Give Up Yer Aul Sins

By: monsterdistributes

REVIEW

Concept

This short tells a famous story that is found not only in Christian scriptures, but also in Islamic book, The Quran (although with variations). I don’t wanna mention even an itsy bitsy bit about the story to maintain a bit of suspense :). But, its not a straightforward history lesson, as the story is told by a child and is animated.

Direction

It’s an animated movie, but it’s done very nicely. As this is based upon a 1960’s series of recordings in which children tell Bible stories, the animation is done so that it looks to belong to that decade. That’s probably the best thing about this short – its animation. With all the CGI now, we do miss the old cartoons and this certainly gives the feeling of one.

However, the child who tells the story – I am sorry but his accent is very difficult to understand. This movie is for international audience and a person with such a strong accent is not suitable for reading in such a short. It might look cute for a little while, but it becomes irksome when you can’t understand what he is saying.

Conclusion

“Give up Yer Aul Sins” is nice, but nice doesn’t cut it in this bloodthirsty industry of shorts! (No seriously it doesn’t). The short has to be something more. And this is where it fails. It makes no impact on the viewer and it might make you feel nostalgic, but that feeling will be replaced by irritation when you won’t be able to understand what the child is saying.

It’s a Bible story so people who have read the Bible already know it, but those who haven’t, they will barely be able to make head or tail of the short because of the very strong accent of the kid.

Give up Yer Aul Sins is a short that you won’t remember for long.

Score: 4.5/10

The Alpha Male

By:fcrabbath

REVIEW

Concept
Have you ever wondered what would happen if there was only one female alive? Well, this short does exactly this. A very original, and may I call it an eccentric idea, resulting in a sort-of enjoyable short.

Direction

I have seen other shorts by the same guy and he certainly puts a lot of effort in his work and here again it shows. While not as good as his other work, here some mistakes were visible in direction and camera work. But, such mistakes remained relatively minor and did not make the screening unpleasant.

Acting
The guy playing geek in this movie was the best of the lot by a fair margin. His acting was original, and he did not try to over-act, which is usually the case in most of the comedies.

I do have some reservations about the other three who were rather a let down. The guys seemed completely disinterested and the single actress did not do justice to her role either.

Conclusion

While the concept was really nice, The Alpha Male falls flat because of poor acting. The script was really good, but apart from one actor the others seemed to be amateurs who had no interest in the short and were there because the director had put some spell on them.

Alpha Male was a short I wanted to like, but the acting was disappointing. You might remember it for the story, but hardly for anything else. Recommended for those times when you have nothing else to do.

Score: 6.5/10