Movie Review: THE WRONG MAN (1956) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

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THE WRONG MAN MOVIE POSTER
THE WRONG MAN, 1956
Classic Movie Review

Directed by Alfred Hitchock
Starring Henry Fonda, Vera Miles
Review by Steven Painter

7.5/10 fan rating on IMDB

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SYNOPSIS:

The police were convinced… The witnesses were positive …Yet he was… THE WRONG MAN

REVIEW:

“The Wrong Man” could have been the title for many movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was bestowed on a movie he directed in 1956. The tone of the movie is different from other Hitchcock ones. It is also out-of-date, a rarity among the works of Hitch before the late-60s. Despite these drawbacks it is wonderfully acted.

The Wrong Man is based on a true story. This is probably one of the reasons why there is a lack of humor in it. Hitch always used humor in his movies to counteract the suspense. He felt the audience needed to be let off the hook at times. There is no humor present here. It is a straightforward, grim look at the breakdown of a family.

The story involves Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero, played by Henry Fonda, known as Manny to his family. He is a musician at New York’s Stork Club, trying to make ends meet like a lot of other people. He has a wife, Rose, played by Vera Miles, and two young sons. Rose has recently gotten some dental work done, so the family is in financial difficulties. Despite these difficulties, Rose and Manny try their best to hide it from their kids.

Manny decides to borrow a little money against Rose’s life insurance policy. When he goes to the insurance office, some workers there claim that Manny is the person who recently committed armed robbery in the office. The man had not been caught yet. So the next evening, Manny is picked up outside his house by the police.

One of the reasons why Hitchcock wanted to make this movie was because it involved a scene where Manny is being driven through his own neighborhood in the back of a police car. He sees the normal, trivial routines of everyone, but is unable to take part in any of it. Instead, he is caged in. This fear of being picked-up by the police for something that he didn’t do, is something present in all of Hitchcock’s works and a great fear the man himself had. Manny is brought into the police station. In this pre-Miranda rights era, he is held with no reason. Of course arguments could be made today that the Miranda rights are being ignored by police officers, but at least at this point in time, there were no such rights. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of the movie. It is outdated in this instance and because a lot of audience sympathy is built up because Manny is held with no rights, it just doesn’t seem believable today.

Anyways, Manny is held and some local business owners are brought in to identify him. They can’t say for certain if Manny is the robber, but he seems close enough to the real criminal in looks and handwriting. This satisfies the police and they continue with their prosecution.

Strapped for money and with a husband facing a trial, Rose begins to lose it. She drifts farther and farther from Manny, the kids, and the world itself. Eventually she has to be put in an asylum. This secondary vein of the movie distracts from the main story of Manny being falsely accused of the crime, but in Hitchcock’s defense, the real wife of Manny did in fact end up in an asylum.

As with all things of this time period in Hollywood, the movie has a happy ending. In a great dissolve shot, we see Henry Fonda’s face become that of the real robber. The real robber is caught while trying to rob another store in the neighborhood. When this robber is brought in to be identified, the storeowners come in and say the same things they did when Manny came in. Of course Hitch put this in to cause some doubt in the audience. He asks “do we really ever know who the right man is?”

The movie ends with a blurb across the screen stating that the Balestrero family lived happily ever after. In real life, Rose was committed to the asylum and never regained her sanity. The ordeal crippled the family, instead of making them stronger – as the movie implies.

The Wrong Man is not a bad movie. It is outdated and it is grimier than most Hitchcock movies. But it is well acted. Vera Miles and Henry Fonda give tremendous performances. For this reason alone the movie should be watched. But if you need another reason, the fear of being a falsely accused person with no rights is something that is inherent in a lot of people. That fear is played out in this story.

 

 

 

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Movie Review: PSYCHO (1960) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

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PSYCHO MOVIE POSTERPSYCHO, 1960
Movie Reviews

8.5/10 Fan Rating on IMDB.com

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Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins
Review by Steven Painter

SYNOPSIS:

After embezzling $40,000 from her employer, Phoenix office-worker Marion Crane flees the monotony of her mundane existence with dreams of starting a new life in California with her boyfriend, Sam Loomis. As night begins to fall, an exhausted Marion decides to spend the night at a remote motel owned by Norman Bates, a peculiar, reserved young man under the control of his ailing but domineering mother.

REVIEW:

Have you ever walked into a movie theater, sat down and watched the entire movie from start to finish? Of course you have. Did you know that you have Alfred Hitchcock to thank for this way of watching movies? In 1960 a little movie named Psycho was released. It changed the way movie making, censorship and movie watching was done in America. Quite frankly it might be as close to the perfect movie as anything else ever made.

