Meet Rocky Salemmo. He’s a ramblin’ gamblin’ man. For the majority of his adult life Rocky has hustled bowling for a living.

Dunne’s hugely entertaining, character-driven doc tells the story of Rocky Salemmo, a larger than life man, who has spent the majority of his adult life in the bowling alley, gambling for a living. Like a heady combination of Bill Murray’s Ernie McCracken from Kingpin and Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas (without the violent episodes), Salemmo feels like he was born to be in front of the camera. Rocky is a seriously hyper personality (he claims he doesn’t take coke as it brings him down), he tears up the screen like a wild man, spitting out stories like his life will end if he doesn’t tell them. It’s these rambling antidotes that form the basic structure of Dunne’s film, it feels like he just set-up his crew and waited for Rocky to let loose (much like a crew shooting a wildlife doc would do).

However, there’s no point in having a captivating character with a wonderful story, if the production values don’t match the levels set by the content.

Shot on the Sony EX3, the film features some sumptuous cinematography by director of photography Hillary Spera, as her camera seems magnetized to Rocky and his manic behaviour. The interviews are beautifully constructed and whether we’re in the low-lit bars or Rocky’s mother’s busy living room, Salemmo is always the given space he needs to frantically tell his stories. Often overlay the distinctive voice of our storyteller, The Bowler is also filled with a wealth of hugely effective cutaways ranging from random bowling alley shots, to close-up shots of Rocky bowling, laughing and dancing. Salemmo’s quick-fire delivery is perfectly matched with the fast paced snappy editing from Kathy Gatto and her cutting does a great job of painting the world in which Rocky believes he lives.

Dunne seems to be rapidly becoming a name to watch in the world of the documentary short and his distinctive style and charming stories are sure to win him an army of followers. If you liked The Bowler, be sure to check out the 2009 Sundance selected short The Archive, another fascinating short focusing on the owner of the world’s largest record collection.

The film opens to a very average suburban neighborhood before peeking into one house in particular. The loud and exaggerated sounds of rough sex are heard as the camera moves in on the vacuous face of a teenage boy—our main character. An unseen narrator relates the boy’s predicament: he lives in a home of rough folk, his mom and dad thinking nothing of engaging in boisterous sex in his presence, nor for that matter doing drugs and partying with other men. The narrator reveals himself to be the boy’s neighbor, and muses about the mom’s seeming indifference to the boy inbetween observations about how much he’d like to have sex with the older, permanently panty-clad woman.

The film in a way is a quest, albeit of the inward, self-reflecting type, as this neighbor attempts to empathize with and ultimately make sense of the boy. But for what reason? What is spurring the neighbors oratory? That is indeed what the film works up towards, but the exercise is perfunctory—you already know.

The short film thus exists as a meditative elegy, from the neighbor to the boy, and the visuals support the creation of such a mood, using frequent slow-motion to imagine scenes of alienation the boy might have experienced. Yet this empathy is disturbingly buttressed by the sexual fetishization of the mother, as the camera lingers erotically on the body she so frequently flounts in and around the home. Sexual longing on the neighbor’s part is part of his explanation for the boy’s state, yet that means the neighbor must in a way confront his complicity, a feeling if that is expressed in his voice, if not completely registered in his head.

There is no moral to the story per se, and if this elegaic mood fails to find spark within you, then you will find the short film bland and possibly even distasteful. Upon playing Sundance in 2008, many accused writer-director David Michôd of misogyny in the film’s depiction of sexuality. However I find the elegaic streak that Crossbow mines to be rare and wonderful in film, and kudos go to Michôd, because it is difficult to pull off. Indeed the film is strikingly reminiscent to one of the best films of this vein, Sofia Coppola’s work, The Virgin Suicides, a movie structured very similarly, with its title that undermines suspense, and its observant narration that wrestles with the exquisite sadness of seemingly senseless tragedy, and how it relates to sexuality and nostalgia.

Michôd is an Aussie who is part of the increasingly famous Blue-Tongue Collective, whose films have been featured numerously on this site and others. Spider and I Love Sarah Jane have appeared on our lists of our favorite reviews from 2009 and 2008 respectively. However I believe that this is the best short from the group that I’ve seen so far. Blue Tongue’s output relies heavily on surprises and twists, and nominally Crossbow is no different, and yet in practice the focus on atmosphere and mood rather than narrative trickery creates a feeling that the other films we’ve reviewed cannot match. Indeed Miracle Fish the Oscar nominee from this past year, is truly a film that I think wishes it could be Crossbow:  both films center on vacant, disaffected boys that suffer from some sort of abuse, before ending in violence. However whatever feeling the empty school in Miracle Fish tries to convey simply does not come across powerfully, unlike the images of the mother and the activity around the house in Crossbow, nor does the violence at the end of Miracle Fish,seemingly random, hold any sort of weight against Crossbow’s slow unfurling, made all the more powerful by how clearly it is foreshadowed.

Michôd has, like many of his other compatriots in the group, moved on to features. His debut, Animal Kingdom, played Sundance this year. I have yet to have a chance to see it, but will be taking the opportunity as soon as I can in order to see the continued development of this fascinating young  filmmaker.

via jasonbkohl.com

Well it seems that someone forget to tell Lucas Krost when he set out with his team from filmmaking collective Mondial Creative Labs to create the end of the world in Outliers for the International 48hr Film Competition. Outliers stars Mendy St.Ours, who came to the rescue when the previous lead jumped ship at the last minute, as a lone woman trying to make sense of and stay safe in a city besieged by an apparent lethal virus; where information is sketchy and the lone hope of a vaccine seems more than a little off. Throw in the mostly faceless voice of authority tracking the stages of human reactions to a crisis and you’ve got a nice conspiracy drama on your hands.

While Todd Brusnighan & Patrick Simkins’ script delivers believable dialogue and characters, the concept at the heart of Outliers is pretty run of the mill. What undoubtedly marks the film as noteworthy is the level of production value achieved over the 48 hour period. Given the genre ‘End of the World’ (the international round of 48hr didn’t require a line of dialogue, prop and character), Team Mondial have delivered a polished, entertaining short that is far superior to many of the films I see created without the arduous time restraint – despite the many howls of disbelief online they insist that the posted film is as presented at the end of the contest with no additional work.

