose for placing the "For Rent" ad is a little more creepy. He's looking for love and figures this apartment is the key. Although the concept of this short film is a little scary, Edgar himself is rather harmless, and has no ill-will toward the women he sets a show-date with. Notice I wrote women instead of woman? That's right ladies and gents, Edgar invites three potential candidates. May the best women win. I touched on the technicalities earlier, but now I'll go into a little more detail. The first thing I noticed was the poor audio. Things get better once we get indoors but the outside tracks were bad. Very over-processed sounding. It's better to have some background noise contained within the audio, than to attempt to press it out with some program. Much better indeed. From there we get into the coloring of the shots. Again, the color flip-flopped from one shot to the next. Warm, cold, and back again. All in the same scene mind you. I would also recommend a professional editor, or at least some more practice. The post-edits felt unnatural in a lot of places, and those random "first-person" styled shots were really... really distracting. Essentially, all the hallmarks of the inexperienced indie filmmaker have come home to roost... but things are not all bad. The acting, I'm happy to write was quite surprising. In a good way. With any low budget production, it's a huge bonus when you can say you have a well acted piece. In this case, the cast feel completely normal and realistic. Even if over the top. For "Room For Love" the talent pushes this title through, earning it extra marks. No doubt about that. Final thoughts for this title are generally mixed. The start is shaky, but ends up playing quite decently. The concept and humor are all here, and could really work. Especially since the cast all do fantastic jobs in their respective roles. So where does the foundation begin to crack? It's within the low budget nature of this film, but more-so the lack of experience, behind the lens and in the editing room. With some more practice this could really be something special to see. So I'm hoping writer Michael Mastrangelo doesn't throw in the towel. The only way to get experience is to keep on... keeping on. I look forward to checking out some future adventures.