Collin Souter
- Writer and Contributor, Freelance
- Contributor, RogerEbert.com
- Co-Host, Christmas Movies Actually
Chicago
Writer, teacher, film critic, host of "Christmas Movies Actually" podcast, filmmaker, U2 fan.
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Articles by Collin Souter
Short Films in Focus: Bob’s Funeral
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Short Films in Focus: Patient (with Director Lori Felker)
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Short Films in Focus: Sound and Color (with Director Emma Foley) Original
(Trigger warning: This film deals with suicide.) Emma Foley’s “Sound and Colour” presents an awkward and unnerving first fifteen minutes of a woman, Hannah (Alison Oliver), coming home to her family after spending days at a hospital following a failed suicide attempt. No one, including her, knows quite what to say, but everyone (including her parents and two brothers) tries their best to put on a brave and polite face.
Short Films in Focus: "Bug Diner"
Phoebe Jane Hart's "Bug Diner" is not for kids. Let's get that out of the way right at the top. It's worth stressing this now, especially in light of the controversy surrounding its release on Vimeo a few months ago, where it was given the coveted Staff Picks badge (guaranteeing it thousands more views), then quickly taken down two days later for fear of its graphic content by Vimeo's Legal and Trust & Safety team for being inappropriate for younger viewers.
Short Films in Focus: Off the Face of the Earth (with Michael Pantozzi)
Michael Pantozzi's "Off The Face of the Earth" opens with a reclusive photographer, Tim (Pantozzi), who struggles to find the courage to delete his social media account. Once he does that, will he truly be alone and perhaps freer? Or is he trying to take a stand against being a product that exists only to feed bots and algorithms?
Short Films in Focus: 24 Hours After Reading Tuesdays With Morrie (with Scott Tinkham)
I'm not sure I'm fully qualified to write this review, even though I have seen Scott Tinkham's "24 Hours After Reading Tuesdays With Morrie" more than a few times. I almost- almost-programmed it for the Chicago Critics Film Festival this year, but blinked, second-guessed, and perhaps chickened out. "Are people gonna get this? Do I get it? Is 'Tuesdays With Morrie' a reference point that will register with the younger audiences who come to our fest?" These were the questions that kept nagging at me.
Short Films in Focus: "Stooper" (with Bennett Watanabe)
Bennett Watanabe's "Stooper" tells the story of a boy (Valor Hirsch) on his tenth birthday. Presumably, his mom is at work (or out somewhere) while he waits for his father ( Emile Hirsch, Valor's real father) to pick him up on his weekend with him. The boy gets a $10 bill in one of the many birthday cards he opens on his dining room table and adds it to a small pile of money he keeps under his bed. We later find out he has been saving for a cool bike.
Short Films in Focus: Joe Hunting on "The Reality of Hope"
Joe Hunting's documentary "The Reality Of Hope" is the kind of inspiring story of friendship and the goodness in people that I think many of us need right now. A few months ago, the film " The Life of Chuck " gave some moviegoers a reason to go to the theater and feel good about life again. It's a hard thing to pull off these days, as the news makes us more hardened and cynical about the world and skeptical about anything that tries to sell us on positive intentions.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation At The Drive-In
A couple weeks ago, my wife Kerry and I embarked on a tour of just a few of the drive-in theaters still thriving in the Midwest. We live in Chicago. Our trip started in Wisconsin, then down to Iowa, through Indiana, back to Illinois (sounds backwards, but I'll explain later) and finished in Michigan, visiting a total of six drive-ins. There are many more throughout the U.S, roughly three-hundred.
Short Films in Focus: The Vacation
"The Vacation" starts with a barber named Aaron (Drew Morris) sitting in his car, which won't start. Today is his vacation. All he wants to do is take a drive to the beach, hang out with his friends, and forget about his troubles. Just one day. His car will not let him accomplish this seemingly small request of the universe. One by one, he is joined by his friends. Devin (Carrillo) wears a suit and has to go to a job interview for an internship.
Short Films in Focus: Q&A with "Living Reality" Director Philip Thompson
Philip Thompson's "Living Reality" takes viewers on a strange journey through a terrible TV sitcom, where characters recite lines that hack writers think TV characters should say, and a video collage of real moments that contrasts with everything else.
Short Films in Focus: Margie Soudek's Salt and Pepper Shakers
It's time to take a break from the kinds of social injustice movies covered in this column for the past few months and, instead, shift to more pleasant fodder, like a lovely grandmother with a salt and pepper collection. Meredith Moore's "Margie Soudek's Salt and Pepper Shakers" is the kind of Mother's Day offering that goes down easy: full of charm, warmth and surprises, especially with all those big explosions.
