[REVIEW] Nickel Children
( Note: this is a review I previously recorded for The Spirit Blade Underground Podcast with Paeter Frandsen) The Western has been considered by many people as an American mythology. It features very archetypal tropes like good versus evil and law and order versus crime and chaos. In 2010, writer director Kevin Eslinger produced the 16 minute short film titled Nickel Children (not to be confused with the 2005 feature film The Nickel Children ), which could be variously called a steampunk or a weird western film. The basic plot is that in the late 1800's Kansas, a young orphaned boy is held captive with other children for the pleasure of adults. The boys are forced to fight each other while the grown ups bet on the winners and losers; the girls dance with heavily made up faces to entertain the men. For a 16-minute indie film shot in only five days, Nickel Children has a lot of promise. The costuming...