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BENT v. 1
Produced by Jason Santo and Sheri Carter
Written, Directed, Edited, and Shot by Jason SantoI'm starting to get tired of writing positive reviews for Jason Santo. Seriously, how many times can you sing one man's praises before the world starts to re-evaluate your sexual preferences? I swear to God I'm straight and have no interest in getting Jason Santo in the old brown eye, so kissing his ass does me no good.
And I seriously doubt he's going to let me borrow his girlfriend for a weekend in Vegas...
Of course, I could be pulling your chain, dear readers, in hopes of singling out the great white hope of the shot-on-video revolution. The reason being that you once buy his work, seeing for yourself that it's the best of what's out there, you'd be willing to take more chances on the rest of today's SOV product, about 90% being uninspired dreck. But misleading you like that, dear readers, would only destroy any trust we've built between us over the years.
No, the sad truth of the matter is that the guy is good at what he does and he keeps sending me his product. I'm obligated to him, and more importantly to you, dear readers, to tell the truth as I see it about Jason's work.
We know the guy's good. He knows he's good. There's not much else to say. As a reviewer of Jason's work for the last few years, I've long since felt like a broken record stuck on a continuous loop of kiss ass.
...Jason, Jason, he's our man.....*ka-zip*
...Jason, Jason, he's our man.....*ka-zip*
...Jason, Jason,....You get the picture.
Then again, maybe you don't. Over the last few years the SOV market has been flooded with so much lackluster product that people are afraid to take chances with their purchasing dollars. I don't blame you, dear readers, I'm the same way. After all, times are tough and a dollar only goes so far. Just the other day I couldn't scrape together the scratch from underneath the couch cushions to hit up the Dollar Menu at McDonald's.
So I'm telling you straight, dear readers, get BENT.
Jason has put together his finest collection of shorts since the old Fade to Black days. In fact, one of the shorts included on BENT v. 1 you might even remember from FtB, "Marisa." Jason's obsessed nature with technical perfection has led him to re-cut and re-score this tale of a scorned woman finding her inner Lizzy Borden. During one of Jason's on-camera diatribes, he discusses how the original version suffered from the use of commercially unlicenced music and came across as a video ripe for the VH1 airwaves.
It's been some time since I originally saw "Marisa," but I remember liking it immensely. If Jason hadn't pointed out the music changes, I never would have noticed them. The short is constructed with such a strong sense of visual storytelling that Right Said Fred could have played underneath and the movie wouldn't have lost any of its impact.
Also included on BENT are the shorts "His Life" and "Haunted", the later being a horror effort where the majority of the action takes place in an abandoned warehouse. It's an unusual experiment for Jason, a man who's prided himself on never delving into horror before. The result is, of course, better than most of today's horror efforts in that "Haunted" provides both tension and chills.
"His Life" is a short very much in the tradition of the Jason Santo movies we've all come to love, irony-laced drama. The story finds Santo's long time collaborator, and one of BENT's executive producers, Roman Berman, as a young man who has lived his entire short life with the belief that he's going to die the day he turns 25...which just happens to be tomorrow.
"His Life" and "Haunted" couldn't be farther apart on the filmmaker spectrum in terms of filmmaking styles. Where "Haunted" is all action, it lacks emotional character motivation. The story lies in the events and the characters are forced to play them out. With "His Life," the character's emotions dictate the action and story. Together, the two movies exemplify just how well-rounded a storyteller Jason Santo really is, a damn good one. He's the kind of storyteller who's willing to put the movie first and tell it the best way he can.
So again, I'm telling you straight, dear readers, get BENT.