Short Films in Focus: Incident
I find it challenging to review "found footage" documentaries where the primary focus is on the footage itself. You watch it. It makes sense that someone would release the footage into the world. You make sense of it in the context of our world today. And you think, "Wow. Nothing's changed in our world," or something like that. And you move on. Then again, you may remember that one such movie, "A Night at the Garden," got an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Short for doing just that.
Short Films in Focus: David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz on "A Lien"
The Oscar-nominated live-action short "A Lien," directed by David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz, is a cry for help. Not just from the characters. Not just from the filmmakers. It represents a truth about our immigration system that leaves many innocent people feeling helpless, afraid and separated from anyone who can lend a hand in the situation. By the film's end, we have been experiencing a story that is built like a thriller, but has its roots in a systemic failure by all authorities involved.
A Look at Every Oscar-Nominated Short This Year
Last year, I wrote that the independent spirit in these Oscar Shorts categories felt absent and perhaps would be for the unforeseeable future, as Netflix, The New Yorker and other such services and publications started making big gains in the short film market and leaving true independent artists in the dust, at least in terms of the short films being nominated for Oscars (the indie spirit is alive and well on the festival circuit's shorts programs, that I know).
Short Films in Focus: My Son Went Quiet
Ian Bawa's "My Son Went Quiet" tells a story of grief and ghosts. In the film, a Father (Harkaran Jhinger) and Son (Jay Vaidyanathan) have just come from a funeral of the young man's mother. (Father) notices that (son) has stopped talking, perhaps too stunned by the loss and has been left with a debilitating coping mechanism that will hopefully pass. Soon, though, he hears (son) talking to someone through the closed bedroom door. Who is he talking to?
Short Films in Focus: The Big Wait
So many people I know who have seen Yannick Jamey's charming documentary "The Big Wait" have said something along the lines of "I think that may be my dream job." The film depicts a couple who run an emergency airport in the middle of nowhere in Forrest, Australia. This desert town consists of only these two lovely people, Greg and Kate Harrington, who have a street of cottages to keep tidy, just in case a plane happens to make an emergency landing there and the people on board end up stranded.
Short Films in Focus: Fleshwork (with Director Lydia Cornett)
Sometimes, when I watch a short film, particularly a documentary, I come away feeling that it could have gone on another thirty minutes or so, and I still would've been hooked. Lydia Cornett's film "Fleshwork" is roughly six and a half minutes, and when it ended, I initially felt it was too short. For some reason, despite its subject matter, I wanted more.
"Megalopolis" contains a multitude of experiences
I wanted to get this out about my experience of watching Francis Ford Coppola’s extraordinary anomaly, “Megalopolis,” on September, 23rd, 2024, because it will likely never be repeated anytime soon. I’ll get to the actual film in a moment, but for now, I just want to write about the experience of it. I’ll let you know now that this is not a story of people behaving badly, a projector screw-up or any other kind of wrong-doing or freak accident.
Short Films in Focus: Young People, Old People and Nothing In Between
Parida Tantiwasadakran's "Young People, Old People and Nothing In Between" centers on the friendship between a 7-year-old named Juice (Deedee Piamwiriyaku) with ADHD and her friend, an elderly woman named Grandma Lovely (Suwinya Kungsadan), who is slowly descending into dementia. With such a wide age gap between them and a limited understanding of everything that surrounds them both, Juice becomes Grandma Lovely's connection to the outside world.
A Preview of Real Life & Mother
The Criterion Collection may have surprised some collectors when they announced last May that they would be releasing two Albert Brooks movies on their label in August: "Real Life" and "Mother." "Real Life" was not a surprise. An HD treatment was long overdue and had been a favorite for so many Brooks fans and fans of comedies that seemed ahead of their time. It's a movie lover's movie and Criterion's acquisition of it was a natural choice. "Mother," though, seemed to come out of left field.
Short Films in Focus: Welcome to the Enclave
Some complained to Lasley that the final shot runs too long and I suppose if the film ended right at the peak of the sequence that precedes it (not giving it away), I probably still would've enjoyed it, but leaving in the uncomfortable and unnerving tracking shot gives "Welcome To the Enclave" a new voice that raises the film a few notches above just an exercise in irony and satire.
Short Films in Focus: Flail with Director Ben Gauthier
From there, we follow Allie throughout the day as she juggles appointments, medications, FaceTime calls from her mother, breakups with Tinder dates, parking disasters, and picking up her brother ( David Brown), who rides along with her for a while until it's too much to bear.
Short Films in Focus: The Year of Staring at Noses
All this makes for a wild ride of a film that is fun to go back and look at a second and third time. I don't watch "The Bachelor," but I have indulged in trashy reality TV before (check out "Don't Tell The Bride" if you want an addictive, completely absurd wedding-based reality show. It's currently on Tubi). I'm sure not all the rejected contestants are like Samantha, but this film does add another layer of weirdness to the whole concept.
