11 Minutes Ago |
USA • 2007 • 83m •
   • Directed by: Bob Gebert. • Starring: Ian Michaels, Christina Mauro, Evan Lee Dahl, Taryn Reneau, Sarah Prikryl, Craig Welzbacher, Trip Hope, Renata Green-Gaber, Turiya Dawn, Jeremy Juuso, Bob Gebert, Len Irving, Jamie McBriety..   Traveling in 11-minute increments, a time-tumbler from 48-years in the future spends two years of his life weaving through a two-hour wedding reception.
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Review:
It is always sad to me when good movies are woefully underviewed, and equally under reviewed and underrated. Yes, distribution has a lot to do with it, and only word-of-mouth can help movies that have little distribution and no publicity. Movies such as "11 Minutes Ago" deserve more recognition, 12yrs later and this fi;m has a lowly 378 ratings on IMDB. That is mind boggling to me, but this movie isn't necessarily going to appeal to the masses, still, it should appeal to anyone who likes good time travel films, and those require thinking.
This is another of a series of very low budget films I've reviewed, that on the whole, is extremely well-done. No, it isn't a perfect film by any stretch, while the acting is good for a low-budget, it won't win any awards, but on the whole, the acting works. It is a romantic film, time travel and romance tend to be a good pairing, and romance adds immediacy to this situation. I won't ruin anything else in regards to the plot.
This is a cute movie, and it does quite well with the time-travel aspects, far better than most films. The script it quite solid, and I find it odd that some people on here are complaining about the script, the script is the single largest strength in this entire film. Most of the events in this film feel realistic, given the context, we are dealing with a time-traveler here, it's not going to be totally realistic. Watching the wedding guest and all the stuff going on with them behind the scenes and the drama is a lot of fun to watch. Watching Pac as he unravels what is going on, since he himself, does not really know, is only part of the fun.
The acting, as already stated, is well-done for a found footage film, but it does have a few problems all found footage films have, and that is, sometimes people seem a bit awkward in front of the camera, then again, I've noticed that people who are not filmed regularly, are awkward on camera, so I'm not certain this is "bad" acting per se as most people posit of the genre. However, this will certainly bother some.
It is nice to see good lighting in a found footage style film, it is very refreshing, and it makes sense because it is a not a dark wedding reception, but a well-lit one. The venue of the house is very well used, and even though it is in a single location, it is never dull to watch as the house is large enough to allow variance of scenery. People are also moving around a lot because is a reception, and this helps a lot with a single location, this in fact was very clever.
The direction is good, this is again a found footage style film, and that is what I base the direction on. The lighting is good, whereas so many found footage films are dimly lit. It would have been nice if the director went on to other projects, but he has only ever since directed a few episodes of a TV show, and has done some acting in films such as "Occulus". If he ever reads this, I hope he knows there are people who enjoyed his film and want to see more from him.
I don't think this film is at all resembling Momento, even if it has a plot device similarity, it is different enough it distinguishes itself, and the plot itself is NOTHING like Momento. Movies take threads of other films all of them time. Think of GroundHog Day and how the repeating day plot has since been used it many films and TV shows. Although, 11:59 actually came out before Groundhog Day, but that really doesn't matter, Groundhog Day just popularised the trope. All this to say, similarities to other films should not detract your enjoyment of this, I found this to be a very unique and engrossing time travel film.
This film has a lot to offer if you enjoy unique low-budget films, especially if you enjoy romance andor science fiction.
Review by lyrafowlpotter from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database