To be fair to those thinking ‘WTF!’, Team Mondial came to this round of 48hr prepared with, “$500 + 200,000 in favors”, plus had already been through the 48hr process with their mockumentary short Neighborhood Watch, which is effective but no where near as ambitious. Locations were scouted and casting sessions held a week before the competition kicked off, then once the genre was assign the script was written from 7pm on the Friday to early Saturday morning and actors and locations finalised. The team shot straight for the next 24 hours, DPs Johnny St. Ours and Spencer Meffert armed with dual Reds fitted with Red Prime and Zeiss Super Speed lenses. To keep things moving, once a scene wrapped, the drive was hurried over to the Final Cut Pro editor, who worked from proxies, then 1080 cropped. Color correction was handled in RedCine, GFX in After Effects.

Outliers earnt Krost his second trip to the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner (his short Feels Like Drowning screened in 2008) and Team Mondial are said to have a feature in the works. Can’t see them needing more than week to pull that off.

The concept in question is the existence of a “transporter”, that most desirable piece of tech to have filtered into the public consciousness via Star Trek. You know, “Beam me up Scotty!” and all that. In The Un-Gone the tranporter is real and the technology has been commercialized, yet apparently not made error-proof. At the start, a young married couple, Mr. Salinger and Maya, are about to take a trip to Britain thanks to “Kuala Lumpur Transit”. Maya is a little bit nervous about the impending departure, but her husband does his best to reassure her, talking about their future together, and ultimately broaching the topic of having a baby together before they eventually depart.

The woman is the one nervous about the procedure, but she makes it through without incident. Ironically it the man who suffers the mishap. It is hard to not spoil an 8 minute short, so I will refrain from going further with recap, though if you are a fan of Prof. Krauss’ The Physics of Star Trek, you may have already guessed at the film’s developments. There is a delicious sensation though to your own gradual understanding of Mr. Salinger’s predicament in advance of the character’s. Hopefully you can catch it before the clunky exposition provided by the transit firm’s executive spells it out for you.

Sadly it is this stretch directly after the big reveal that proves to be the weakest, as it falls down on one of the great strengths of the early part of the film which is the writing. It is rather impressive the way in which writer/director Simon Bovey effortlessly establishes the characters of the couple  early on while interspersing very natural lines into the dialogue that shed light on external factors. It has already been covered now, the ironic appeal of the man standing up for the transporter, unaware of how severely his faith is misplaced,  however in that opening conversation other examples of excellent screenwriting exist, most notably the conversation about having a baby.  Perhaps a baby is a bit of a blunt-force instrument—they are tremendous emotionally and metaphorically rich plot contrivances,  but this talk perfectly establishes the couples tenderness towards each other, as well their shared optimism for the future. As an audience we feel an instant connection to the couple, played by Stephen Billington and Linette Beaumont, as they act out this delicate balance between anxiety for the trip and excitement for the future.

There is a confident efficacy to Bovey’s establishment of character but it is the small throw-away lines that do magic in placing those emotions the couple share in context. Their optimism is perhaps something that is rare in this future-world. Lines such as the husband suggesting that the couple “apply” for a baby, or the excited reactions involved when the white British-sounding male announces that he’s received an “immigration permit” to go to Birmingham, England seem to broadly sketch out that this world adheres to that model of an aggressively-controlled, dystopian British society that seems to be de rigeur for futuristic depictions of the country (V for Vendetta and Children of Men spring to mind, must be the cameras). Ultimately these details do not further the plot, but they provide the kind of nuance that turns an average movie good, and a good one great, by immersing an audience into a setting that is more fully realized.

Such nuance is less evident after the big reveal. One wonders if there isn’t a better way to unveil the film’s twist than by simply stating it. Furthermore, while understandably Mr. Salinger is in shock, he is awfully slow to come to grips with the situation at hand. It’s exceptionally funny when sci-fi fans nitpick small details as unrealistic in the midst of an altogether ludicrous landscape, but The Un-Gone is sufficiently demure in its brand of speculative fiction that it does niggle the mind to wonder if even in generic totalitarian futures people would really use technology such as a transporter without understanding how it works. Evidently Popular Science magazine has closed up shop in this alternate world.

Still, the concept is too good and the execution and tightness of the short from a strictly filmmaking perspective is too strong for the film to be derailed in any meaningful way by such quibbles. The film has been successful on the festival circuit, playing over 70 of them, which is how I managed to see it a couple of years back. It created a sufficient impression on me at the time that I have periodically found myself searching for it online since, and I am pleased to find that on repeat viewing my estimation of its quality remains the same.

With its sci-fi trappings, pleasing twist, and lean runtime, I really do think that the film is well-suited for the internet. However the film does lack the visual panache that internet fans seem to clamor for. The lighting is dull and flat in that peculiarly British way us Yanks can never seem to understand, muddying up the color palate, and while the the reliance on set design and practical effects is admirable, the setting is sparse and stagey. One wonders at the possibilities for a script this smart if only it were made now, in this era of super-cheap CG. Either way don’t let that dissuade you from enjoying this fine film and appreciating the strengths it possesses. Maybe if we all do, it will go viral all the same.

Elevated is what I discovered, and I find it to be a phenomenal short film. A taut horror-thriller, it employs a simple gimmick—the entirety of the film takes place on an elevator. From such a simple premise a remarkable amount of tension and horror is derived, delivered by a surprisingly diverse and dramatic shooting style in addition to excellent performances.  The film begins with a woman and a man sharing an elevator at the end of the day. They are going down when a building security guard joins them. Covered in blood, he commandeers the elevator and sets it to go to the very top of the building. From there a tense psychological battle joins, as the security guard—not the most trustworthy of figures with his manic, panicked behavior, tries to convince the credulous pair that going down is a REALLY BAD IDEA.

In moving on from Elevated, Natali has come to be known as an expert visual craftsman, and this film really shows the roots of that. There is a facility with space necessary to make such a concept work, and the entirety of the elevator car is utilized, from the the high to the low, in ways that are sensible and non-showoffy.

More so though, I really enjoyed the look of the film. Made in 1997, I actually got a strong 80’s vibe from the soft light and desaturated colors. This is probably because it is so rare to see shorts shot on film nowadays, and the ones that are still get digital color-grading. Something about the the blue of the night shots glimpsed outside the elevator though  gave me this overwhelming nostalgia for the Terminator/Die Hard era of action filmmaking. The soft focus and blinding backlights of the finale sequence instilled similar sentiments.

For a director that is most associated with high-concepts, Elevated, and really all of Natali’s  films, showcase fine acting. Truthfully Elevated is an actor’s piece, the artificial confines creating a stage of sorts—though the editing and directorial decisions add infinitely to the presentation. Still it is a work unusually dependent on its acting, and the confined space necessitates many closeups of the actors, who fortunately really let loose and dig into their roles. There is a reticence I would imagine to screaming one’s head off in an elevator with a camera mere inches from you, and if that reticence came through the film would be sunk. However Vicky Papavs, Bruce McFee and Natali fave David Hewlett really shine.

