Collin Souter

Chicago

Writer and Contributor at Freelance

Contributor at RogerEbert.com

Co-Host at Christmas Movies Actually

Writer, teacher, film critic, host of "Christmas Movies Actually" podcast, filmmaker, U2 fan.

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Articles

Short Films in Focus: Incident

2 weeks ago | rogerebert.com | Collin Souter

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"

1 month ago | rogerebert.com | Collin Souter

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

2 months ago | rogerebert.com | Collin Souter

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

Jan 7, 2025 | rogerebert.com | Collin Souter

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

Dec 3, 2024 | rogerebert.com | Collin Souter

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)

Oct 1, 2024 | rogerebert.com | Collin Souter

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

Sep 29, 2024 | collinsouter.com | Collin Souter

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

Sep 3, 2024 | rogerebert.com | Collin Souter

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

Aug 27, 2024 | rogerebert.com | Collin Souter

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

Aug 6, 2024 | rogerebert.com | Collin Souter

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.