One of the great things about attending a film festival is finding a short film that upends the status quo. Writer and director Blake Winston Rice’s “Disc” is such a story; it takes the premise of sleeping with a stranger after a business conference and makes it funny, honest, and trustworthy.
Filmmakers often tackle stories about one-night stands, usually trying to make them a road to something bigger, but rarely does a film contain both the levity and the truth that Disc does. At just under 20 minutes, the film is both amusing in its awkwardness and sobering in its realness.
The entire premise of Disc is that two strangers wake up in bed together. The morning after has set in, and Victoria Ratermanis and Jim Cummings play their roles with such immediacy and veracity that it is hard not to be drawn into the situation. It is in that awkward and uncomfortable morning after that Rice inserts an impasse of sorts, which requires the two characters to talk at greater length, and thus beyond politeness, to each other. He stages the conversations with an excellent comedic eye for awkward silence, missed cues, and the physical, unspoken connection between the two leads.
He also grounds the entire film by allowing his actors to be very real, both in the physical comedy and in their moments of emotional vulnerability. “Disc” is not a broad comedy; it is a comedy in its most valid form because it allows us to sometimes find humor in a tricky situation. The film itself is shot unobtrusively, with Rice staying tight on his leads. It’s a natural look and never distracts from the connection between the leads.
It’s not until the end of “Disc” that you think about the two leads and their situation and wonder if they will run into each other again. The movie is witty and clever, but the pieces that impress the most are the moments of truth in the film, and it is no surprise that this was the calling card of Blake Winston Rice. After watching this film, I’m eager to see what Rice does next.
Final Grade: B+
Aldis Hodge is back on the case as Alex Cross for Season 2 of Prime Video’s “Cross”. Ben Watkins returns as showrunner, with directors including Stacy Muhammad and Craig Siebels.
Civil War dramas often measure valor through cannon fire and cavalry charges. However, “The Gray House*“valuates valor through coded messages, calculated risks, and the steady nerves of women who understood that information could be deadlier than any rifle. This eight-episode limited series reframes the conflict not from the battlefield, but from the drawing rooms of Richmond, where loyalty is performed, and survival depends on silence.
It’s been a month since I finished my first run at Sundance, and I’m finally getting the chance to see some of the films I missed as they began to premiere. One of those films is “In the Blink of an Eye,” which is available on Hulu. The film is directed by Andrew Stanton and written by Colby Day.