Reviews

The filmmakers here seem to have run short of a point. People's stories are followed; they get a couple of interviews at best. There is literally no information on the housing problem in terms of numbers, community response, and potential solutions. Nothing even about resources for the homeless or how to help a homeless person.

The homeless problem in Los Angeles has always been staggering, almost insurmountable. Same now for Seattle and San Francisco, but nobody from those states' agencies is even interviewed.

The video looks nice, the music is nice, but where is the point? What' s the value of this short? It feels like voyeurism of the worst kind.

It's often said that the definition of insanity is repeating your actions and expecting a different outcome. That is literally the best description of Phillip, the protagonist in "Possum."

Phillip, a disgraced puppeteer, returns to his childhood home to confront his demons and his stepfather, a grungy, cruel man who taunts Phillip in every scene. The landscape, both inside and out, is dreary, repetitive, and barren. There is no variety in Phillip's life, nor in his mind. Everything is bleak. Everything is as it has always been.

From the start of the film the symbolism shows you exactly what to expect when you first meet Phillip. The balloons against the wallpaper in a child's room is a brief but succinct recap of the major trauma of Phillip's life, and the character does not disappoint when he appears. Clearly a traumatized and broken man, Phillip spends the entire film trying to rid himself of his baggage, which again, is quite literal in the overnight bag he carries with him everywhere and is always trying to destroy and leave behind.

Just when you think, right, he's done it, the next scene shows the bag and its contents still with him. At times I wondered if these sequences were a dream, or if they were meant literally and that something is really haunting him, and the answer, i believe, is that it's both.

Like 'Spider", "Possum" is about madness eating away at us. No matter what we do to rid ourselves of it, we are unable. Its omnipresent, it is silent (the sparse dialogue is exactly true to this idea), it is unrelenting and it may very well win.

Harris' facial expressions and body language are almost painful to view; so adept is he at conveying the excruciating loneliness of losing one's mind. It's a brilliant performance.

I've read comments expressing dismay about the ending and lack of resolution. Firstly, the ending is shocking and came as a surprise to me. While I felt the duality of man themes expressed throughout (Harris' trench coat soaked with black mud on one side, and spotless on the other, was a good visual for that), I was focused on that duality being Phillip's). As for the lack of resolution for Phillip, there very often just is none. People go mad, people fall between the cracks, people disappear into their trauma and sometimes they are not saved. Bleak, yes, but true.

I've watched this twice in the past 24 hours and I'll likely watch it many more times. If you've ever been broken or traumatized, you may recognize some of yourself in Phillip. If you've ever known or loved, but never understood, a broken person, you may find this to be an incredibly empathic experience.

I can't rate it higher than 10, but I would if I could. Brilliance.

I'm always interested in what are legitimate mens rights issues, such as fathers' rights, so I was interested to see what this filmmaker had come up with. Unfortunately, this is not a true documentary but simply a string of interviews with men who are disgruntled about women who are seeking equal treatment.

With cherry-picked data from the men and virtually NO data to counter it, Jaye pretends to wander, doe-eyed, through this mysterious issue of "men's rights" as if nobody had ever dare utter the phrase in public, much less in serious debate.

Lacking historical perspective, lacking objective data, Jaye acts as if she's received an epiphany about men being mistreated and ignored by society, until the end, where she declares she can no longer call herself a feminist.

Along the way, Jaye has completely mischaracterized feminism and given carte blanche to a bunch of well-off men who want to sit in their homes and complain about the pressures of being a man and how women just don't care.

This could have been a really interesting piece and it actually could have brought men and women together under the umbrella of human rights, but instead Jaye takes the men's claims lying down, never challenging, never countering.

As a film, I suppose it's appealing to disgruntled men. So there's that. As a documentary, it's useless.

This is a wonderful film and suffers from a few things: 1) being marketed as a horror film and 2) being vastly misunderstood by most viewers.

There's a lot of complaining that "nothing comes at night," but that's not true. Paranoia, fear, nightmares, uncertainty about the world outside; all of these things come and night and all of these things are a fantastically accurate imagining of what the world would look like post apocalypse (of any kind).

All we know about this world is that there's been some kind of virus and its not safe to be around other people, who may be infected. Some viewers have a problem with the lack of detail and backstory, but I don't. This movie isn't about the infected coming to kill the well, it's not about gory zombies eating you up, it's about how a family would survive (but never thrive) under an end-of-the-world scenario. And in that respect, it hits it out of the park.

Unfortunately, this film was marketed as a horror, which understandably left some people hoping for something else unhappy. It's more of a drama or even thriller, but it's of the human--not undead--kind, and it's very gripping.

I wasn't bored, I was't disappointed, maybe partly because I didn't read up about it before viewing. When I read reviews that say I didn't pay $13 to think about a movie then I just have to believe that that person will never understand this movie and it just isn't for them.

If you'd like to imagine a real-world scenario about a pandemic or post-apocalyptic world, check this out. Keep an open mind.