Selfie; Grade: B+
We reached the end of the road for the SXSW Amazon Virtual Film Festival! What better way to go out, than having to babysit a cat whom keeps on harassing you while watching the last film? An hour and forty nine minute film, was finished in three hours... To all you debating on getting a pet, never get a cat. Cats are evil, so evil they’ll kick you out of your own place to sleep and work, as you have to resort into going to the other room to work on this review. Moral of the story: Dogs over Cats by infinity.
Selfie is an anthology film, all relating to being addicted to our smart phones. This anthology film is basically poking fun on society’s sick obsession with technology, bringing five plus creative and even funny stories. Witness a film that’ll make you laugh at the true horrors of today’s society with technology... Why?! Because it’s all accurate to today’s society with technology. I gotta say one thing before we get started: True film lovers watched this film on an IPhone... Let’s begin!
The Cinematography was pretty solid for the most part, t’was a nice looking film. The Score was fine, wasn’t really impressed much by the music of this film. The cast as a whole was pretty great, each and everyone of them played their part in their own story, as I was thoroughly entertained and pleased by just about everyone. Other than not being impressed by the Score, I felt the ending of the last story told was kind of ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong it was somewhat funny and a nice concept, I just felt how it was executed in the finale made it felt a bit much.
Remember after the first three films of the festival, I wasn’t that impressed?! Well the festival ends on a high note, delivering three B+ quality films, as Selfie finishes the festival on a high yet fun note. I felt the whole concept of the anthology t’was superb. When it comes to comedy films taking on social media or today’s technology, often enough the jokes MISS way more than they hit. Majority of the jokes fall flat on it’s face, as often they are just completely lame or corny or they just can’t execute an effective joke. With Selfie the film understands today’s absurd obsession with social media, tinder, and technology. Majority of the comedy material in this film HIT BIG TYME. Each story provides it’s own unique experience, where you have yourself laughing at the embarrassing accurate portrayal of today’s society with each concept. I felt each story was also widely investing and flat out entertaining. I would like to go deeper into detail on each story, but it’s best if you’re surprised instead. During a time of crisis, where majority of us have literally no choice but to be on their phones... This is a type of film that is actually needed right now. We all need a good laugh against our ridiculous amount of obsession with our phones. Whether it be caring about your views on YouTube, your star rating on a dating site, paranoia over the accuracy of advertisements relating to your common interest or whatever... We need to remember at the end of the day none of these things matter. What matters is you start living in reality, instead of living on your phone... Hard to do that right now, but I don’t think the constant negativity on the internet is making things any better either.
Overall, Selfie is a pretty damn good anthology film. I highly recommend checking this one out, it’s the last day of the festival so hurry on up and get to it. To all the film makers, actors, composers, photographers, and other artists that participated in the SXSW Amazon Collab Virtual Film Festival... From the bottom of my heart we at Strictly Films would like to thank you, for sharing your art with us in a time of need. It’s unfortunate some of these films didn’t get the chance to be on the big screen as we hoped, but in reality your contribution in partaking in this small event really helped us all in a time of need, where film does indeed cure the broken. I wish best of luck for you all, as I hope all of you receive distribution deals. It’s been a pleasure discussing every single film, much love to you all, God Bless and Stay Safe! -Mitch Smietana