Floating Through the Nowhere Stream with Director Luis Grané
Interviews How did you dream this up? One of your settings is the very familiar strip of concrete-the spillways of the Los Angeles River. Is that a meaningful location for you personally? Throughout the pandemic, I spent a lot of time (most of the time) in front of the computer. While the primary purpose was work-related, I also sought entertainment, distractions, and even culinary inspiration through online searches. It felt as though our entire existence was submerged in that glowing surface.
Short Films in Focus: I Have No Tears, and I Must Cry
Herrera's performance tells the whole story, though. She effortlessly takes us on the journey from hope to hopelessness and back again. It's really something to see in a 13-minute span. We leave the movie hoping her world of possibilities hasn't closed up and that she'll feel a little better at the end of the day, even though we know this story in real life often doesn't end the way it should.
Short Films in Focus: The 2024 Oscar-Nominated Short Films Original
DOCUMENTARY "The ABCs Of Book Banning" - The film opens with the startling fact that 2,000 books in public school libraries across 37 states are banned. We then hear from grade school students in Florida who have read many of the banned books and what they think of them. Books by Amada Gorman, Judy Blume, the infamous picture book "And Tango Makes Three," the graphic novel "Gender Queer" and books about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., among them.
2023: The Year of the Teacher
Why is that? Kore-eda Hirokazu's more subdued "Monster" has a clear answer. The film takes a look at a teacher's unfortunate situation from multiple perspectives and comes to the conclusion that "what actually happened doesn't matter." In this film, a mom ( Sakura Ando) discovers her fifth-grader son ( Soya Kurokawa) has a new wound on his ear, due to an incident with his teacher in the classroom.
Short Films in Focus: Breaking Silence
How did you find this story? The film originated with the idea of, "how can we tell a story about the impacts of incarceration on families, specifically women, in Texas?" As part of that research, Amy met Leslie via the nonprofit Truth Be Told at the end of 2019, just a few weeks after she was released from prison. We knew that her father was deaf, though we didn't know how active he was in working with men who were currently and formerly incarcerated at that time.
Short Films in Focus: Big Touch Original
It's hard to write about this film without saying too much. The film played countless film festivals during the 2021-22 seasons and with good reason. It's beautifully shot and easy to program, but at that time, it also offered a moment of catharsis for those who had deep feelings about the lack of physical, loving contact between humans during the pandemic.
Short Films in Focus: Troy Original
Q&A with co-writer/director Mike Donahue How did this movie come about? As a director, I've always been drawn to stories of unexpected or surprising intimacy-and to stories about people who reveal themselves to be something other than what you initially assumed. With "Troy," we were specifically inspired by our own experiences with a particularly wild and engaging neighbor.
Short Films in Focus: Peter and the Wolf
The character of Peter has been changed from the traditional farm boy to a child punk rocker who is linked to the Wolf via a simple zigzag illustration that appears on the boy's shirt and the design for the Wolf's teeth. Bono himself is seen illustrating the Wolf at the start of the film.
Short Films in Focus: Belongings
Features Alex Coppola’s documentary “Belongings” is a documentary whose subjects believe in spirits, but it’s a very casual kind of belief. They’re there, maybe not all around us, but lurking in places that have meaning to us. They come out if we let them, acknowledge them, and speak to them. The storyteller in the film, Morgan Talty, has heard noises all his life in the house where he and his sister grew up.
Short Films in Focus: Tesla
Edward Robels’ “TESLA” is not a commercial. It’s the opposite. Not that these cars are yet capable of what happens with them in the film, but with A.I. taking over many facets of our existence, it might not be long before it’s possible. The film isn’t really about the cars, though, so much as it is about the status of owning one. It also happens to be about the unintended consequences of actively combating the climate crisis (more on that later).
Insanely Fun: Griffin Dunne, Amy Robinson on After Hours
Interviews I can’t remember when Criterion announced that they would be releasing a Blu-ray of Martin Scorsese’s often overlooked “After Hours,” but I know it was years ago, well before Criterion started releasing titles in 4K. Well, it has finally arrived and the decision to wait until a 4K disc could be added was the right one. It has never been sharper or more colorful, while also adding another layer of darkness and dread over poor Paul Hackett’s predicaments.
Disney+ Restores Classic Animated Shorts Original
Last week, Disney+ released a collection of newly restored animated shorts from early in the studio’s run, and finally, we can say something nice about a major studio for a change. While Warner Bros. Discovery seems to be burning as many bridges to its past as it can, Disney is at least taking care of some of their older films by giving them special attention so that new generations of viewers can still enjoy them. You’d be right to be skeptical about a few things.