Splice may yet change this, but up till now Natali has been most famous for his debut feature, the excellent cult classic Cube. For those who know the film, the similarities are obvious. It is not made explicit anywhere I can find, but it reasons to think that Elevated was in many ways a proof of concept for that film, which similarly explored tense human relations in a confined space. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem as though Elevated got included on any of the Cube special edition dvd releases. It would have made a nice accompaniment, and thus, this lower quality file from DailyMotion with French-hardsubs is our best option to enjoy this wonderful film.

Memories are often all we have of past times and past loves, but what if we lost these memories, how would not remembering the there and then, affect us in the here and now.

Written and Directed by Briand, Apricot tells the story of a young couple on a date early in their relationship, they sit in a restaurant, reminiscing of first kisses and first loves over a fresh cup of coffee. However, as the date progresses it quickly becomes apparent that this trip down memory lane has an ulterior motive for one of the potential lovers.

For a film all about memories and what triggers them, Briand and his team have paid a close eye to details and created a film which evokes a dreamlike state for its viewers (almost as if the Director is encouraging the viewer to float off into their own memories whilst watching the his film). Beautifully shot by Cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, the dreamy visuals float across the screen, just as they would float across the memory banks of the mind. Every shot is composed and lit superbly, the date scene speckled with artificial light and framed so the couple seem the only people in the buzzing restaurant. The memory sequences opt for a more personal feel, bathed in sunlight with people and objects drifting in and out of focus (almost as if they are some of the best home movies you’ve ever seen). A sprawling, unobtrusive score from Basil Hogios, combines with a soundtrack of distant thunder and rumbling winds, helping to merge the worlds of reality and memory seamlessly together.

Dialogue also plays a huge part in the feel and the flow of Apricot and Briand has obviously taken great consideration into ensuring the pitch of the dialogue marries up with the other contributing elements of his short. With lines like “He could stare at the Sun longer than anyone I ever met” and “He always covered his collarbone” uttered throughout the film, the unrealistic, almost poetic dialogue also adds to the trancelike feel of Apricot.

There are some films made to provoke anger or disgust from its audience, some films made solely for laughs and some to evoke forgotten memories, Briand’s Apricot is definitely the latter. A film for the dreamers, A film for the romantics and in my opinion a film for film lovers.

Beyond murky social criticism, The Big Thing stands out for its beauty. You just don’t find production values this high in short films. It won more awards than you can shake a stick at, if you happen to have a heavenly stick, but even among award-winners, this is one good-looking film.

The story as old as time itself: Boy meets girl; boy doesn’t lose girl; boy causes the end of the universe. In this case, the boy is an unassuming Antichrist, the girl is a Parisian hooker, and the whole thing is under the control of an angel and the devil. The Archangel Michael (a wanker we are informed) and Lucifer the Angel of Light get together for this unrecorded bit of history in 1889, and share a pint and some good times as they bring about the end of the world as we seem not to have known it. It is not clear if the End of Days is the result of a higher plan or just a bit of ennui, but that’s just details. It seems rather important to Michael and Lucifer, two old friends with a job to do, and they are such affable chaps (wanker not withstanding) that it becomes important to the viewer; well, as important as anything is likely to be in this bubbly picture. Andrew Simms and Robin Wilcock are superb as the supernatural creatures on a mission, both greatly aided by witty and occasionally laugh-out-loud dialog. Running a scant 9 minutes, there’s no filler here.

The Big Thing was meant to be many things, including a calling card for writer/director Carl Laudan, and while it got his name on most everyone’s lips in the indie film world, it may be a few more years before he hits the Hollywood A-list. He appeared as a finalist on the ill-fated, film-making, reality TV show, On The Lot before directing a less allegorical feature. Ah well, it is a start, and The Big Thing requires no follow-up.

Specific subject matter aside, what grabs me about Born Free is that it’s first and foremost a short film with a message and a promo second. It seems that with a few exceptions from time to time, music videos have become happy to occupy the ground of band performance piece or clever visual feast centred around a single kinetic idea or a ‘how did they do that?’ wow factor. What Gavras does, with the assistance of André Chemetoff’s gritty camerawork, is very quickly build a full and worrisome world through an abstraction, which to some may feel heavy handed, but is nonetheless powerful, probably because we’ve seen these images ‘for real’ in rolling news coverage of places we don’t live.

In hindsight the marriage of Gavras with the politically engaged M.I.A was an obvious coupling. Gavras is a co-founder of Kourtrajmé, an art and filmmaking collective in Paris, producing projects focused on social provocation such as the 2007 documentary, 365 days in Clichy-Montfermeil, which explores the issues of the 2005 French suburbs riots. Gavras also directed a hooded gang on a rampage through the streets of Paris in Justice’s controversial Stress promo, which was equally effecting but not loved by all; “For a few months, I was one of the most hated men in France, but it was fun.”

Within hours of its posting Born Free was yanked from YouTube for its graphic content and M.I.A has herself been slammed with accusations of sensationalism or ‘violence for violence sake’, contradicting her well known anti-violence stance. However, it’s a stretch to brand the promo as gratuitous; from the track’s sampling of Suicide’s 1977 Ghost Rider (which originally contained the lyrics, “America is killing its youth”), to M.I.A’s defiant chant of “I was born free”, this is a well crafted video with something to say in the vein of Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park. Perhaps 12 year old actor Ian Hamrick (whose character is shot in the head at point blank range) best surmised the film’s anti-genocide message when he was door-stepped by TMZ; “I think she was trying to show violence to end violence”.

I was happy to hear that Gavras is extending the dystopian world of Born Free in his coming feature Redheads, starring Vincent Cassel in a tale of “two outcast redheads on a road trip of hate, violence, and self-destruction.” We’ll have to see if the subject matter remains as compelling over the longer duration.

The film follows a wayward plastic grocery bag: sentient and voiced by Werner Herzog to amazing effect, as it searches for meaning to its existence. It is a heavy subject—existential angst—and in the form of a plastic bag’s personification, definitely absurd. However for the most part the film takes itself and its concept seriously, albeit with occasional breaks for wry humor. The result is a film that is a success as education and entertainment; one that musters a startling amount of pathos from its subject and a surprising amount of empathy from its audience.

