The Act

WARNING: If you hate sad or depressing films, you would do best toavoid this short film. Personally, I enjoyed it and recommend you seeit. Just understand that although at first it looks and sounds like acomedy, it certainly is not.

A lady does a stand-up bit at a comedy club. It consists of her talkingabout how she hates her ex-husband and how the crowd should not pityher for begin divorced. Her routine is reasonably funny but also quiteacerbic and cruel. Later, when she returns home, you learn the sadtruth…and fortunately, the truth wasn't easy to guess.

Cleverly written, well acted and definitely improved a lot by a veryevocative musical score, this one is worth seeing and shows a lot ofpromise for those involved.

2) Beautiful and poignant, this is a short that evokes the power of thegreat short stories of O Henry. If you get a chance to view it, beprepared for a stab into the heart of the truth of love and the needfor all of us to laugh at the essence of our very existence. The lead,Rosy, is performed with incision followed by the evocation ofloneliness, and closes with beauty and sweetness. As someone who haspracticed the craft of stand up long ago, this reviewer can attest thatDebra Jo Rupp's creation of the tough female comic is true but truer isthe fact that so many people with quick wit holding a microphone oftenbelies the sadness or anger or grief within. Not a short to be missed!

3) What a wonderful slice of a life that is made lively and believable byDebra Jo Rupp! This is a short film that took my breath away, and onethat I recommend highly to everyone with a conscience, strongcompassion, and a real life. Debra Jo Rupp plays the lead character,Rosy Marconi, with such a real sense of her character that you wouldthink we were watching her life through her window without herknowledge, and that her name has been changed to Rosy Marconi in a vainattempt to protect her privacy. The title of this film has a trueresonance and depth of meaning that makes this story all the morepowerful. The music is wonderfully subtle and adds to the strength ofthe story.

I would love to own this short film on DVD.

4) Just saw this film in Sedona International Film Festival. It proves agreat idea can be communicated effectively and efficiently if deftcreativity is involved. This is a perfect film to screen for filmclasses (particularly beginning ones) to demonstrate the power ofcinema when vision is complete and sure. Don’t know where it isavailable, but see it! – - – - OK they want me to say more, which isjust the point of this film, you don’t NEED to say a lot to get whatneeds to be said, said. In fact one of the points of the film is thatwhat we say is not always what we mean and/or that we all become actorsin the theatre of surviving life in order not to become victims of ourfated existences. It is much like the fact that our brains are moreactive when we are asleep than awake so is our awake life only anexercise to let our brains rest? We need to eat, drink, rid ourselvesof waste to get ready to work as our bodies tire and we enter reposeand begin the real purpose of our existence.