I regularly get requests from various (new) directors who have made a movie and ask me if I would be interested in reviewing it. Through the years I’ve learned to be very careful accepting as generally the quality usually is pretty low and it is just a bit harder to write something negative when you feel the hope and the belief in their product and you know you’ll have to hurt that a bit. I recently received a request to review The Cobblestone Corridor, directed by Erik Bloomquist. I decided to check out the trailer for his movie and it had me intrigued. Not only because the story looked interesting, but also because it looked very polished. I had a bit of hope that this short movie actually was worth watching.
The story is about Allan Archer (Erik Bloomquist), who is the editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the school. He runs the newspaper well, but unexpectedly is turned onto a suspicious case of a English department chairman who was unexpectedly terminated. He decides to investigate why he no longer has a job.
The Cobblestone Corridor has been competently made and looks good both in sets, lighting and use of various shooting techniques. It has the atmosphere of the noir thrillers (including a potential femme fatale) and with the way the students are clothed and the use of record players and typewriters I had the feeling this was set many decades ago. When suddenly laptops and cellphones appear you are shocked for a moment (which isn’t a bad thing) as mentally I was placing it in another period. As a viewer you get invested into the story and just like its main character you want to know the solution to the case. I very much enjoyed watching this short film (25 minutes) and am interested to see what Bloomquist will do next.
