KINOSCOPE: Nitehawk’s Shorts Festival, Part Two
November 10, 2017
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shareRead Part One of Patrick Devitt’s piece on the Nitehawk Shorts Festival.
“Robin Comisar’s TIFF-sensation, Great Choice (2017) is without a doubt the highlight of this year’s Midnite selections. Comisar takes as its basis a 94 Red Lobster television spot , which, when viewed outside the context of the short, now comes across as a dated advertisement. An almost unrecognizable Carie Coon (Gone Girl) stars as a woman that gets stuck in an infinite loop of the same Red Lobster commercial. The film succeeds in recreating the original ad down to a T, from the haunting mechanical smiles to its emulated VHS distortion. As each new loop deviates further away from the prototype, Coon’s hysteria exacerbates and the Red-Lobster waiter’s behavior grows more sadistic. Even though it moderately dissolves into a quasi-Adult Swim “infomercial,” Comisar’s sheer commitment to such a ludicrous concept is immensely gratifying.”