Ramin Bahrani, has developed quite a reputation on the basis of his three feature films: Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo and Man Push Cart, which all turn a humanistic eye to the American immigrant experience. This attitude coupled with his frequent use of non-actors, has lead some to classify him as something of a neo-neorealist. Thus on first blush it is strange to see him tackle a high-concept work such as this. However the same skills that prove successful in his features buoy Plastic Bag: a broad and sympathetic understanding of interior worlds, and a photographer’s eye for natural beauty in the exterior world.

The script that Herzog works with, and his interaction with it are a triumph. The charming foreignness of his Germanic handling of English is endearing, and establishes the Plastic Bag as sympathetic in its naivete. It is the same trope of the good-natured but confused traveler which allows films like Coming to America or Borat to succeed. It also allows for subtle and wry humor to break up the oppressing sadness of the piece. The bag’s recurring use of “monsters” to address non-human creatures is reliably funny. It additionally mines powerful archetypes of quests and journeys. His long attempts to find home slowly morph into a goal of discovering “the vortex”. Language is key here and serves as a testament to the script. The plastic bag prophets, “preaching” of the vortex, are powerful myth-making elements.

This outsider approach, while investing us in an all-too-human story, subtly reinforces the ecological undercurrents of the film. Via a process of estrangement, Plastic Bag allows us to see, through the plastic bag’s experience, our own world via new eyes. A world, eventually, without humans at all.

This investment in an inanimate material’s subjectivity can be accused of bordering on manipulative. However is it any different than Wall-E, another film with a similar environmentalist message? Perhaps the difference is the medium—the animation of Wall-E necessarily puts us at an additional remove, pushing us closer into the more comfortable embrace of fantasy. Bahrani’s cinematography however revels in the real, via picturesque landscapes of skyscrapers and plains, and closeups of fishes and beaches. Either way the imagery is quite lovely, serving up a engaging mix of artfully composed long shots and closeups with dreamy-soft shallow DOF.

The beauty of the images buttress the interior journey of the bag, reflecting its mental state in nature. Yet like the script itself, these images serve the dual purpose of engaging the ecological message through its simple and dramatic representation of our world. An elegy for what is ours, and, in the story, what it is we will eventually lose.

The best entry of Future States, a whole series of films commissioned by ITVS, Plastic Bag is a confident and polished piece of art that successfully navigates these two simultaneous threads: the interior and the exterior, humanity and nature, the particular and the environmental. It accomplishes both these angles with aplomb in a quite moving whole. I very much like this film and hope you take the time to enjoy it as well.

Based on Monologue About a Whole Life Written Down on Doors, the Testimony of Nikolai Fomich Kalugin by Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich, Juanita Wilson’s poignant, emotive film begins with a very simple act, the stealing of a door. However, as the film progresses and the narrative unwinds, we discover this act is far more complex than we could have initially imagined. The door is in fact a vital part of a traditional ritual, carried out by a grieving family in the aftermath of the Chernobyl tragedy.

Written and directed by young Irish filmmaker Wilson, yet filmed in the Ukraine (in Pripyat, a city described as the most radioactive place on earth) and featuring regional actors speaking in their native tongue, The Door truly is an ambitious project. Thankfully, the ambitions of the filmmakers are matched to the rewards of this richly captivating, heartfelt short. The film is beautifully shot, with Director of Photography Tim Fleming taking exceptional care over the composition, camera movements and colour palette of every shot. It’s a remarkable achievement that the cinematography team of this production managed to create an aesthetic that works in tandem with such a commanding narrative.

Credit can’t only go to the visual team however, as The Door is also masterfully scored and powerfully acted. Brian Doyle’s music could have so easily been over-dramatic and distracting in trying to compete with other aspects of the film. Instead it gentle accompanies Wilson’s short, softly entering at all the right places. Being a film of little dialogue, its success was always going to quite heavily rely on the actors’ ability to portray emotion through body language and facial expression. As the couple going through an unimaginable grieving process and a drastic transitional period, Igor Sigov and Juliette Gering, do this perfectly, with their vacant stare and furrowed brow saying more than words ever could.

Winning an Irish Film and Television Award in 2009 and an Academy Award nomination in 2010, Juanita Wilson’s directorial debut is gaining the critical acclaim that a film this well made so rightly deserves.

With a feature film, As If I’m Not There, currently in post-production, Wilson’s directorial career is one I’ll be keeping a close eye on.

That man is of course Jia Zhangke, and I believe the preceding passage contains enough code words to ensure that you know the kind of art-house treatment to expect from this, his latest short film. Cry Me a River is, in his words, an attempt to, “see if I could tell a story that spanned 10 years in 15 or 20 minutes.” The story tracks a group of four college friends as they reconnect over a two-day reunion on the occasion of their college professor’s birthday. There exist unresolved tensions and feelings in the group dynamic that slowly work their way into the open throughout this subtle and observational film.

First a quick lecture. It is very easy to separate and track the great themes in contemporary Chinese cinema. After the opening up of the country in 1979, the celebrated “5th generation” of filmmakers—the first to be accepted into the newly reopened Beijing Film Academy— were eventually, inevitably, drawn to making sense of the profound upheavals the country had gone through: the establishment of the People’s Republic, the disastrous “Great Leap Forward”, and the “Cultural Revolution”. The result were poignant and brave epics, often banned in their home country, that nevertheless came to define a generation of Chinese film on the world stage: Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, Zhang Yimou’s To Live, or Tian ZhuangZhuang’s The Blue Kite.

Zhangke has come to be acknowledged as part of a “6th generation”, a successor to these former standard-bearers. No longer looking backward to reclaim a people’s history, these filmmakers tend to be more preoccupied with the present and the growing alienation and disconnection inherent in the rapid economic growth and social change of contemporary China. The formative events of their lives center not on the Cultural Revolution, but instead the 1989 student protests at Tiananmen Square. It is the dissolution of this youthful fire and idealism, that Cry Me a River, and indeed much of the 6th Generation’s work, implicitly mourns.

While the time frames involved are deliberately unclear, it is suggested that our group of four friends were students in the early 90’s. They wrote a single issue of a magazine called “This Generation”, the kind of strident, fully-felt manifesto that by some, like the professor’s businessman sponsor, is still felt today, even though he is no longer so “hot-blooded”. Unfortunately it seems our friends no longer are either. Random conversation establishes the monotony of their “grown-up” lives: making money, raising kids. The rebuke of their professor at the dinner in his honor is subtle, but unmistakable, “Mr. Chen, they were my students in the 90’s. Back then, they wrote a lot of poetry. But not anymore.”

