The Up and Up is another urban story about a delivery guy who's being set up by a corrupt mayor to take the fall when a job goes wrong and a body turns up, bringing with it a whole lot of questions. It's up to delivery guy's friend to tip him off so he can spend the night at a girl's place and rat on the mayor the next day to save his own skin. This is a combination of story elements from every "innocent errand boy" movie James and Robert had made up to this point. Unfortunately, they didn't put in the obligatory chase scene, so it's one of the least interesting.

James Dastoli and Pat DeNicola are good as usual, but this Paola Aleman is definitively the worst female lead in Dastoli Digital history. What the fuck were you guys thinking?

In 2003, I was in an acting class with James and Robert. For one of our assignments, Robert and I paired up and performed the Pauly/Stella park bench scene. Robert played the role of Pauly and I played Stella, except I secretly decided that I would play the role as Pauly's extremely homosexual brother. I surprised Robert with this in front of the entire class, and he didn't miss a beat, which is a testament to the Dastolis' dedication to their roles. What's interesting, though, is that Robert (possibly in conspiracy with James) surgically inserted some lines from The Drop Off into Pauly's spiel about his line of work. Specifically, the bit about how he don't ask nothin', don't answer nothin'. This only serves as a reminder of the recurring themes in these shorts. Why do James and Robert so consistently identify with errand boys who willingly detach themselves from the undesirable acts they do just to get by? Probably because they DP so many bad shorts for other people. Amazing, then, that this all came before they entered film school.

It is also important to note that even in my over-the-top flamboyance, I surpassed Paola Aleman's portrayal of Stella.

Here is what the Dastolis have to say about The Up and Up:

JAMES:

"The Up and Up is definately the best looking film we have ever made. Those locations are unbeatable. It's a shame that we haven't really had a chance to make something like that again. Parts of Errand Boys were intended to have some "Up and Up style locations" but us living at UCF ruined that."

ROBERT:

"The Up and Up happened primarily for two reasons. The first being that we wanted to split up the two Star Wars fanfilms and the second being that we wanted to get back on the street like the original Black Iris days. Not only did we get back on the street, but we used almost every other location that we had ever shot at or wanted to shoot at, and because of the images we got in The Up and Up, I feel somewhat complete as far as shooting in Stamford, Connecticut is concerned."

Speaking as a colleague of James and Robert, I think I can accurately say that The Up and Up is the movie to which they measure all their locations against. It is also my understanding that 2006's Another Way Home in particular was partially made simply to see if they could recreate their Up and Up location magic in downtown Orlando. They also made an effort to come up with a title cut from the same cloth as "The Up and Up," which they admit is just nonsense that sounded good.