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Artie Saves The Hood (2005)

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Overall Rating 54%
Overall Rating
Ranked #15,816
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Artie Guy was just your average idiot, hanging out with his friends and wasting time on stupid ideas. But then one day, he found a mysterious soap in his drywall and everything went to hell. Now he has to fight off interdimensional bastards with the help of his video game addict neighbor and a girl who only speaks gibberish. The fate of the neighborhood is in their hands! --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: September 25, 2005
In this indie short, we catch up with slacker and loser extraordinaire Artie Guy (director Ed Radmanich III) who is working on his newest project... backyard wrestling. Yes, with the help of his friends Mason (Jason Brown) and Fry (Kai Kekai), Artie wastes his time working on stupid ideas such as this. However, that all changes when he finds a mysterious, glowing piece of soap in his wall. Unbeknownst to Artie, there's some alien beings from another dimension that are looking for this piece of soap, and they will stop at nothing to get it. With the help of his friends and a mysterious lady who speaks nothing but gibberish (Victoria Walters), Artie must defend his hood against these aliens.

As if the above plot doesn't give it away, this movie falls in the comedy genre much more than it does the action or sci-fi genres. Sure, there's elements of both - the whole aliens part of the storyline rounds out the sci-fi side of things while the massive gun-battles between Artie and said aliens keeps the action going. However, the main focus of the movie seems to be on the comedy pieces, and this is where the film shines the most. The movie doesn't rely on cheap jokes or sight-gags for the laughs, but instead, it simply focuses on over-the-top ridiculous situations and events. Would this style work for everyone in the audience? Probably not... but if you think that watching a guy flying around his town in a cardboard box or having a shed serve as a interdimensional portal for alien beings would be humorous, then this movie would be one that you should check out. Personally, I got more than a few laughs out of the thirty-three minute running time, and I think that more than a couple of people out there would share my view.

The one thing that I enjoyed the most about this film was the amount of professionalism involved. Yes, the movie is obviously low-budget (you'd never mistake the gun-battles for an Arnold Schwarzenegger film), and yes, the movie apparently consists of nothing more than a group of friends working together on the project. However, it never comes off feeling like one of "those" movies... you know, the ones that nobody outside of the director's circle of friends and family would likely enjoy. The movie is very professional, featuring some excellent direction from Radmanich and special effects that are surprisingly good for this type of movie. As I mentioned, these special effects are definitely not from a billion-dollar Hollywood film, but they are much better than the typical cap-guns and puffs of smoke that one has come to expect from low-budget action sequences.

The final thing that I would like to cover in this review is the acting performances given by the cast. While there's a scene or two that breaks this trend, the people involved turn in very natural performances. By that, I mean that you never feel like you're watching an actor (or actress) turn in a performance for the camera, but instead, it feels as though you're watching real people involved in real situations. I've seen more than my share of indie films where the cast seems as though they're reading from cue-cards in their scenes, but that is not the case here. This small detail may not seem like much, but it definitely makes it easier to get sucked into the movie as it progresses.

I'd recommend this for fans of comedy / action shorts who enjoy films with an emphasis on the 'comedy' side of things. The action sequences are surprisingly good for this obviously low-budget film, the comedy is actually funny, and the storyline will keep you interested from start to finish. The movie premiered at the Sacramento Film Festival last month, but beyond that, I'm not sure how one would go about seeing it... so keep an eye on the official site for DVD ordering info or upcoming festival appearances. It's well worth it, and I'm going to go with a 7/10 for this film.
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