I disagree with him.

Monday and Union County do not suffer from the problems he outlines. In fact I they they handle them quite well. Monday has philosophical conflict with the cousin and his mother's beliefs about what he's doing, as well as the choices he and Emma have made and are continuing to make. The film is a portrait in which there are many small points of choice building to the final choice to continue taking bigger risks. Also I think the montage works perfectly. It quickly shows us the information we need to understand the relationship with out bogging the story down with lots of expositional talking.

I think Union County is beautiful. The character's wants are strong and clear from the beginning and there is a definite cost to the choices he is forced to make when he doesn't let the girl back in his car. His analysis is completely off base.

Now concerning Uncanny Valley, yeah . . . this is a common problem with sci-fi shorts. They are often more tech demo for the artists than they are stories. Which I feel is the case here.

The Gatherer I could go either way with. I agree, I don't think anything happens really. And much of the interview conversation seems more motivated by trope than what either character is actually giving to the other. It feels more motivated by mood and some strange relationship to the bible or religion than a narrative story happening.

At first I thought responsibility didn't seem appropriate, But after thinking for a moment, no, it 2019. Should they be required to put people of color in the their list. NO. But they should be responsible for the the choices they make. By all means make your list of favorite scenes. But I think any socially conscious person might step back afterward and look and say, "You know what, I only have one scene with people of color on this list." Do they have to change it. No. But If they seriously ask themselves the question, "When I think of good acting, do I only think of people of color 5% of the time?" If they're ok with their answer, by all means put it out there. But I hope their not shocked when someone calls them on that.

Obviously, you didn't write this list and the person who did like isn't aware of the response here on this site.

There are a number of movies on this list that I haven't seen. And I'm interested to check them out. But I do think this list (though it does skew to the classics that most modern audiences don't know) shows a serious lack of diversity. And not just racially. There are 2 scenes that have Joe Pesci in them and 2 with Robert DeNiro. And 2 Scorsese movies.

You're kidding right?!? One scene with some Asian actors and the rest are all white people? Nope.

I first want to say this is a beautiful film. Really, well done.

But, I hate it when people in these articles say, "It was a really small budget." Because that could mean so many different things. They rented a Red Epic Dragon, with Arri Super Speeds. They had/could afford the time to live with the children for a month before they shot? They were renting an AirBnB for at least 3 days and seemed to bring some crew in from out of town. Did they pay for travel? Was the crew paid? Full rates or just a tiny stipend? Was the editor paid? Or were all of these people friends and part of some collective and doing it all together. Yeah, a Dad did the Costco runs, but you had to feed, how may people? For 3 . . . 4 days. A small budget for a film like this could still mean $40K-$50K. Or even more. Or it could mean less than $10K.

I understand there are reasons not to divulge budget and such. I just wish those details were given in articles like this. It offers more frames of reference for other filmmakers as to what is possible with $X and how much it costs to bring your ideas to life.

Tolkien must be turning in his grave.

Is the tech in the display really any different than what a Nintendo 3DS does or what the HTC EVO 3D did several years ago?