Short Films in Focus: Five Cents Original
Aaron Hughes’ animated “Five Cents” tells the story of a consumer being overwhelmed by the constant need for money. We can all relate to that. Whether making a film, buying a house, planning a wedding, or getting weekly groceries for the family, costs become overwhelming, and with inflation on the rise in just about every walk of life, now is the perfect time for Hughes’ humorous and profound film to be viewed as a kind of slice-of-life commentary.
Joe Dante on The Movie Orgy
Joe Dante’s first film came in at around seven hours long. That might be a record for a first feature, but some might say “The Movie Orgy” (1968) hardly qualifies as a real film. I disagree. While Dante and co-director Jon Davison might not have been on any sets or called “action!” on any scene in the film, it still exists as a kind of window into the past via a parade of randomly spliced clips from movies and TV shows of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s and is funnier than most films made today.
Short Films in Focus: The Event
“I’m your friend. I’m just not your audience.” We’ve all been in this situation or something like it. Your friend or family member has created something you have no interest in, but they insist on your opinion and your time. If the creation is great, no problem. If it falls really short or is outright bad, you have to fake your admiration and we’re not all good at that.
Short Films in Focus: The Shorts Programs of the 2023 Chicago Critics Film Festival
Features For the last ten years, I have had the honor of being the Short Films Programmer for the Chicago Critics Film Festival, perhaps one of the most satisfying jobs in this endeavor. Every year, I get to discover new talent, see the latest works by filmmakers I’ve gotten to know over the years, and put it all together like a mixtape that gets played for a theater full of curious patrons.
Short Films in Focus: After (A Love Story)
One of the many admirable qualities of "After (A Love Story)" is how a 14-minute short about a therapy session can still feel complete, emotional, and complex, even though, in reality, the session likely went on a lot longer.
Short Films in Focus: My Dudus
When we take ownership of a housepet, we do so with the understanding that the relationship cannot last forever. Eventually, nature must take its course and the unconditional love we receive from this addition to the household must end. In some cases, after a period of months or years, we choose to repeat the process and relive the joy and grief all over again.
Short Films in Focus: The Oscar-Nominated Short Films of 2023
Features One of my favorite yearly traditions in doing Short Films In Focus is getting to write about the Oscar-nominated shorts. These showcases (as with any short film program) treat movie-lovers to an unpredictable batch of films from all over the world, with a variety of themes, tones, and textures.
My Year with Disney
On January 2, 2022, I embarked on my second year-long binge of an artist’s work (52 weeks, 52 films). I first did a project like this in 2016 when I watched a different Woody Allen movie every week for a year, from his first film to his latest. For this project, I focused not on a filmmaker, but on a studio, one where a singular artist provided the foundation: Walt Disney. For such an expansive subject, parameters had to be in place.
Short Films in Focus: Deerwoods Deathtrap
If John Gannon hadn’t thought fast, leaned over, and thrown the car into reverse as the train was fast approaching, filmmaker James Gannon wouldn’t be here today. Sometimes we’re blessed with lightning fast, life-saving instincts. Sometimes we're not, and we get crushed. As it stands, though, John and his wife Elizabeth are still here, with seven kids and eight grandkids. But what about that train?
Short Films in Focus: The Sentence of Michael Thompson
One cannot watch this film without feeling a wide range of emotions. Thompson is a good person. Everyone around him is a good person. Everyone knows what the right outcome should be. “The Sentence of Michael Thompson” is both a profoundly moving story of a family that needs to come back together and be whole again as well as a rallying cry for other wrongfully incarcerated individuals who were sentenced behind bars for something most of us can do freely now.
Short Films in Focus: Simone
Aisha Amin’s “Simone” is one of those efficient short films that tells you a lot about a person just by showing you a few minutes into a day in their life. Simone (Cree McCellan) is presumably a single mother to an infant. She has two needs at the moment we meet her: To land a new job and to get her kid to daycare on time. She loves her kid. Loves playing with him, loves dressing him, loves making him laugh. She comes off as someone who will always be a great mother.
We'll Meet Again: Watching Rocky Horror in the 2020s
Features It's a Saturday night in January 1997 at the Mundelein Theater and we’re all saying goodbye. Our movie theater where we had been performing “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” for the past several years would soon close. I had been performing with them since early ‘95 and I had been through this type of farewell party before in other “Rocky Horror” casts. This felt different, though, because we actually ran this place. For a year, the Mundelein Cinema was ours to run and to program.
Short Films in Focus: Glove
Somewhere out there in the farthest reaches of space, perhaps even on another planet at this point, is a lost glove. It slipped away from an astronaut during a routine journey to the moon and back and now (presumably) roams the galaxies. There’s footage of this glove that lasts just a couple seconds, which inspired the short film “Glove.” Everything after that random occurrence is left to the imagination.
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