PARALLEL AFTERNOON VIDEO COLLECTION

Written and Directed by Marc Mahan, Shane Grier, John Stanek, and Bryan Miller

This collection of shorts from Parallel Afternoon Productions is a Bizarro World look at everything exciting in the world of amateur cinema. The short films might not always work in relation to one other, but they all possess the same sort of angst-ridden satire geared to skewer both traditional Hollywood cinema and the surrounding world of fandom.

With 30+ shorts on the tape, there's too many to run through individually. Highlights include WICKET, a wickedly funny baseball bat-to-the-kneecaps of overly obsessed STAR WARS fanatics, and CORNER POCKET, an interesting take on the seemingly futile desire of micro-budget videomakers to move up to the world of actual filmmaking.

With the good come the bad, and no collection would be complete without its share of near-misses and duds, and the PARALLEL AFTERNOON VIDEO COLLECTION is no exception. Fortunately, the films and segments move so quickly that there isn't much time to dwell. The shorts are video equivalents of Flash Fiction, ranging anywhere from 1- 5 minutes in length. Hardly any time to establish any sort of character or plot, but plenty of time to set up jokes and deliver their punchlines.

Parallel Afternoon