Murder was not a subject that was taboo to Hitchcock by 1960. A murder or killing seems to occur in every one of his movies. Killing was routine on-screen before the 1960s, although the actual shooting of the gun or stab of the knife was rarely seen. But with Psycho Hitchcock did the unthinkable, he killed off a big star and he showed it in the bathroom no less.

This idea of killing off a star like Janet Leigh and showing it caused trepidation in Hollywood. No one would fund Psycho. In order to cut costs the movie was shot in black and white, the famous shower murder blood is actually chocolate sauce, and production was done by Hitchcock’s television crew. If Hollywood studios were mad at Hitchcock, the censors were enraged. They threatened to not approve the film. That did not stop Hitchcock from going ahead with production however. Thanks to the success of Psycho and Some Like It Hot, which was released a year earlier, the production code in Hollywood became less strict.

The movie’s stars were the well-known Leigh and a little known television actor named Anthony Perkins, who would forever be typecast after his portrayal of Norman Bates. Leigh plays Marion Crane, a common secretary who lives in Phoenix. Hitchcock has once again introduced a theme of birds into one of his movies. Crane happens to love Californian Sam Loomis, but she cannot marry him because he is in debt, paying alimony to his ex-wife.

As it happens, Crane’s boss receives $40,000 from a client. The boss is tied up with the client, so Crane volunteers to deposit the money in the bank and then head home as she complains of a headache. Instead, she decides to run off to California with the money so she can get married. As movie watchers we want Crane to make it to California, even though we know stealing the money was the wrong thing to do.

Hitchcock throws in some good suspense on Crane’s road trip to California. A cop asks her why she is stopped on the road at one point. She said she was tired and had to pull over for the night. She then decides to trade in her car, as her boss who saw her as she was leaving town, might call her in to question when he finds out the money is missing. Once again, this time at the car dealership, a police officer poses a threat to Crane’s safety. Throughout the whole thing the audience is concerned with the money and Crane coming out alright.

Then we switch gears. While on the road it becomes dark and stormy. Crane can’t keep driving so she decides to pull over at the Bates Motel. Here she checks in and is greeted by the quirky Norman Bates. Bates seems like a nice fellow, who really is just doing this hotel clerk job because of his sick mother. For some reason Bates enjoys talking about his mother, but as an audience all we care about is Crane making it to California safely.

Unfortunately, she does not. During the night, Crane decides to take a shower. While in the shower she is attacked by the crazed Mrs. Bates in the famous murder scene, with Bernard Herrmann’s violins accompanying. This event was so unbelievable at the time; Hitchcock wanted to make sure that the audience witnessed it, so he told movie theater owners not to let anyone in after the movie had started. Before this people would walk into a movie theater at any time and watch the movie, then stick around and watch the movie again up to the point when they walked in. Then they would leave. But Psycho would not work if people saw the movie like that, so Hitchcock created a trend in movie going that has continued to the present day.

Back to the story, our friend Norman now has to clean up after his mother has made an awful mess in the bathroom. As an audience our affection has changed from Crane to Norman Bates because he seems like a nice kid. Hitchcock ensures that audience sympathy is with Bates when Norman tries to submerge Crane’s car in a swamp. At first the car does not want go down. Like Norman, the audience sits on the edge of their seats, until finally the thing begins to sink.

By this time the $40,000 has been reported missing. Detective Arbogast has been called out to examine it. He follows Crane’s sister from Tucson to California where Loomis is. Everyone knows Crane was going to find Loomis. The only problem is she has not arrived. Arbogast checks around and finds out that she was staying at the Bates Motel. After some inquiry, including going into the Bates House, Arobogast finds himself in the swamp. He has become another victim of Mrs. Bates’ knife.

When Arobogast doesn’t show up Loomis and Crane’s sister, played by Vera Miles, decide to see what happened to him. They find out. The old Mrs. Bates has actually been deceased for quite some time. Her son has kept her body relatively well preserved and for some reasons that will be explained by psychologists, he enjoys dressing up like her and killing people. He attempts to kill Crane’s sister, but Loomis stops him.

The movie ends with a psychiatrist giving an explanation of what we just saw happen on the screen. This is all very important stuff that the psychiatrist says, but what stands out about the ending is when we see Norman Bates again. He is sitting in a room alone, looking at a fly. We hear his mother’s voice speaking. Then Hitchcock superimposes a skull over the smiling Bates face, leaving the audience with one more frightening image before the story ends.

