A scene from Ana Zin’s Bubbles.Building blocks
By CJ Johnson
Short films were the building blocks of the motion picture industry. From the earliest flickers to popular ‘50s matinee serials, a trip to the movies wasn’t complete without a short film. Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd pioneered the art of filmmaking with their groundbreaking short films. Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola got their starts making short films and it’s the format that most aspiring filmmakers first sink their teeth into. This makes it all the more unfortunate that short films don’t seem to get the r-e-s-p-e-c-t they are so deserving of.
The LA Short Film Festival gives this underappreciated art form the attention it deserves, pulling in some of the finest independent filmmakers from around the globe for a 12-day celebration of the beauty of brevity.
It’s the world’s biggest short film festival with participants from the past going on to bring home Oscar gold. The festival annually attracts more than 20,000 moviegoers, filmmakers and entertainment execs that are hot on the look out for the next big little things. This year, the festival features 700 short films from over 30 countries, featuring a cavalcade of star power, including Carrie Fisher, Mariel Hemingway, the boldly innovative writer-director James Toback as recipient of the festival’s Film Achievement Award, as well as Jennifer Aniston’s directorial debut, Room 10.
Here are a few capsule reviews for this year’s festival.
Bubbles -- Ana Zin’s Bubbles is an admittedly syrupy but charming short about a mother’s determination to wean her daughter’s dependency from her favorite teddy bear by burying it in the back garden, telling her that digging the bear back out would be against “the rules of nature.” But when she loses her wedding ring while burying Bubbles the Bear, the mother learns that there are exceptions to every rule.
Ctrl Z -- For about two minutes a disillusioned office worker (Tony Hale) is the most powerful person on the planet when his keyboard’s Ctrl Z button malfunctions and gives him a ticket to unlimited second chances. He quickly grows a backbone and even stands up to his alpha male bastard of a supervisor (Zachary Levi, Chuck.) … but unfortunately the Ctrl Z button has already been repaired . Hello, want ads.
Fission -- Creator Kun-I Chang shows off his artistic prowess with four minutes and fifty-five seconds of clever, eye-popping illustration that is one part iPod TV ad and two parts A-Ha’s “Take On Me.” A man watches his image come to life on a bed of urban wall art … and the kaleidoscopic journey begins.
Not In My Family -- The tongue is firmly planted in cheek here in Elizabeth Shea’s film about a parent-teacher conference where a mother is told the grave truth about her son: he’s an asshole. And with her son scoring a 92% chance of voting republican, well, what else is there to do take a gun to her son’s head to put him out of his misery. Bit rash? Well, who doesn’t secretly wish to do the exact same thing to all the assholes in our lives?
Stabbing Stupidity -- In this black little short, director Paul DeNigris introduces us to a first class cad who tricks a co-worker into lunch—but his obnoxious advances are ill spent. Oblivious to the effects of his irritating company, this champion sleezeball sends his coworker into a daydream where, as “Janet the Bore Slayer,” she silences his stupidity forever by stabbing him through the heart with a dinner fork … only was it just a dream?
Not In My Family -- The tongue is firmly planted in cheek here in Elizabeth Shea’s film about a parent-teacher conference where a mother is told the grave truth about her son: he’s an asshole. And with her son scoring a 92% chance of voting republican, well, what else is there to do take a gun to her son’s head to put him out of his misery. Bit rash? Well, who doesn’t secretly wish to do the exact same thing to all the assholes in our lives?
Stabbing Stupidity -- In this black little short, director Paul DeNigris introduces us to a first class cad who tricks a co-worker into lunch—but his obnoxious advances are ill spent. Oblivious to the effects of his irritating company, this champion sleezeball sends his coworker into a daydream where, as “Janet the Bore Slayer,” she silences his stupidity forever by stabbing him through the heart with a dinner fork … only was it just a dream?
Posts
