It's John Milton's birthday! Watch Jeremiah Kipp and Laura Sweeney's LOST + FOUND, their seven-minute adaptation of Paradise Lost

In the annals of chutzpah and cheek, right up there at the tippy-top may be the new short film, LOST + FOUND -- from director Jeremiah Kipp (shown below) and his adaptor Laura Sweeney -- of John Milton's huge opus poem (twelve books that include over 10,000 lines of verse), Paradise Lost.

December 9 happens to be Milton's birthday, so it's only fitting that this very short film (seven minutes, including credits) can be seen on Vimeo today. TrustMovies is a fan of Kipp's short films (if not so much his full-length stuff), and though I have only read snippets of Milton's original, Kipp/Sweeney's little distillation strikes me as a not-bad précis of this vast work.

Jennifer Plotzke makes a smart and impressive Satan, with Ari Rossen good as her prime minion. Carl Hendrick Louis proves a handsome and well-spoken Adam, while only Pia Haddad disappoints as Eve (her vocal quality is not up to the level of the rest of the cast). The rich black-and-white cinematography (by Brian Morgan), both interior and exterior, is gorgeous to view and the film is handily edited (by Charlotte Purser) and has a lovely music score by either Myuu (listed on  the IMDB) or Nicholas Gasparini (listed on the end-credits roll). Maybe they're one and the same? In all, this seems like a fine, if very brief, way to honor Milton, while reminding us that he and his work still matter, even after -- yes -- 400 years. You can catch this little film now on Vimeo by simply clicking here.