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JMan Films Collection (2008)

JMan Films

JMan films basically consists of one teenage guy from Illinois (with a little help from friends and family) who makes short, crazy films.  The JMan Films Collection is a DVD of some of these short films put together as a promotional item to get some feedback from whoever would take the time to watch and comment.  The shorts are rough, homemade, no-budget pieces, but often contain some clever and unique ideas.  It seems that whenever JMan gets an idea, he takes an afternoon and films it, edits it, and throws it up on the internet to see what works.  Sure, not everything will work, but I certainly do prefer this approach to waiting until you have the perfect circumstances to start filming - because I don't think there ever are perfect circumstances - and at the very least, you can learn from your mistakes as you film.

Some of the shorts are animations; many have puppets in the lead roles; several have JMan himself playing every character in the film.  There are exploding cats, barfing puppets, silly voices, Monty Python-style photo animations, rubber turds and even musical numbers.  As you would expect, the quality isn't professional, but it's really not bad considering the limitations.  Some of these shorts are more entertaining that the films that M. Night Shyamalan was making in his youth and he went on to...actually, come to think of it, some of these shorts are more entertaining than anything M. Night Shyamalan has done in the last few years.  Anyway, after watching a few JMan films, you'll see that the one common thread tying everything together is a distinct sense of wackiness.  So if you like Monty Python, South Park and The Sifl & Olly Show, you should check out some of the JMan's videos.  Hell, you've made it this far into the review, you must be at least somewhat interested; go over to the JMan Films myspace page and watch some of the shorts yourself...and leave a comment:

myspace.com/jmanfilms

Gore-o-meter rating: 1 out of 5 (not much gore)

Skin-o-meter: 0 out of 5 (no nudity)