Shorts
Eleven-year-old Toe Thompson is the designated punching bag for the bullies of the suburban community of Black Falls, where his and everyone else's parents work for Black Box Industries, makers of the do-it-all gadget that's sweeping the nation. But during a freak storm, a mysterious Rainbow Rock, which grants wishes to anyone who finds it, falls from the sky. Suddenly, the neighborhood that Toe already thinks is weird is about to get a lot weirder. As the Rainbow Rock ricochets around the town--from kid to kid and parent to parent--wishes-come-true quickly turn the neighborhood upside down in a wild rampage of everything from tiny aliens to giant boogers. Told through a series of shorts that each bring to life the sometimes wonderful, often terrible, and totally out-of-control wishes that become far more than Toe and his neighbors ever imagined.--©Official Site.
2.4 out of 5 based on 15 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Certificate |
PG |
| Genre |
Family / Children |
| Director |
Robert Rodriguez |
| Cast |
Jake Short, Kat Dennings Jimmy Bennett |
| Studio |
Warner Bros. |
| Release Date |
August 2009 |
| Running Time |
89 minutes |
| |
Eleven-year-old Toe Thompson is the designated punching bag for the bullies of the suburban community of Black Falls, where his and everyone else's parents work for Black Box Industries, makers of the do-it-all gadget that's sweeping the nation. But during a freak storm, a mysterious Rainbow Rock, which grants wishes to anyone who finds it, falls from the sky. Suddenly, the neighborhood that Toe already thinks is weird is about to get a lot weirder. As the Rainbow Rock ricochets around the town--from kid to kid and parent to parent--wishes-come-true quickly turn the neighborhood upside down in a wild rampage of everything from tiny aliens to giant boogers. Told through a series of shorts that each bring to life the sometimes wonderful, often terrible, and totally out-of-control wishes that become far more than Toe and his neighbors ever imagined.--©Official Site.
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Reviews
Channel 4 Film
Daniel Etherington
“Although this is typical Rodriguez in that it's colourful and inventive fun that's also faintly slapdash, it also has something to say about modern life. Gadgets may be great, and certainly digital filmmaker extraordinaire Rodriguez is a fan, but there's a danger these devices are making us compromise our connectedness and human intimacy.”
22/08/2009
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Variety
Justin Chang
“More zippy, diverting fun from Robert Rodriguez's family filmmaking factory, "Shorts" delivers a shopworn moral lesson for kids and adults (be careful what you wish for!) with a more pointed contempo spin (technology is ruining human communication!). ”
09/08/2009
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The Independent on Sunday
Nicholas Barber
“As ever, Rodriguez is better at coming up with ideas than knowing what to do with them. He crams in the flying saucers at random, whether they serve the narrative or not. For instance, why bring in an all-purpose mega-iPhone, only to leave it as a red herring? It's as if Dahl had mentioned Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and then had Charlie running around town with his friends instead.”
23/08/2009
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The Daily Telegraph
Tim Robey
“Perhaps fittingly for a movie with the knockabout, indifferently-shot appeal of Saturday morning kids’ telly, there’s an entire subplot about a bogey.”
21/08/2009
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The Scotsman
Alistair Harkness
“endearingly scrappy and anarchic adventure movie that serves as a pleasing antidote to the banality of recent kid flicks such as Aliens in teh Attic and G-Force.”
21/08/2009
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The Observer
Philip French
“...a cute, special-effects comedy for easily pleased children...”
23/08/2009
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The Sunday Times
Rebecca Nicholson
“Ploughing the mind of a child for the story of a children’s film is no bad idea, but replicating their attention span makes it a little too flighty.”
23/08/2009
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Total Film
Richard Matthews
“Gaudy, goofy and too busy for its own good. For every idea or sight gag that sticks, there’s 10 that don’t. Best for DVD, when you’ll be in control of the pause button.”
11/08/2009
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Time Out
Trevor Johnston
“The chaos comes so thick and fast that Rodriguez slices the action into a series of shorts as Toby (Jimmy Bennett) tries to get his head round events. Like so much else, this might have seemed a good idea at the time, but it holds up the flow, and makes a half-baked story even scrappier. ”
20/08/2009
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The Times
Toby Young
“Shorts is so structurally complicated that it almost qualifies as an experimental film and if it fails — as it does — it would be uncharitable to condemn Rodriguez for that. As Samuel Beckett said: “To be an artist is to fail.””
21/08/2009
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“Well, in the Disneyfied dumbed-down marketplace for kids' films, there's something daring and even refreshing in a movie which messes with conventional narrative. If only it wasn't so frantic.”
21/08/2009
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
“No denying his energy, but it's like the energy of a kid with attention deficit disorder: his stories can't settle on anything for more than a few minutes.”
21/08/2009
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The Daily Mail
Chris Tookey
“At 89 minutes, even though the story is repetitive and the humour childish, there's no time to get bored. Five to ten year-olds will find it cool. Adults, less so.”
21/08/2009
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The New York Times
Jeannette Catsoulis
“Concocted by Robert Rodriguez, a kind of filmmaking Black Box (he wrote, directed, edited, produced, photographed, composed some of the music and supervised the visual effects), “Shorts” feels underwritten and overdressed. Though adept at homing in on the things that kids find hilarious — boogers, loogies, not-blinking contests — Mr. Rodriguez (whose bifurcated brain flips easily from “Grindhouse” gore to “Spy Kids” kookiness) leaves his adults in the lurch.”
21/08/2009
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
“the screen is never still and the script never smart or engaging.”
19/08/2009
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