Short of the Moment

To get it out of the way in advance, this film is a bit graphic. That means boobies, hoo hoos and even a ding dong. What’s really graphic though for…

The Machine, by Rob Shaw of Bent Image Lab, is an entertaining stop-motion fable about a man-made machine who knows no bounds to his power. I’ve had this in my…

A new film from Spy Films is always an event. This is the house that brought us Alive in Joburg, which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film, and Trevor Cawood’s Terminus,…

In keeping with the Sundance theme, this Short of the Moment is a documentary that was well-received at the 2003 festival. It is a portrait of Fred Harwin, who straddles…

For once I didn’t have to look for a film, this one found me all by itself! Front page of the New York Times web site, in a fancy pull-down…

Animated cartoons that strike a chord with audiences young and old are the gold that the Hollywood studios dream. Too bad most end up smothered by pop culture references and…

It blew up last week after Motionographer blogged it, but through teasers and stills it would be in error to say it hadn’t been anticipated. The reason? CG so fine it’s…

As much as arbitrary demarcations of time (Happy New Year!) serve as an opportunity to reaffirm one’s faith in a better future, they are similarly useful in enforcing a reflection…

Anxious for your creepy holiday films, I know, so allow me to present Alma. This 3D animation by Pixar alum, Rodrigo Blaas, is beautiful to watch and very well-crafted as a…

An extremely fun 4min no-budget short. Its runtime is small, but the length feels interminable—not because it’s dreck mind you, but because the minimalist suspense conjured by writer/director Damian McCarthy…

Doug Purver out of NYC runs a one-man production outfit called RoadNorth. This film was shot for Psst!3, but evolved into this 3 min gem about a boy fishing in…

It’s the 1970’s and Major League Baseball is far from the drug-scrutinized organization it is today. Pitcher, Dock Ellis, tells a hilarious, meandering story that leads him to one of…

Third film in in a series on body image by acclaimed director Jesse Epstein. This short film follows Wet Dreams and False Images and The Guarantee in probing societies perverse obsession with…

Evidently Yvan Attal, who directed a segment of the recent New York, I Love You (the one with Ethan Hawke), never got over being snubbed for Paris J’taime. Going back to…

This is a great collage of moments. As the name suggests, many of these moments occur between places or events in time. Filmmaker, Tim Bollinger, and cinematographer, Daniel Meinl, do…

Another recent online contest winner to share with you. Stella Artois, responsible for the crappy short films you get to see instead of trailers when you go to the movies,…

The motion designer, Andy Martin, has put together an interesting music video for a long forgotten 1970’s British punk band. Though 30 years defunct, the Johnny 7 Combo has nevertheless…

This extended fake-trailer/short film from Richard Gale has been the fan fave of the recent festival season, just laying waste to audiences wherever it has played.  It’s been online via…

Check out this beautiful, mind-bending film, Chop Cup, by We Are OM. Watch it more than once to catch all the details.
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They had me at the title. Great, great title. Even without it though, with two artists on top of their games, there was no way I wasn’t going to be…

You may have heard the news today. Despite President Obama’s personal lobbying, the International Olympic Committee snubbed Chicago as host for the 2016 games in favor of Rio. It was…

Babelgum has always been interesting to me. One of the most well-funded and artistically ambitious video-streaming sites, it always seems on the verge of being undone by a clunky interface…

I’ve developed a an unfortunate habit of writing my posts directly in Wordpress, so the last few reviews have gone missing. I don’t feel like rewriting them right now, but…

Giles Timms has created this Edward Gore-inspired music video for Ceri Frost. Giles is an MFA student at UCLA with a knack for telling macabre stories through animated collage. His…

With Summer drawing to a close it seems to be the season of online short film contests. A bunch of high profile ones recently drew to a close, and since…