recommended

Just so...so bad

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Frank is in trouble with the law and needs to get away as quick as possible. A high speed pursuit across the rain-strewn city sees him coming off better than his would-be captors and he turns to the only person who he trusts to help him – his woman. But Frank has clearly never watched film noir.There is a story within this film that is basic but enough to hold the action together. The manner of delivery is of more interest though as it features film clips, real action, models delivered in stop motion and characters cut out of film stills and run together by what looks like stop motion (but must have been painstaking to deliver if it was). This makes for a rather uneven feel to the film though as it never seems to settle into one style – rather undoing the black and white rendering that aims to be film noir by trying to be one cinematic style while also employing several animation styles. That said it is cool enough to hold the interest and does mostly look good.The trouble with the film was the trouble with several animated films I have seen recently and that is the way I have found it more interesting to learn how it was made than I have found it to watch the film itself. In the slot before this short was screened we saw Parker at work and he was interesting and clear to the point that I wanted to understand more of how he worked – unlike several of the "Animate!" contributors in 2006, he was refreshingly free of self-importance or pretentiousness.Despite this though the film is still worth a look for those interesting in animation. It delivers the various styles well and does it within a solid (if very simple) noir/horror plot.