The Elevator

Big-time Hollywood producer (Martin Landau) on his way to receive a humanitarian award, gets stuck on an elevator with a quirky, naively idealistic neophyte (the film's author, Gabriel Bologna) who has a head full of dreams and a backpack full of short scripts. Nothing is as it first appears, however, even the depiction of the first segment, an off-the-wall indie student's grade-C exercise that features Richard Moll, Phil Fondacaro and Richard Lewis.

As Bologna reads his shorts to a surly and reluctant Landau, the stories get better and more realistic, leading up to a totally unexpected finale. The shoestring production values show, and the credits may elicit a few knowing snickers, (Bologna co-starring and writing, and Athena Stensland, who stars in the third story with Arye Gross a co-producer.)

Yet I applaud them both as well as the rest of the filmmakers, for not only managing to get their work made and seen, but for creating something compelling enough to attract this kind of a cast. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH it's not, but it does mark Bologna as a writer/actor to watch.