These were the children of that rebellious and idealistic period, but now, 10 years later, they are accused of having lost their way. Zhangke encourages this parallel in an interview, pointing out that Cry Me River includes the lead couple of the movie Summer Palace, a 2006 film about Tiananmen Square, in order to subtly reinforce this connection for audiences. That film cost fellow 6th Generation director Lou Ye a 5 year filmmaking ban from the government, a sign that at least inconolastic art in China is not all dead.

While the this political subtext is available, the film is resolute in its focus on its characters. Slowly, through natural dialogue and patient minimalist camerawork that has drawn comparisons to Ozu and Hou Hsiao Hsien, certain relationships and disatisfactions become apparent. Ma’s self-mocking jokes about money reveal the financial class divide between him and Tang, while early on Zhou’s gentle touch of Ma, hints at a former intimacy to be revealed later on. Likewise for the iciness between Bao and Tang at around the 3 min mark.

The presence of others in the group keep the banter light and congenial despite the underlying turmoil. It is only the next day after the dinner that the tension is too much, as the couples share a wordless boat ride, introducing the river of the film’s title. The two couples split up at that time to say the words that 10 years had left unsaid.

Confucius compared time to a river, and ultimately it’s that sense of the elegaic that Cry Me a River hopes to capture. Characters getting older and becoming wistful over their youth and the missteps they may have made, is by no means a novel concept in film, yet it is rare for short film. Zhangke’s goal was to tell a story of 10 years in 20 minutes, and despite an abrupt ending lacking resolution, (what resolution could there be?) I dare say he succeeded. Cry Me a River is at once a sensitive and aware character study and poignant cultural statement.

(Note: The film is in two parts, follow the onscreen link after part 1, or click on the link underneath the “Play” button for part 2.)

Now, who follows me at No Fat Clips!!! knows it: I often indulge in introducing the movies I post with passages quite unrelated to the film itself, while more connected with my feelings while watching it. And so it seems like I’m doing it again. But maybe not.

After all, Tokyo/Glow is, in a sense, about self discovery: a glitch occurs in the reality continuum (well, not really), and the traffic light man, the green one that tells people it’s time to walk, comes out of the box where he supposedly spent all his life since then, embarking in a voyage that brings new experience to him and wonderful imagery to us. Of course, I was hearing Queen’s “Innuendo” in my head while watching the short for the second time; you know, the part about surrendering your ego and being free with your tempo, which might have influenced this interpretation.

Directed by Jonathan Bensimon and produced at Canada’s Industry Films, Tokyo/Glow is actually a branded short film for shoe designer The Generic Man, even though I didn’t even realize it was sponsored by anything until I read it on ‘boards.

Tempo I was saying. Time and rhythm are perhaps the real protagonist of this short. The short uses the technique of the timelapse photography. But the light man is actually free with his tempo, slowly making his way in the city while the night life of Tokyo flows with its crazy speed all around him, aimlessly and purposelessly. Our illuminated friend, instead, seems to know exactly what to do, when and where to go.

The use of the light suit deserves a word on its own. While serving both the narrative (our hero was/is a light sign) and the concept of illumination (my interpretation, at least…), it is also a perfect visual device, allowing us to spot the man while he’s surrounded by thousands of other persons, and then inviting us to get ahold of that light ourselves, to stay focused on ourselves. To shine.

Or maybe I’m just reading too much into a commercial. Maybe you should just watch it yourself. And whatever will be, will be.

(Many thanks to Davide for the tip!)

This all to say that when we see Ben, in Luke Snellin’s BAFTA nominated short Mixtape, hand over his creation to the mother of the girl next door, he’s got a whole lot riding on Lily getting it or not. Snellin appears to have tapped directly into the mainline of nervousness and anticipation bubbling around his young protagonist’s gut, – expertly portrayed here by Bill Milner, who you may be more familiar with from his starring role in Son of Rambow or this year’s equally excellent Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. The production design is also bang on, with subtle touches such as Ben’s copy of the now sadly defunct Melody Maker magazine or the Bowie poster, combining with the soundtrack to set the period without hitting you over the head with their ‘of then’ timeliness.

Shot in a single day, Mixtape was created for the Virgin Media Shorts competition, which it ultimately won ahead of 2,000+ competitors. Snelling describes the film as, “a kind of melting pot of all my influences both musically and as a director”, with the concept springing from, “all these little tapes I made for family and friends when I was young”.

It seems that the draw of depicting children’s lives on screen (his first short Patrick was about a bullied boy who learns to fly) remains strong, as aside from his commercial directorial duties at 2am Films, Snelling’s supposedly in development for a feature based on kids with special powers, due to be shot and completed by the end of this year. Personally, I’m hoping for a good New Mutants adaptation, but regardless, if he maintains his eye for detail I’m sure it’ll be worth a watch.

Bournemouth Film School graduate Rob Brown’s short takes a slightly different tack to other sex trafficking films you may be familiar with, such as Lukas Moodysson’s Lilya 4-ever. Instead of cataloging the indignities no doubt in store for victims of the forced sex trade, Echoes focuses on Anya, promoted from sex worker to trafficker, and her journey from Lithuania to London with the innocent (and secretly pregnant) Liliana.

Given that a large chunk of Echoes unfolds within the confines of the coach transporting the women across Europe, Brown and cinematographer Justin Brown make effective use of the handheld camera, capturing everyday locations in muted tones which reflect the film’s bleak world. I had initially presumed the decision to go handheld may have been born out of a necessity to steal shots in the London Underground, but as (I later discovered) Echoes was shot on Super 16 it’s more likely that this was solely a stylistic decision—one which completely works for the narrative and atmosphere of the film. The final shot of Anya, now boxed in by her decision to let Liliana go free, with nowhere to go except down the dark corridor that stretches out behind her is particularly foreboding.

Ultimately Echoes is a film about the willingness to sacrifice the future of others to secure your own position, it’s a sacrifice Anya is unable to make despite the hell that awaits her.

The plot is as complex as you would expect (or desire) from a beer-based zombie film. A drunken brew master has embarrassed the brewery for the last time, being exiled to the lonely late-night shift. He hasn’t let this setback interrupt his drinking, and while looking into a vat of… OK, let’s not over think this. We all know that beer turns guys into zombies, right? That’s the plot. Done.

Co-writer/director Rob van der Velden approached internet fame with his winning entry into Quentin Tarantino’s fake trailer competition (Dutch edition), Nailed by Nikita. Fitting with the tone of the faux trailers in Tarantino and Rodriguez’s Grindhouse, Nailed by Nikita introduces the touching tale of an abused, often naked woman, with a nail gun. God how I love nail guns. Van der Velden upped his game, with help from de Voogd, for Zombeer, surpassing the production values of most genre features, as well as almost everything which airs on the SyFy Channel. The last is pertinent because Zombeer screened on that channel, and was also nominated for their Shocking Shorts Award.

