a review by the Azure-Winged Magpie!
Opening Thoughts
(◔ ◡ ◔✿)
Note: I’ve been a little dried-up about writing lately. Just had a lot of posts to do and not enough to drink because of them. I’ve been chattering a bit too much, the Crow says. And yeah. I kinda have.
I’m going to reserve my usually “colourful and very-fun“ language for things that deserve to go into my bucket from here on out. (Tell me if you like things that way though). So… I guess you’re just gonna have to get used to non-sweary auntie Magpie.
So… since the Crow reviewed The Crow along with his brother the crow (and me!) on Monday to celebrate our 100th proper film review, I decided I needed to review a film (any film!) with a “Magpie” in the name.
And what’d I find? Well… I found a lot of films. I wanted to watch Magpie [2018], a World War II film about a nurse, but it turns out I have to wait for it to actually come out first. Then I wanted to watch Magpie [2013], a film about a dad coming home to go to his son’s funeral and ending up stealing a coffin (…wot?), and couldn’t bleeding well find it anywhere could I? So that’s two Magpies lost in the woods.
(◕︿◕✿)
And then… Guess what I found?! This little cutie pie!
Magpie [2015] is a short film that’s up on Vimeo. It’s done by this chappie Stephen Fingleton and has a quite a bitta star power in it. It’s around 15 minutes long and that usually means there’s not a lot to talk about, but I found things to talk about.
See… I thought Magpie was a prequel, but it’s more like a demo for a full-length film from up in Northern Ireland called The Survivalist [2016] (why don’t you jus’ guess what my next review’s gonna be about?).
BUT we’re only talking corvids right now. So we’re just going to take a good long loving look at the cutie in the trees, the…
— M A G P I E —
WARNING: This section contains ALL THE SPOILERS!
Some red and blue lines show up. There’s something-something WORLD POPULATION. And then there’s more red and blue lines. And… yaaawn. What’s going on here? Oh wait! The film’s starting!
So there’s this guy.
He’s a-wanderin’ through the woods when… GUESS WHAT?! He sees a pile of food tins jus’ full of sweety-yummy Vitamin C-rich fruities!
They’re all piled up all pretty like “eat us! EEEAAATTT USSS!”
And the bloke, who’s spooked for some reason, (and really needs a trim) kinda hangs around thinking about if he wants some lunch or something like that. (EAT YO VEGGIES AND FRUITS MAN)!
BUT! Where are these tins?! They’re only next to a… oh.
They’re only next to a…
…oookay. Bit weird that. But hey! FOOD!
So licks his lips and makes boots up to the tins on his tippy toes so he can have a BIG OLD healthy lunch. when STAB! He goes and gets shanked like a piggy in a blanket on a Sunday morning by the Skellington!
And here’s our main character! He’s been hiding under that jacket holding the skellington-hand just waiting for dudes to get baited into his stabby-stabby tinned fruit scam (I mean that sounds like it’s totally a real thing. Have you checked the prices on those things?!) Imma call him Sean the Survivor Man (Martin McCann). He looks like a Sean who’ll have wayyy too many drinks and think he’s hot shit out on the pull from down your local (okay okay. He’s kinda a little bit fit. But I only found that out later in the Triple A version).
And while he’s up to all his stabby-stabby no-goodness, the cutie pie on the DVD cover’s eyeing him all like “YOU A BAD MAN, HOSS… YOU A BAAAD MAN…”
So under the judging eyes of the Corvids of Judgement, he does away with the body, wanders about a bit, eats some bigfat mushrooms and lies down for his next victim to just stroll on by (great plan there smartypants)!
And sure enough. Some peeps come by attracted by the irresistable scent of those tins of sweety-yummy Vitamin C-rich fruities! And Sean grips his stabby-stabby and gets ready to get stabby ALL OVER AGAIN.
BUT! THERE’S A TWIST THIS TIME!
Instead of a bloke who really needs a shave, it’s two ladies who show up. We’re gonna call them the Boss (Olivia Williams) and Dopey (Mia Goth) ’cause aint none of these folk have names.
So… the Boss clocks it’s a trap and the two make boots away from the fruit-tin mafia, and this makes Sean sadface. He follows them and finda them at a river. He stops behind a tree and watches Dopey having some quality lady-time on the bank. And he…
Sean… Sean… (ʘ っ ʘ✿)…?! WHAT ARE YOU DO
…Oh.
Thank duck. I thought he was… er… going to have some… quality “man time“ there.
(◔ _ ◔✿) …whaat?
So… anyway.
(◔ _ ◔✿)…
He sneaks up on Dopey so that he can choke her dead (I guess. Don’t know why. Don’t ask me).
But before he can… STAB! Boss-lady stabs HIM! And then everyone gets all stabby-stabby and Sean says a word twice and bites it and…
THE END
That was pretty good.
Okay. So I know I spoiled the whole thing right there and I just kinda summarised everything, but I did that because I wanted to say that there really isn’t much at all to see in Magpie. But it’s still so good.
This short film was made to be a kind of proof-of-concept for The Survivalist and it totally works. This is Stephen F’s first ever bit of work. And it looks and feels like it’s a big old Hollywood film. The star power helps too. I don’t know who this guy Martin is and all I know about Mia is that she’s Shia le Boueue’s bae and that she was in Nymphomaniac, which I think I can review now that I was allowed to review A Serbian Film (that’s a disturbing link. I’m warning you.), but Olivia Williams is a pre-tty big name in my headcase.
So yeah. It’s pretty good. I didn’t like the weird red and blue lines that showed up right at the beginning cause I don’t know what they were trying to tell me, but they kinda fit with the theme on this blog, so we’re cool. The acting’s alright. It looks GREAT. The magpie’s a total knockout (like “hey… want to go grab a coffee?” cute no one tell the Crow!). And yeah… it’s pretty professional and all.
Y’know what? Why don’t you just watch it while I flap off and finish up The Survivalist?
—Wᴀᴛᴄʜ M A G P I E ʜᴇʀᴇ —
Final Ratings
THE AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE: 9/10
THE CROW: 5/10
Here’s the official poster for The Survivalist:
T H E _ C O R V I D _ R E V I E W 