Quite simply, this is a must see movie for anyone that is living. But if you are a moviemaker, horror fan or want to be introduced to Alfred Hitchcock, then Psycho is the perfect movie for you.

 

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Anomalisa – How the movie got made

WILDsound Festival's avatarWILDsound Festival

Watch and Share our new featurette on how Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson humanized the puppets of Anomalisa in “Peopling Anomalisa”

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ANOMALISA_posterSynopsis

Michael Stone, husband, father and respected author of “How May I Help You Help Them?” is a man crippled by the mundanity of his life. On a business trip to Cincinnati, where he’s scheduled to speak at a convention of customer service professionals, he checks into the Fregoli Hotel. There, he is amazed to discover a possible escape from his desperation in the form of an unassuming Akron baked goods sales rep, Lisa, who may or may not be the love of his life. A beautifully tender and absurdly humorous dreamscape, from the brilliant minds of Charlie Kaufman (SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK) and Duke…

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Movie Review: THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)

WILDsound Festival's avatarFAN FICTION Film and Writing Festival

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Reviewed two days before the film premiered in 2008.

THE DARK KNIGHT
Movie Review
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman
Review by Matthew Toffolo

SYNOPSIS:

In this sequel to The Batman Begins, Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the city streets.

REVIEW:

This is an epic movie. The first of its kind in the action genre (which is how it will be categorized). There’s something for everyone in The Dark Knight. But for those expecting to see your typical comic book hero action film will be a tad disappointed. In its essence, this is really a detective film about a city trying…

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Movie Review: NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

NORTH BY NORTHWEST MOVIE POSTER
NORTH BY NORTHWEST, 1959
Classic Movie Review

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint
Review by Steven Painter

IMDB fan rating: 8.4/10

SYNOPSIS:

A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.

REVIEW:

In 1935 Alfred Hitchcock made a movie called The 39 Steps about a man who is falsely accused of murder and is chased throughout the Scottish countryside by the police and a group of spies before clearing his name. Nearly 25 years later, Hitchcock made a similar movie, this time based in America, called North by Northwest (1959).

What separates North by Northwest from the majority of Hitchcock’s wrong man accused movies is that there is a lot of humor here. The talented Cary Grant plays the lead role of Roger Thornhill. Grant had been a huge success in screwball comedies like Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940). He had also been one of Hitchcock’s favorite actors to use.

Thornhill is an advertising executive who deals with the hustle and bustle of New York City the best way he can. He always seems to be on the move, but he makes sure he enjoys himself. On the way to lunch one day, he is stopped in a restaurant by some men. The men say they need to talk to him and then they kidnap Thornhill. He is taken out to the countryside where the kidnappers believe he is government agent named George Kaplan, a man who is supposed to be hot on their trail as the kidnappers are doing some spying on the U.S. government.

The spies are never specified as to their country of origin or really what the significance is of what they are after. Microfilm is what drives these spies, we find out. This is the largest McGuffin used in Hitchcock’s movies. It is merely a device to further the story, but matters little as the real story is about the relationships between the people in the movie.

Thornhill denies being Kaplan to no avail. The kidnappers decide to get him drunk and then set him loose on a drive through the countryside. This scene is similar to the one in Notorious (1946) where a drunken Ingrid Bergman takes a wild car ride with Cary Grant. Even the scene in To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant comes to mind. Grant seems to find himself in dangerous automobile situations when working with Hitchcock. He was even in a treacherous car ride in Suspicion (1941), just before Joan Fontaine gave her Oscar winning speech.

Getting back to the story, Grant ends up drunk in a police station and has to call his mother for help. The mother is a frequent character in Hitchcock movies. Thornhill’s mothers might be the most quirky of all Hitchcock ones. Anyway, Thornhill explains that he was kidnapped and the cops go with him to the countryside estate where the kidnappers are. At least that is where they were. No one knows what Thornhill is talking about. They say the house belongs to a man who is a part of the United Nations.

Embarrassed, Grant goes to the United Nations to find the man who owns the estate. This is an important scene in the movie and one that almost didn’t happen. The government would not allow Hitchcock to film on the UN property. So Hitch asked if he could go in to make measurements so they could rebuild some of the building in the studio. Hitch snuck a camera into the building and got some of the great shots used in the movie illegally.

Thornhill goes to the UN where the man he is looking for is killed. Stabbed in the back by someone. Thornhill is the only one around and he pulls the knife out of the man’s back. Being the UN, there are photographers around and Thornhill is captured while holding the knife over the dead man. He is obviously branded as the murderer. Now the situation is set up: Thornhill is on the run from the spy ring because they think he is Kaplan. He is also on the run from the police because they believe he killed the man in the UN.

