The unhip jab wasn't meant to be an insult. Not totally. It's just that the locally filmed All Men Are Beasts, premiering next week at Paragon Theaters in Cocowalk, is not exactly the type of hipster Miami filmmaking that's been garnering attention lately. But we're thinking that's a good thing.
No, All Men Are Beasts seems to be more traditional, dare we say conservative, approach to movies. The un-coolest person at Miami New Times, Club Listings Editor Jacob Katel, points out that it's actually shot on film (not video, bitches), and there is real dialogue in the picture. What's more it's like an adult version of Saved by the Bell. Nuff said. Watch the trailer after the jump.
Written and directed by Miami firefighter Elvis Cruz, the film follows
newly divorced high school teacher Shelly (played by Tia Bakes) as she
navigates through the dating world after many years out of the game. The
cast is made up of local stage actors, other firefighters, and even a
class of Miami Beach Senior High drama students. Cruz says the film was shot at 28 locations around South Florida
Cruz deserves credit for making the movie on what we can only assume was
a shoestring budget and for pushing it hard to media outlets (including
busting in on a Cultist meeting to make sure we gave his project
coverage -- hey, it worked! But don't take that as encouragement to do it
again, please. Next time we'll purposefully ignore the project). And yeah, Cultist
actually has meetings.
Though we're all for supporting the local film scene, there's a couple
of knocks against the flick from the get go. No web site. That's a no-no
in today's Internet driven society (but they do have a Facebook page). As for the movie itself, the acting seems a bit amateurish as you'd
expect and maybe the writing as well.
For every borderline funny scene we saw in the preview, ("Chicks find me
totally resistible," and "We were married so long we were on our second
bottle of Tabasco sauce"), there's at least one or more cornball lines
to counteract it (e.g., "I just hope you don't fall into the same trap I
did, I call it over 30 and living alone disease").
And then there is the soundtrack. The song playing over the trailer is
so bad we think it might be genius. If it was meant to be terrible, it's
wonderful. If not, then it's just plain terrible. It reminds us of the music from There's Something About Mary.
The truth is, after watching the trailer, we're torn about the
flick. It looks like its shortcomings outweigh the positives. But it is a
local flick, and that counts for something. If you find yourself at
Cocowalk at some point over the next couple of weeks and can't figure
out what movie to see, take a chance on All Men Are Beasts. Then tell what the hell is going on.
All Men Are Beasts premieres at Paragon Grove 13 Theaters at Cocowalk
(3015 Grand Ave., Miami) on Friday, September 23 and runs through October 6.
Tickets cost $10.50. Visit paragontheaters.com.
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