I suppose you could find some political commentary here, or a statement about alcoholism, but my mind never wandered into the land of deep meanings while watching drunken zombies take a bite out of tourists. Sure, it’s hard to become emotionally involved as the film never picks a character to focus on. And yes, it could be a more complete story and less of what feels like an intro to a larger work. But it is already delivering zombies and beer. To ask for more would be ungrateful.

Since Zombeer could stand in for the definition of “guy” film (definitions with words in them are way too feminine), don’t watch it alone. The Super bowl is nearly upon us, another stereotypically masculine bit of entertainment. Set out a few twelve packs, and make sure you have at least a case of Dutch brews chilling. Order up a few pizzas, and before the big game, start off the afternoon with Zombeer. Nothing could be more fitting.

Earlier this week, the venerable festival bestowed its favor—the coveted Jury Prize for short film, upon Drunk History Vol. 5: Douglass and Lincoln. The previous iterations of this series have gained great fame on the interwebs via YouTube and Funny or Die, but, as the vol. 5 in the title suggests, it really has more in common with what we think of as a web series. Linked by a central premise, the filmmakers record drunken historians rambling about key moments in US history. Celebrities then act out the narrative in hokey costumes, with the filmmakers using self-reflexively ridiculous sets and edit techniques, to, admittedly, riotous comic effect.

The two newest entries which took Sundance by storm, the jury prize winning Douglass and Lincoln, plus one about the tragic life and times of Tesla, are not available, so we start instead at the beginning. Performed by a wasted Mark Gagliardi, Vol. 1 recounts that most famous of American duels, Hamilton v. Burr, with Michael Cera and Jake Johnson taking on the parts of the long-dead politicians.

There is a charm to the sets and anachronistic details of the approach. The radiant soft focus glow as faces emerge from the shadows is a spot-on mockery of the History Channel aesthetic, and Michael Cera’s Vans inexplicably crack me up. These two forces complement, as the parodying faithfulness to the form of historical re-enactments is undermined by out-of-place details. By far though I think the key element of comedy is the literal interpretation by the actors of the narrator’s words, which leads to some great moments such as “Alexander Hamilton shot a bullet right into Alexander Hamilton”. Don’t forget that our poor historian is blitzed, so fun slips like these are fortunately inevitable.

I like Drunken History, I wouldn’t give it a coveted feature on the site if I didn’t, however I am a bit worried about what institutional approval for a web series from something like Sundance means for Short Film. Often I look at web series and viral vids as in competition with short films for eyeballs and buzz. As unfriendly as festivals have been to the web, we don’t want them to jump ship, abandoning their traditional role as shepherd of short films. Sundance has self-consciously tried to make itself younger, more independent, and more web-savvy this year, embracing YouTube for shorts and rentals, so I do not think it is a coincidence that it was this year that a project like this broke though.

It helped though that it was Derek Waters who was involved. A Sundance alum, he had previously come to Park City with Derek & Simon, a web series he co-created with Mr. Show’s Bob Odenkirk, that had a famous run on the now-defunct Super Deluxe web site. Be warned Short Film, you’re already losing the web, now your festivals are targeted. Talent in web video is rising, and Drunk History’s creator is leading the charge.

Filmed outside Barrow, Alaska, this short takes place on the beautiful yet terrible Arctic ice amongst the Inupiat peoples. The film’s dialogue is spoken in their language. A hunter, together with his pack of dogs, sees two men fighting on the barren horizon. From that point the film becomes a tense morality play, as the bystander must decide his level of engagement, and the participants must decide on the level of escalation. Further explication would spoil this simple, yet riveting story.

The challenge for a film like Sikumi (On the Ice), is overcoming its exotic location and culture—the same features that serve as an asset to lesser films. It is easy to dismiss shorts such as these by charging that their, admittedly alluring, foreigness is the primary source of appeal. Sikumi rises above such perceptions via superior craft, and a plot that is ultimately universal.

Rising star Cary Fukunaga served as DP on the project. His feature length directorial effort Sin Nombre, made many top 10 lists this past year, and he has now lined up a Hollywood adaptation of Jane Eyre for himself. While the vast white expanse of the arctic is an admittedly attractive backdrop, You have not seen it with this level of intimacy before. Planet Earth this is not. Fukunaga employs beautiful close ups and hand held POV’s to complement the obvious panoramas, shooting in anamorphic 35mm. All this while dealing with the challenging sub-zero Alaskan “summer”.

Writer/director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean though does great work in providing the story and tone for Fukunaga to visually relate. A Barrow native, MacLean writes what he knows, but is also writing within a long filmmaking tradition. Sikumi you see is really a Western. The frontier has not been tamed it has simply moved. Westerns are often about competing moralities,  tensions between personal codes. The weight of personal responsibility in these instances is heightened and rendered in sharp relief by the absence of societal enforcement. Typical protections afforded by Hobbesian bargains do not apply. It is within this space—the frontier of the ice, that the entirety of the film resides, and thus Sikumi is alternately suspenseful, scary, yet humanistic. The hunter with whom we arrive upon the scene with speaks very little, he is almost a non-character, as the onus of action quickly shifts to the perpetrator. Instead he serves as a stand-in for larger concepts such as Community, which judges and sets standards of conduct for a people , and  Conscience,  which, even in the absence of witnesses, must live with itself.

A startling spare and beautiful update on the Western,  Sikumi (On the Ice) takes full advantage of the stark and dramatic setting it employs, yet nonetheless could have been effectively  told anywhere using anyone. Thus it transcends novelty on the way to becoming one of the best shorts of recent memory.

Since those days, this short has become sort of an online Halloween favorite, and it’s easy to see why.

As brisk as a nursery rhyme, The Cat with Hands is a twisted tale (so deliciously Grimm) about a well-dwelling cat that steals human body parts. That’s where the hands came from, see? Amazing how creepy the film manages to be just by attaching our normal limbs to the body of a household pet. Narrated by a single voice throughout, the story takes the shape of a freaky folk tale, and even has the campfire-style twist to go with it. This ghoulish concept originated from a recurring nightmare the director’s sister used to have when she was young, which stacks another evidence for children being the best source for all things messed-up.