At this point we cut away from Thornhill’s troubles and listen in to a meeting in Washington. Here it is explained by government officials that there is no man named Kaplan. He was just made-up to keep the spy ring occupied while the real secret agent infiltrates them. Since Thornhill has become the target of the spy ring, the government officials believe all is well. No sense in disrupting their good fortune by telling Thornhill that there is no Kaplan, although it would mean saving his life.

Thornhill makes his way onto a train headed toward Chicago, where Kaplan is supposed to be at this point. On the train he meets the cool blonde Eve Kendall, played by Eva Marie Saint. In a scene similar to that of The 39 Steps, Thornhill is on the run from the police and ends up “accidentally” stepping into the cabin of the cool blonde. Unlike in The 39 Steps, here Eve accepts the advances of Thornhill.

The train makes it to Chicago where Eve makes sure she handles all the details between Thornhill and Kaplan, as it would be a bad idea to have a wanted man picked up in a public phone booth. Eve says Kaplan will meet Thornhill at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere. So Thornhill gets on the bus and heads from the city to farmland.

The famous crop duster scene occurs here. Hitchcock took the typical cliché of being set up from the dark alleys of the major metropolitan area to the warm sunshiny cornfields of the Midwest. Film noir this is not, but it is suspenseful.

Getting chased by a crop duster would make anyone angry and Thornhill is just that as he makes it back to Chicago. He discovers that Eve has been playing him for a sap and vows vengeance on her as he discovers she has been palling around with Philip Vandamm, played by James Mason, the head of the spy ring.

To give a quick recap of what happens, the officials in Washington step in to help Thornhill out as he has almost blown the cover of their secret agent, Eve, while trying to embarrass here at an auction. The officials take Thornhill to Mount Rushmore where he is briefed on the situation. A plan is executed, Thornhill is almost executed, and the movie ends with a harrowing trip around the monuments of Mount Rushmore. Like the UN building, Hitch was unable to film on the monuments — something about defacing them by having people run over the faces. It didn’t matter, as they were recreated in the studio.

North by Northwest is one of Hitchcock’s best movies. It is also one of his most beloved. This is because the movie is filled with plenty of suspense, plus an equal amount of comedy. Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are a wonderful team on-screen and James Mason plays a wonderful bad guy. This is simply an enjoyable movie for people of all tastes.

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Movie Review: BATMAN BEGINS, 2005

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BATMAN BEGINS MOVIE POSTERBATMAN BEGINS, 2005
Movie Reviews

Directed by Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes, and Cillian Murphy
Review by Andrew Kosarko

8.3/10 on IMDB fan rating.

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SYNOPSIS:

Director Christopher Nolan tackles the challenge of re-starting the Batman franchise by delving into a physiological take on the Caped Crusader’s origin story that had never been fully realized in the comics. His approach involved an all star cast lead by Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman and takes a realistic approach in explaining how and why a billionaire would dress up like a giant bat and take on the underworld of crime.

REVIEW:

I am a Batman fan. I’m pretty passionate about it I’d say, but by no means as crazy as some of the other fans. I’ve read a good portion…

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Movie Review: MARNIE (1964) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

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MARNIE, 1964
Horror/Thriller Movie Review
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery
Review by Steven Painter

7.2/10 IMDB fan rating

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SYNOPSIS:

Mark marries Marnie although she is a habitual thief and has serious psychological problems, and tries to help her confront and resolve them

REVIEW:

There are many gems Alfred Hitchcock made that do not get the fanfare other movies of his have gotten. From the 1940s, Foreign Correspondent is underappreciated. In the 1950s it is Strangers on a Train. In the 1960s that movie is Marnie (1964).

Marnie is Hitchcock at his psychological best and probably the last great movie of his career. It is certainly the final movie of an era. It would be the last time Hitch worked with cinematographer Robert Burks, who would die soon after finishing the picture from a heart attack, and legendary composer Bernard Herrmann. The two had artistic differences.

The bad thing about this is that when Hitchcock had a difference of opinion with someone – they left the Hitchcock production company. It happened to Ingrid Bergman and it happened during this movie to Ian Hunter. The screenwriter had worked on several Hitchcock pictures, but disapproved of the rape scene in the novel version of Marnie. He voiced his displeasure over the scene to Hitch and Hitch severed relations with the screenwriter. It was only later that Hunter learned the only reason why Hitch wanted to make the movie was because of the rape scene.

Marnie can be looked at as the last great Alfred Hitchcock movie. It is a fitting tribute to a career that spanned more than four decades up to this point.

