Birthday Boy
From the Archives
•
Short Films, 04-Aug-2021
Wally’s surprise birthday party turns weird after an existential reaction. Jordan Michael Blake directs “Birthday Boy,” an unsettling portrait of emotional whiplash shot with a family camcorder, which contains years of unrelated home videos that occasionally bleed through. Everything seems rather normal at first: a group of friends have planned to meet Wally at his house and bombard him with celebration and well-wishes. But Wally does not react as expected and instead enters an almost trance-like state, where all he can do is mutter about ineffective daily affirmations while publicly exposing layers of vulnerability (“all my weaknesses make me unique”). Blake specializes in odd behavior (see also last year’s “Two Words,” and 2018’s “Clean Blood”), that can shock the viewer to consider what happens when commonplace exchanges are replaced with unhinged manifestations of hidden interior states of mind. -KA.
Written, Directed & Produced by Jordan Michael Blake. Starring Bill O'Neill & Danielle Marcucci. Produced By Gregory Barnes, Ian Blair, Jake Miller. Executive Producers: Fidel Ruiz-Healy, Tyler Walker. Additional Dialogue: Bill O’Neill & Danielle Marcucci.
Up Next in From the Archives
-
Monica - Part Four
A darkly comedic web series about Monica Lewinsky’s life in 2001, when she was 27 and living in New York City.
Created by Doron Max Hagay and Lily Marotta. Starring Lily Marotta. Featuring Erin Markey. DP Daniel Rampulla.
-
Gas Money
While making a documentary about the female orgasm, a filmmaker tries to get her conservative parents to see her side of her own sexual explorations. Allison Bunce directs “Gas Money,” a provocatively funny dissection of repressive sexual standards and the resulting shame and emotional wreckage. ...
-
Lost City
When a pizza-loving Nigerian tourist gets lost on his way to see a comedy show, his night takes several unexpected turns. “Lost City,” directed by Max Cea and John Hammond, is a scrappy portrait of a spontaneous night in New York City and an unlikely connection made. The outsider’s tale finds Dek...