Writer-director Robert Morgan’s experience with stop-motion animation is impressive, having also done a couple of really great grotesque shorts reminiscent of Brothers Quay (take a look at his Separation). Nowadays, it’s rare enough that stop-motion animation is used at all—unless your name rhymes with Schmenry Schmelick—let alone used as an effect. Funded by UK’s Channel 4, Morgan was able to shoot a portion of the film in stark 35mm live-action and a portion in stop-motion figures. The latter is specifically used to render the eponymous cat. It gives that side of the film an otherworldly effect: cartoony enough to be fantasy (which helps with hiding the revelation) but not so cartoony that it takes away from the spooky atmosphere.

Having been around for so long, The Cat with Hands may not be a discovery anymore, but it remains a favorite for its memorably simple creature and myth-like attribute—like a bedtime story that won’t go away.

This fast-paced, rambunctious musical centers on a parking attendant who dispenses free parking and free compliments—validation of a greater kind. It’s the kind of simple play on words that makes for a fun 5-min short, but here director, Kurt Kuenne, strings out into a broader story. We follow the attendant as his gift for sincerity grows to international proportions. At a visit to the DMV, he meets his true love—a beauty behind the camera with a curse of the frowns. His life mission now is to win her over with sincerity and bring a smile to her face. He fails at first, of course. But then he fails again. And again. Eventually falling so far that he loses his faith. Eventually though, a small favor he does wins over his true love, and he’s finally given his own validation. It’s predictable, but that doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s how the film MUST be. Validation is a film that itself validates the good nature of human beings.

Or so you might think. Validation is actually a film about action. It doesn’t ask us for faith in human nature but rather calls on us to create it by consciously looking for the good and dignity in everyday people.

Do I even need to point out that TJ Thyne does an amazing acting job in this role? You may know his work from the TV series Bones.

After winning recognition at a number of national festivals, Kurt posted Validation online last year. To further prove its broad appeal, it’s been screened for a number of spiritual organizations, leadership training programs, and corporate employees to boost morale.

Watch Kurt’s other shorts online: Slow

That’s Magic! is a fifteen minute musical, not a music video.  It is a touch surreal, but not incoherent.  The story is slight, but that is generally the case with feature musicals, so is not a detriment here.  A janitor takes his son to meet “The Magician” in order to feel a bit of magic, but the performer is a sad cynical man whose depression manifests as soon as the curtain closes.  He has no magic to show, and no belief in it.  Left alone in his misery, The Magician dwells on the futility of existence, but a mysterious muse emerges from the shadows to guide him to true magic.

The power of music, and thus, the musical, is to summon up emotions without lengthy narrative or the need to deal with the distractions of life.  Yes, life is complicated, but the basic truths of life usually aren’t.  It’s in the paths to those truths where twists and turns exist.  That’s Magic isn’t interested in twists.  Its point is clear, pure, and in your face and summons up the likes of The Wizard of Oz, where there is no mistaking what is being said.

Of course such crystalline certainty only works when the music can sweep us along and here That’s Magic! excels.  For the modern show-tune enthusiast, this is as good as it gets.  Nickolas Kirk and Billy Wilkerson’s songs are rich and unforgettable.  Let’s hope you don’t mind a tune bouncing about in your head for days, because the only way the title song will vanish from your mind is when it is replaced by another, Second’s Glance.  The performance quality matches that of the songs.  The singing styles are more reminiscent of Moulin Rouge! than Seven Brides for Seven Brothers—this is a modern musical after all.

Director Brandon McCormick has created a must see fable: fabulous in its look, intoxicating in its sound, and a treat for whatever senses are left over.  The first time I watched That’s Magic! I enjoyed it.  The second, I was brought in deeper.  The third, I was captivated.  After twenty viewings, I like it even more.  It will grow on you.  Seek it out, and let it.

So is the case for lone cop Melvin, caught short in the wrong place at the wrong time in Poet Zero’s short of misunderstanding Cerrado Al Publico. The film is a perfect example of effective striping back to the essentials that so many filmmakers overstep, often to the detriment of the finished product – over stretching both resources and story when less would have certain left an impression of more. Cerrado Al Publico employs a minimum of on screen talent (a single actor, walkie talkie voice and two pairs of feet) until the final reveal and a location that it’s hard to imagine could be any more minimal, yet is perfectly dressed to make the viewer share our protagonist’s disgust - I’m assured that it’s a chocolate syrup and pea soup mixture smeared around the stall.

It was also a relief to see that directors Takashi Doscher and Alex Shofner were able to take Melvin from bumbling, comedic character to tragic ‘if only he hadn’t…’ figure with a twist that didn’t feel like a cheat or easily predicted from the opening credits, but was rather filling in the unexpected blanks for Melvin and the audience alike. As co-directors the pair took a divide and conquer approach to their shared role; Shofner took on set directing with responsibility for all that passed before the lens (actors, props, set, etc.), while Doscher’s cinema director role, tackled behind the camera tasks such as liasing with the crew and ensuring the technical elements stayed sharp.

Perhaps credit should also rest with the process by which the Poet Zero team select their projects; members of the group pitch their ideas, with the group voting on which ones to take forward and then finally roles attributed due to personal interest. Also, it has to be said that the work of David Torcivia (VFX & Grading) and John Merizalde (Editor) go a long way in helping to sell the final moments of this $0 budget, yet effective and entertaining short.

Described by the creators as a cross between The Karate Kid and Tron, Turbo is a futuristic martial arts fighter, where the action takes place at the local arcade rather than a secluded warehouse in Chinatown. In this future, Street Fighter-style arcade gaming has evolved into a “4-d” fighter called Turbo, via an interface that is a cross between Dance Dance and The Wizard-era NES powerglove, allowing for mano a mano sparring on the virtual level.

The film stars Justin Chon as Hugo, a young hotshot at the game. He lives with his brother who once fought the old-fashioned way—physically in a kickboxing ring, before a fight injury landed him in a wheel chair. The two brothers struggle for money, and Hugo has taken to occasionally betting on Turbo matches. When Hugo finds out that Turbo-legend Pharaoh King is holding a tryout competition for his elite team, he figures it could eliminate their money concerns. Can Hugo carry on his brother’s legacy and win a spot the team? To do so he’ll have to defeat Ruse Kapri, the gorgeous Turbo savant, and Shamus, the local arcade’s undefeated bully.

If that sounds like every fighting film you have ever seen, then congratulations, you are right. Turbo does not succeed in spite of its limitations as many action short films do—cleverly inventing a twist or deploying a new innovation such as Alive in Joburg did. Instead Turbo ignores the concept of limitations. This is standard genre-fare all the way, but the execution is astonishing. NOTHING in this film looks cheap. Especially not from a design standpoint (the sets are terrific), nor in the animation dept. handled by Ember Lab, where the team arguably pulls off extreme fighting in a way superior to the recent Dragonball movie; using a mix of After Effects, Illustrator, Maya and Shake.

