slimjim3382

I have revisited this short recently to redeem my opinion of the writer of "dingle." The structure of this is what the viewer should take from it as the actual content is just naive motivation speaking on art and love. Adam creates this self-awareness between the characters and viewer deconstructing the elements of film-making "folding" us into the project. This is most effective during the "story" section. Playing off this structure provides the film with its humor (a far cry from the American Pie-esqe frat boy humor in "dingle"). Unfortunately Adam did not allow the two main characters to play around with the viewer's self-awareness and make this a truly deep project. The two "love" birds stayed in character the entire film never giving the actors a chance to play a character within a character. Expose them, give them freedom to explore that space between the realities of their characters and the actor/actress we know they are. We never get the feeling the actors are involved in the creative process.

Another problem with this is that fails to follow the story formula that is being commented on. If you are going to engage the idea of the love movie and add another level to it, you need to hit the story arc that audiences are familiar with: boy meets girl, they fall in love unexpectedly, miscommunication breaks them apart, and a public setting profession brings them back together. This failure disconnects us as viewers and weakens your structure.

Love is a cinematic notion. What and how we love is for our culture based in ideas that have been informed by movies. We long to feel in relationships like we did while watching romance movies. Film DOES have the power to shake our emotions but you miss the point that films define for us what love is.

Additionally, the direction is boring and standard. Little to no camera movement or interesting camera angles. It fails as cinema in that sense. There is nothing cinematic about it as far as the camera is concerned. The editing is decent and works to bring this film to life. Finally, the writer needs to avoid the preaching about art and love. The last section where Adam's surrogate talks about what "love is" exposes a certain naiveté that is laughable. Every moment in a relationship is not the greatest feeling of your life. It's a mixed bag, a notion your film avoids. Adam, forget about the preaching, it is not important or needed. We as the viewers don't need this 7th Heaven moral lesson or pep talk. Keep developing innovative structure ideas and fill it with material that annotates the structure or vice versa, then you will have something that moves. Despite this shorts failings, I applaud its originality in the way-independent often disappointing NP2K film world.

It saddens me to find a group of people with so many resources at their fingertips* produce something so bland, unoriginal and unfunny as this. The camera feels like it is chained to the ground on every shot and the framing never dares to explore territory outside of a romantic comedy. Never once was I impressed with an angle or shot in this movie. You have to ask yourself a question, why did I bother making this if it wasn't going to be any different then the next Kate Hudson film? What's the point, what are you adding to people's cinematic language? Don't we have enough "standard" run of the mill films, please do not add insult to boredom.

Adam's writing is also as unfortunate. Why do young male writers always try to create a woman character that talks and acts like a man, this perfect love interest who is basically a woman playing a man masquerading as a woman? Adam, she doesn't exist and you need to stop writing about her. I was a fan of "Love" which was a project that was self-aware and interesting, and then I watch this aborted mixed breed of American Pie and Kevin Smith, I wonder what happened. The characters are one-dimensional and offensive (the homeless character is inexcusable). The resolution for Dana's problem is even more offensive to the viewer. I am hoping good things for Adam's "World" movie, but viewing this does not excite me.

Leave the TV sitcom moralizing and lesson learning for the WB network.

*yes compared to many of us, pulling off a production this size is unfathomable