Who is Elmore Dean? - B

Here’s another short film review, courtesy of Timothy J. Cox. I’ve linked to the IMDB page, where the short can also be found, at the end of this review. I’d advise you to check it out.
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There’s a subsection of independent shorts that exist in a category of their own at many film festivals I’ve been to – “Short shorts”, which normally fall into the five minute range of length. Who is Elmore Dean? Falls into that category at just barely over five minutes. And for a short short, it’s pretty good. That’s because the trick of these ultra-shorts is to give you a topic, give you a setting, and let you draw your own conclusions. And Dean does that. 

Elmore Dean (the aforementioned Cox) is a songwriter that burst onto the scene. His apartment indicates he’s been mildly successful, but is also at a bit of a stressful moment – the covered over desk indicates he’s been attempting to write something over and over. But it gets stranger than that – his apartment seems to have a mind of its own. Cox is good here, even if he’s given less to do here than usual. He doesn’t have to carry the movie because there’s another star present.

What carries the movie is the score, which is lilting and yet frantic, with a touch of that beauty that most of the best music has. This surrounds the apartment, and the cameras movement and spin accents that, never allowing us to rest our eye in one place. This is probably helpful on the effects, which are good for such a small budget (per IMDB $15,000). This focus also puts us firmly in a place and so the ending is that much more jarring.

I liked the short – and I’m giving it a “B” to go with it.

For more on this film, check out IMDB.