The astonishing thing is the precociousness of this bunch. Jarret Lee Conaway developed Turbo as his thesis film at USC, which as a filmmaker fills me with a deep sense of personal shame. In the process of getting his career kickstarted Conaway has gotten off to a fantastic start—the buzz and reception for Turbo looks to be matching the strength of the film itself, and he recently participated in the well-connected Project:Involve contest over in LA, which we featured on this site a few weeks ago via the Short of the Moment, Market Price. What I love is that the internet has played a crucial role in gaining both films exposure, lending strength to calls for free internet distribution of shorts as a way to garner attention to a film and, by extension, its filmmakers.

The strong debut by Conaway, and the startling production values of Turbo on what was a 100k budget, has lead for many calls to see the film expanded into a feature. I would not hesitate to give the team a larger canvas in which to work, but I argue that Turbo trumps almost every fighting film of recent vintage precisely because of its nature as a short film. A brief thought exercise: to expand the film I think you could provide a bit more background on the brother, delving into his kickboxing career a bit further and correspondingly devote more time to the training montage.  Certainly you add a romantic scene with the girl, and more fighting footage at the competition itself. You’ve now stretched the runtime to 45 min. You still don’t have a feature and you haven’t necessarily improved the film.

The lesson is that films of this genre suffer when orthodoxy regarding film lengths forces them to stretch in ways beyond their comfort and capabilities. If you are following standard conventions, shorthand plotting is actually preferable. In Turbo’s present form our main character’s motivations are stated simply, and as sophisticated genre viewers, we accept them without having to be exposed to maudlin emoting regarding them. Turbo I think represents the spiritual zenith of a fight movie, if not yet its commercial zenith. I would love to see the series continue, anime-style with 20min installments. Next time out, Hugo has his first practice with Pharaoh’s team! Shamus signs with a rival group! Stay Tuned!

Mimicking the ‘50s-era style that made us all want to duck and cover, The Three R’s introduces us to four happy co-eds (and a disgruntled little sister, obviously in even more need of a man to complete her than her sibling).  They are on their way to a beach party where they can socialize, drink, and meet a man.  But a moment of carelessness leads to one dead hobo.  As average youthful citizens, they panic, but with a shout, our omniscient narrator puts an end to that.

“Hey, calm down, this isn’t the end of the world, and you can still make it to your beach party in time.” Yes, all they need is to remember the three R’s:

1. Rationalize!!
2. Resourceful!!
3. Remain (calm)!!

Faux info videos and their close cousins, “found footage” videos are everywhere on the Net.  They are cheap to make since they don’t require a modern professional look, so every Tom, Dick, and Harry has given it a shot.  Most are painfully bad as the makers have lacked the one W: Writing (talent).  Nathan Voltz, along with co-writers Chris Hobbi and Joseph McCain (who also appear in front of the camera as Rick and Andy, two of the clueless murderers) don’t have that problem.  The script is tight, consistently funny and biting from time to time.  The gags come quick, and are never throwaway.

The Three R’s is supposed to look old and damaged.  The YouTube version adds grain and artifacts that are go way beyond what is effective, but for a film like this, it doesn’t take away too much of the fun. Watch it with a few friends, and keep in mind, communism has no place here.

The concept of The Secret Adventures of the Projectionist, is solid, but the charm is in its execution. The particular looks of the films being homaged—Lang’s Metropolis, technicolor sword and sandal epics, and gritty, high contrast, film noir—are meticulously recreated, as are  some of the almost-forgotten special effect techniques of those periods. Max Sacker does not simply want to mime these filmic precedents for the sake of story, it is apparent that he has a deep reverence for them and the craft in which they were created.

The casting of Nikolai Kinski, son of the legendary Klaus, in the lead role, has not been enough to lift the film out of relative anonymity though; the film has played at just a smattering of film festivals and its online views are nothing to write home about. This lack of exposure could be because of the project’s origin—a submission to www.filmaka.com’s regular feature film competition, which likely disqualified the film from many festivals. Sadly festivals are still the primary promotional tool of the short film market, though the internet is rife with success stories. With luck this film may experience a similar story arc, and in the meantime the film has received exposure in Super 8 and 16mm film communities.

Either way, as internet viewers this comparative lack of success is our gain, as the filmmakers have now carpet bombed the internet with content. The film is hosted on numerous video sites accompanied by “making of” footage, as well as an alternate ending. Ironically though, running at a svelte 3:30, The Secret Adventures of the Projectionist is one of those few shorts that ends far too quickly and therefore would have been easy for elite festival programming directors to find space for.

Cost maybe another consideration as to why the film has not played at more prestigious venues. It does cost money to send shorts off to festivals, and The Secret Adventures of the Projectionist has the kind of backstory punctuated by thrift, that should by all rights make it legendary in the true indie community. With a total budget of 8000 euros, the film crew was able to shoot on 16mm by salvaging left over bits of stock and other odds and ends. The cameras were classic Soviet models found for a steal on ebay, and processing of the film was done in large part in a Lomo home tub. The whole process, from concept to final product, was pulled off in one month, in order to meet the deadline of the competition, in which the film ultimately finished as a runner-up. Many of the details surrounding production are detailed at Max Sacker’s personal web site, which makes for interesting reading if you end up as taken by the film as I am.

Short but remarkable, this short film definitely deserves your time, so go watch.

So for those of us who crave the charm of these homages to yesteryear, the place to go is not your DVD rental store, but the web site of director Andrew M. Young for The Great Detective. In a time where all boys look like they are about to yell “paper mister,” woman are called “doll” and “sweetheart” by criminals and heroes alike, and plucky reporters do anything for a story, The Great Detective preserves the good people of Chicagotown behind his black mask and under his fedora.

Effie Soul, who brings the good news in uncertain times by way of a classic typewriter, has information on the whereabouts of the arch villain Pokerface. Luckily it is no trouble finding The Great Detective: just walk into the wrong part of time and he’ll show up to save you. With his jetpack strapped on, and a few secret weapons hidden in his trenchcoat from his faithful sidekick, The Great Detective sets out to clean up the city, and more importantly, provide hope in dark times.

Robert Trahan is dashing as the lead, with a touch of generic tough guy. The rest of the cast fit their parts: maniacal, trustworthy, and cute, in turn. The action is compact, which takes away nothing since we do get our needed shot of the hero streaking through the air.

A production of North Caroline School of the Arts, The Great Detective has no deep themes or important message. It is just good fun; dare I say it: old-fashioned good fun.