Let's Keep it Short...
In honor of Presidents' Day, I'll be filling in for Qualler, who had taken a much needed vacation. MUCH NEEDED.Much of the gang here at the Blogulator decided that it would be a good idea to see the nominated short films for the 2008 Oscars last night. Here's a quick run-down:
Animated shorts: Really? this is the best? of the entire world? Ok...I mean, I guess I see how a glorified ipod commercial counts as a "film".... the nominee I Met the Walrus which featured audio from a REAL LIFE interview with JOHN LENNON (hey, I like the Beatles!) and doodling animation as an accompaniment was the only film to receive applause from the audience...do I smell a repeat of the Grammys?
The other shorts included puppets with what appeared to be real eyes, (Madame Tutli-Putli, my personal favorite! Oh, the French Canadians...) a really beautiful to look at impressionistic love story which should have been about five minutes long and completely silent (Moya Lyubov, or My Love), some French computer animated (?) crap which ended with a bloody death (though entitled Even Pigeons go to Heaven, I'm still waiting to see even one pigeon...), and a stop animation version of Peter and the Wolf. Hey, I liked stop animation films the first time I saw them, when I watched Rudolf the Red-Nosed Raindeer on TV with my family every Christmas...actually, though, I did enjoy the Peter and the Wolf adaptation, but mostly because it featured the Sergei Prokofiev music that I hold so dear. But in this version, the duck really does die. Sad.
The live action shorts:
“At Night,” Christian E. Christiansen, director;
Louise Vesth, producer (cancer movie, most die, very sad...my pick for the most probable winner. Typically depressing and Danish).
“Il Supplente (The Substitute),” Andrea Jublin, director (A weirdo poses as a substitute teacher? To mess with the kids? This is supposed to be a playful romp? what?)
“Les Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets),” Philippe Pollet-Villard, director (I have to be honest...I sort of fell asleep for this one. But the essence seemed to be that two pickpockets pick up a kid who turns out to be an amazing thief...let's not even talk about the racial implications here).
“Tanghi Argentini,” Guido Thys, director; Anja Daelemans,
producer (A Belgian man sets up his coworkers. Cute.)
“The Tonto Woman,” Daniel Barber, director; Matthew Brown,
producer (Old clothes alert, co-starring some guy who looks like he walked right out of My Chemical Romance and into the old west...)
This entry was posted by Brigitte, on
Monday, February 18, 2008.
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how'd you guys get to see these? are they available online somewhere?
Our Landmark theater up here is playing them...reason #234 why Minneapolis is awesome.
Brigitte, you're very harsh. I hate a lot of things and the only short I straight up didn't like last night was the trite love triangle life-is-pain Russian one. That blond kid needs to get over himself! I'm glad he ended up alone.
I agree that the aesthetic of the John Lennon one was very commercial-esque, but I liked the concept nonetheless. It was refreshing being the only non-narrative short in the bunch. So sue me.
My favorite animated short though was also Madame Tutli-Putli. My favorite live action one though was The Substitute! It was a cute comparison between the lives of kids and adults...plus it was actually a short film, unlike many of the others. I felt the pickpocket one was the weakest. The Danish one meandered forever, but had a great ending and amazing music. And a minimalist western based on an Elmore Leonard short story? Can't go wrong there.
i forgot to mention that the Belgian one really could have been an extended Stella Artois commercial.
Harsh that! I tells it like it is!
Also, despite the harshness of my post, I really did have a good time last night. I was entertained by all the films except the french pick pocket one, and that might have been because i fell asleep. also the russian animated short seemed waaay too long. but hey, me enjoying some films as a fun night out and me thinking they are the best of the best of 2008 are different things.
i also have to say, at no point did i say i disliked any of these films exactly...much less "hated" them.
oh wait, i take that back. i hated the french animated short film.
is it me, or do you guys all fall asleep in theatres a lot. what's with that?
Haha it's so true. I don't know why it seems an epidemic among us, but it is. Something about the calmness of the projection light in a dark room with background noise in kinda-comfy-but-not-really chairs. I also don't think I started falling asleep in movies a lot until I got my first full-time job. Being a grown up sucks.
