Friday, October 21, 2011

Paul Shepard: REVIEW ROUND-UP!

Today is the day!  Anyone living in the greater Toronto area needs to get their butts to the Carlton this weekend to see my film The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard, screening at 4:25pm and 9:20pm daily.  For those who don't know, the opening weekend of any film, particularly small films, is crucial.  For a film like ours it's the difference between only running one week in one city, and get expanded.  If we do well this weekend the chances of the film moving on to another city is very good, as well as getting an extra week in Toronto.
So, to the reviews.  A lot of filmmakers will claim they don't read reviews, and I'm sure some don't.  I haven't been doing this long enough not to care what other people think.  For a small film like ours a review can be the deciding factor on whether or not someone wants to give it a shot.  So without further adieu, here they are... Click on the name of the paper (the heading) to get the actual review, otherwise I'll just talk about it briefly:

The National Post:  I'd be lying if I didn't say that getting this three star review meant a lot to me.  But what meant even more was that this reviewer really seemed to "get" the film.  And to boot they said some really lovely things.

The Toronto Sun: While I'm sure she doesn't remember it, Liz Braun reviewed a short film festival a few years back where she commented on my film and said that I had done in five minutes what others like it couldn't do at feature length.  It was a nice thing to say.  And she has more nice things here, in particular that this is a film that should make Canadians proud.

The Toronto Star: Not our biggest supporter, but still nothing to shake your fist at.  No film is for everyone and considering how routinely romantic comedies get slammed by critics, I think we did just fine here.  

The Grid:  The black sheep of our reviews.  I very well can't post all the positive and leave out the negative.  I'm trying to avoid reviewing the reviews, however I can't help but think that from reading this one that this reviewer just hates the mockumentary format to begin with - so it's no surprise that we didn't get much love.  You can't win them all!

These are all the reviews I've seen so far, if anyone spots any more please let me know - post in the comments.  Otherwise, get your butt to the theatre and tell everyone you know!

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