Tippi Hedren returns to the screen as Margaret Edgar, also known as Marnie. The original choice for the role was Grace Kelly, but at this time she was Princess of Monaco and it would have looked bad if a princess was playing a kleptomaniac. So Hedren got the role of the psychologically confused kleptomaniac.

Using different names and appearances, Marnie moves from job to job, stealing money from her employers before moving on to another town. One job she takes is with publisher Mark Rutland, played wonderfully by Sean Connery. Mark happens to recognize Marnie’s features from a previous business encounter. He becomes fascinated by her and tries to move in on her romantically. She ignores him as the only love she has ever felt in her life has come from stealing money.

She steals money from Mark’s company and makes a dash for it. Mark discovers the loss and balances it. He then takes off to find out who this wild girl really is. He tracks Marnie down at some stables she frequents, as horseback riding is one of her escapes. He then uses blackmail as a technique to get her to marry him.

The wonderful idea of marriage backfires on Mark as Marnie is cold to any sort of sexual advances. When Mark forces himself on her during their honeymoon, in Hitchcock’s favorite scene, she attempts suicide.

Unable to understand Marnie and still fascinated by her, Mark investigates her past. He ends up bringing Marnie to her mother, Bernice. The mother and daughter have always had a frigid relationship. In one of the best climaxes in all of Hitchcock, it is revealed in stunning detail why Marnie is so cold sexually, why she and her mother express little love for each other and why she despises the color red. The atmosphere around this movie is what makes it great. Credit must be given to Robert Burks for creating the camera angles and photographing exactly what Hitchcock had in his mind when reading the novel written by Winston Graham. Credit has also got to be paid to Bernard Herrmann for his magnificent score. It was the last time the two would work together, but it is probably the best overall score Herrmann gave to Hitchcock. The Vertigo and Psycho ones stand out, but Marnie has a score that perfectly expresses through music the atmosphere on screen.

Marnie is a complex movie. I could go on for paragraphs and paragraphs about all the little interesting things contained in it, but I’ll leave you to discover that for yourself. Robin Wood, the film theorist, proclaimed that if you don’t like Marnie then you aren’t a fan of Hitchcock. Then he went a step further and said if you don’t like Marnie then you aren’t a fan of movies. I fully agree with his statements.

 

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Movie Review: CHICKLAND (Short Film) 2015

CHICKLAND played to rave reviews at the November 2015 FEEDBACK Film Festival

Watch the Audience FEEDBACK Video from the Festival:

  MOVIE POSTERCHICKLAND, 11min, France, Comedy/Sci-Fi
Directed by Stanislav Graziani

Bubu and Toufik think they are the next Steve Jobs and Martin Zuckerberg… They have implanted a chip in their brain, which gives them access to the web… giving them instant access to universal knowledge. For their first experiment, they test it on picking up girls…

Review of the Short Film by Amanda Lomonaco:

Chickland left me a little bit on the fence. With the growing dissemination of devices like the Google Glass, and the expansion of Virtual Reality technology Chickland is a bit of a terrifying reminder of a reality that we could all soon be living in. Nevertheless, director Stanislav Graziani did a good job at balancing out the miracles of new technology, with the limitations of our own human psyche, providing  a slightly less dystopic view of the future.

The hardest thing to understand about the film was the age range of the actors involved. The male actors seemed far too young to be approaching the girls they were trying to pick up, although perhaps this was done on purpose, considering the end result of their experiment. The end of the film itself is also a bit reassuring, emphasizing the humanity of even the most technologically oriented minds.

There isn’t much that can be said about Chickland without revealing much of the film’s plot. It’s a peek into the future, into what life might look like if Google Glass ever really catches on. Of course there are certain differences. It’s not likely that the Google Glass “victims” of the future will have no suspicion of the tactics being used on them. Then again perhaps this was what Graziani was indicating in his depiction of the boy’s interaction with the math student.

Students of art might also find this film a little insulting in how easily the one boy was able to fake being a literary connoisseur, while his counterpart struggled to prove his math prowess. Nevertheless both the boys’ reactions to “completing the task” at the end of the film showed a lot of emotional sensitivity, one that most young boys of that age would normally not be so ready to admit or expose.

Chickland is an interesting experimental look into what our future might look like, how our grandchildren might date, find partners, or explore their sexuality. It sparks a lot of thinking about where our technological pursuits are heading, what it might truly bring us in the future. This wasn’t by any means one of my favourite short films to watch, but it certainly carried some interesting ideas that will inspire you to consider how natural human emotion is able to coexist with the calculated patterns of digital technology.