I think I'm the only one who doesn't fall asleep in the theater - which is why you all wake up with one hand soaking in warm water. To date, it still hasn't caused any of you to wet your pants but I'm gonna keep doing it anyway.
MUCH NEEDED?! What's that supposed to mean?! If I'm going to take a vacation from blogging, I should at least have the day off of work, right?
The irony of this whole sleeping debacle is that I'm the only one who apparently didn't fall asleep. Well, I did a little bit during "The Tonto Woman" but that was voluntary sleep from short film fatigue (being that it was the 9th of 10 we watched).
My fav animated had to be Madame Tutti-Putti and my fav live action had to be At Night. The French Canadians sure are weird, and the Danes sure are depressing. The Tonto Woman I would like to re-watch, though, as it gave me a good feeling in the way weird Stephen King short stories about The Dark Tower made me feel. Also, it was really freaking pretty looking. Which is also probably why I fell asleep.
For rankings sake, I'd have to rank all of them this way:
ANIMATED:
5. the "Pigeon" thing
4. the impressionistic painting whining emo boy from Russia one
3. John Lennon (I Met the Walrus)
2. Peter & the Wolf
1. Madame Tutti-Putti
LIVE ACTION:
5. Tango Argentini (seriously! Stella Artois commercial! It had to be!!)
4. The Substitute
3. The Mozart of Pickpockets
2. The Tonto Woman
1. At Night
For the record, if Tango Argentini ripped of Stella Artois commercials, then Stella Artois commercials ripped off O. Henry (the author, not the candy bar).
True, but O. Henry didn't make short films or commercials.
little known fact, chris: o henry did, indeed, rip off stella artois commercials.
case closed.
also, i think this was like a stella artois commercial not because of the story but because of how it was filmed...once the set up was complete and our hero was back at the bar, i totally expected the waiter to serve him a stella and a voice over to say something about staying true to what you love...stella artois. cute to shot of beer.
Thank you Brigitte! That is the key element of the Stella Artois comparison that I was making that I neglected to include. It was basically a)the way it was shot and b)the main character at a bar at the end. It would have made for some wicked product placement.
ok, now, if some people think i'm being too "harsh" with this post (isn't that the point of being a blogger? tearing apart someone else's hard work and artistic intent?) maybe it's because before i saw these short films i saw the MOST AMAZING PLAY EVER at the Jeune Lune theater, "Fish Tank." It was so wonderfully plot-less and absurd that i guess it just made everything else look, well...like a beer commercial. and don't get me wrong, i LOVE beer commercials. i just find it hard to believe these were the best out there for the entire year, in every country in all the world (like i said before). they were all good. some made me smile. some even made me chuckle. i definitely cried during the Danish one. none, however, blew me away, made me stand up in my seat and shout "oscar! oscar!" but perhaps i was expecting too much?
Haha I think the only person who thought you were being harsh is me. I just think it's hard to make a statement like that when we haven't seen any other short films that "came out" this year. Thus is the inherent problem with these Oscar categories - how are we supposed to know what's the best and what's not when short films aren't even released to the public? I would love it if every feature had a short that accompanied it like Pixar does with their movies! I could totally see I Met the Walrus playing before Across the Universe (thus making seeing Across the Universe at least somewhat worthwhile) or The Tonto Woman before The Assassination of Jesse James...it could be a way to get more people into theaters in this age of the declining box office. Oh well, thus is the stagnancy of Hollywood. It will never happen.
don't say it'll never happen! if we believe it, we can make it true...i agree, there should be more short films released so that i can see them on a regular basis so that i could have come away from last night thinking "yeah, of all the films i saw, those were the best" instead of "i wonder what else came out this year that got beat out by these guys?"
After reading all of this, I'm much less excited to see the Short Films on Wednesday! I think it's amazing that people make short films at all, since there probably isn't any money to be made, with all of the people who actually pay to see it falling asleep. Imagine how hard all those filmmakers probably had to work at their pitches. Ooh, that would be a short documentary that I would like to see!
Anyway, my favorite was the Russian one because the style of animation, while a little psychedelic, was at least unique and kept me on my toes. Besides, I'm so over blood and death in animation. It's a medium which I prefer saccharin (but less than Disney-fied) and pain free.
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