Thanks for the memories!

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a hard movie to get into, mostly because it has a very dark and ugly beginning. It is the bathroom of a night spot and the main character, Richie, is inspecting each one to see toilets filled with urine and feces, even on the toilet seat, it must represent the filthiest toilet in all of Manhattan. And then he finds a pretty dead young lady on the final toilet, a victim of an overdose.The next scenes aren't much better, Richie is an his bathtub with a razor blade, intending to kill himself. So for me the rest of the movie was an uphill exercise to see if there was any redeeming value in watching it. I actually skipped to the last third of the movie and after seeing that I went back and viewed the parts I had skipped. Written, directed, and starring Shawn Christensen as Richie, it is about a 30-something guy with a job at a bowling alley, in debt to some gangsters, and still in grief over his beloved Vista who had recently taken her own life. The only thing he can see is ending it all and joining Vista. Until his younger sister, a single mom, calls him after years of estrangement with an urgent need for Richie to meet her 11-yr-old daughter at her school and get her home safely.That cute and smart daughter is Fatima Ptacek as Sophia, and she is the main reason to watch the entire movie. In real life she is studying Mandarin, and also appears to be in gymnastics. She plays her role perfectly and in the end she warms up to Richie. His having a niece that cares about him just might give him some reason to live.The sister and mother of Sophia is played well by New Yorker Emmy Rossum. She is also a mess of sorts and when she gets brought into central lockup after an altercation it prolongs the time Richie has to stay with Sophia, and for him to consider his options.Not for every taste, much of it is at night and shows the seedy underbelly of New York, but for those in the right frame of mind can be a worthwhile viewing. I found it on Netflix streaming movies.SPOILERS: Sis got into trouble because she was having an affair with a married man and the wife got involved. One of Richie's friends came to the rescue, asking a lawyer to help out. She was grateful for Richie's help but when he got home he resumed his interrupted suicide mission. But then the phone rings again. At first he disconnects it, determined to not be sidetracked again, but is curious and plugs the phone back in. It is his sis inviting him to dinner in a few days with her and Sophia, he pauses, thinks, and says "I'll be there."

Firstly, I came to this movie without having seen "Curfew". Several commentators have pointed out that that is important in the way you see this movie so I'll get that out of the way to start with. I checked out the user score (7.2 at time of writing) and the Meta score (47/100 at time of writing). A bit of a mismatch I thought and maybe it was down to the film being "upped" by users. (We all know it happens right? Reviewers who come out of nowhere and submit one review giving a film 10 / 10 and then disappear as quickly as they appeared. All's fair in love and marketing). Anyway, as a result I decided to take a chance on it but with some reservations at the back of my mind and not really expecting anything that would really get me. What followed was rare, the realisation that the users had nailed it and the critics had really come down way too hard on this movie for all the wrong reasons. "Underwhelming, inconsistent, superfluous, bloated, meandering, posey, abrasive, over amped" to mention a few of the words used. I really don't know what film they were watching. Shawn Christensen, the writer, director and star of this film has already picked up an Oscar in 2013 for best Live Action Short but this film is dismissed as "not a bad freshman effort"? Ignore the critics and take a chance on this one. If you go in with an open mind and let yourself go with it's unusual flow you might really enjoy it. Finally, the cast were uniformly good. Fatima Ptacek, who I hadn't come across before, was brilliant, certainly one to watch, and Ron Perlman was Ron Perlman, nobody does that better than him.

I give this an 8 and I don't do it lightly. I'm also not rating it highly as an indie, it's good compared to any project. This movie is absolutely haunting. The writer has a deep understand of people and displays them so realistically. I really liked the fact that it didn't have cliché characters. The "gangsters" don't do what you expect them to do. The things people did in this movie weren't over the top, it felt very real.The cinematography and shots were fantastic in this movie. It was at times like a dream or an acid trip and it never felt out of place. The transitions between hallucinations and real life were not stark and abrupt like in other movies where someone is tripping. Shawn Christensen is going to be the director to watch out for in the future. The casting was perfect. Everybody was good. I just dislike Ron Perlman because he gets cast in this type of role in so many movies that it's starting to be a cliché, still he was great.Christensen is also a great writer. This movie was at once deeply sad and entertaining. Casting Fatima Ptecek as Sophia was perfect. She was the pillar of light for Richie's darkness and she was just a delight to watch. There really is something special about Ptecek. She's the next Abigail Breslin.

Shawn Christensen's Oscar Winning Curfew was a wonderful piece of filmmaking, and I was worried that the feature version "Before I Disappear" would be just more of the same. I was pleasantly surprised and this expanded version took wonderful to extraordinary.One of Shawn's many accomplishments in this film was his deft transition of the Sophia character from precocious little girl to self-realized adolescent, who has it together a hell of a lot more than her uncle.It took me a little time to warm up to Emmy Rossum's character -- as in how could she have a child that old -- but a few lines to clear that up -- and boom, all taken care of. Emmy's vulnerability and willingness to go to a very raw place near the end of the film was beautiful to watch. Shawn's expanding the characters I loved in the short and adding new characters, played by Paul Wesley and Ron Perlman was terrific. Who knew that Wesley could bring such depth to a character that could have come off as horribly one-note?The cinematography was brilliant. The choice of color was truly inspired.This is definitely a virtuoso piece of indie filmmaking, and deserving of every award it has picked up on the film festival circuit. My only regret is that this film should be opening in a hell of a lot more theaters this awards season. If you love indie filmmaking, you need to see this film as soon as possible,