Saturday, June 20, 2009

Mike Brett Review on Ray Carney's Site

As I wrote about earlier, I'm trolling the internet for material related to Honey. I came across this wonderful review on Ray Carney's site. I've never met Mike Brett, but Mike, if you're out there, thanks for the review and I'm glad you enjoyed it. And yes, I am tentatively going to get back into making films once I can figure out how to balance it with my legal academic career.

Anyway, the review is here: Mail, Events, Screenings, News: 81. Scroll down until you get to this paragraph:

ray,

david ball's honey was exceptionally great. i saw it on creative commons very recentely and although the picture was so small i almost had to squint to see it i was deeply affected by it, which must be some sort of a testament to the overall quality of the film. on one hand i think that it truly is a wonderful thing that a film of that calibre or a piece of peoples emotional lives is so readily available sitting there on a free website waiting patientely to be discovered by all who would just discover it (you figure into that equation also of course). it does make one wonder how many other masterpieces or gems are out there covered by dust waiting to be undusted and uncovered and that's a good feeling or a great feeling...that feeling of possibility, what a classy move too... but on the other hand it is a great
tragedy that seemingly so few have yet to even uncover this particular one. if it rocked you it certainly reached out through the screen of my boring computer grabbed me tightly by the shoulders and jostled me around. i'm left with hazy snapshots of a journey i was taken on or let into to.

it seems silly to me almost to point at isolated specific moments in the film because the effect or experience was definately a cumalative or a flowing one for me but there's a moment or a scene in the kitchen between ruth and the silent stranger that is one of the rightest but inexplicable things i've ever seen in a film. come to think of it there's tons more...the scene on the stairs after the whole paltry party has ended on the staircase between ruth and john (or is it tom? - great) and by the time ball cuts to the flashback and then to that guy sitting on the couch smoking and rocked while his girlfriend stands silentley by the door looking at him you really feel you've lived through something. you're moved on so many different levels in so many different ways..at least as many different ways as there are characters
if not more....and then you see the gated elevator door window that you saw at the very beginning and it's even stronger now and nothing is the same as it was. what a strong beautiful haunting film. i genuinely hope david ball is still making films. is he? cause i look forwards to seeing anything that guy ever makes...what an amazing filmmaker...

peace -
mike brett

Always nice to find good reviews that you didn't even know about.

3 comments:

mike said...

The film deserves that praise and far better. Glad to hear you're at least tentatively thinking about getting back into it. I sincerely hope it's soon...

I'm going to buy a copy in a few weeks when I get a couple of bucks. I hardly ever buy films. This will be one of about five in my library actually. Can't wait to see it again on a bigger screen. It's the kind of film I would suspect that still feels fresh after a number of viewings. Ill show it to some more people as well...

mike

David Ball said...

Glad you tracked this down! And send me an email, or leave a comment with how I can reach you with updates on what you're doing. Thanks again for all of your support. DB

mike said...

Hey David my e-mail is: flippedthascript@yahoo.com

Was an actor....haven't done any acting for awhile unfortunately. There's not much to act in. I've just been focusing on writing lately. A couple of scripts I've been working on for years that are very important to me and some short fiction... besides that I've just generally been making peoples lives miserable and trying to figure out myself how I'm going to shoot something. I shot some scenes in Los Angeles before I left but my lifestyle has been pretty transient. Anyway..again I loved the film. I'll probably get that copy later on in the week. I'll let you know what I notice about it that I didn't the first time....

best regards,
michael brett sheinheit