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January 29, 2007
Sundance Shorts
Sundance 2007 is a thing of the past, but its short films are still streaming at the official website and at iTunes. Short form content isn't hard to come by anymore - these days, it's almost too readily available, which is why it's nice to have an officially curated program to peruse.
The best I've seen so far is Ray Tintori's Death To The Tinman, a twelve minute adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Tin Woodsman Of Oz. Shot on black and white 16mm, with practical effects and rear projection shots aplenty, Tintori's film is a blend of influences - Guy Maddin and Wes Anderson jump most immediately to mind - and pure, breathless inventiveness. This is the sort of film you go to a shorts program to see, the kind that's worth a feature and a half; at a dollar ninety-nine from iTunes, it's a steal.
Also worth a look are Aftermath On Meadowlark Lane, the new film from Austinites and Sundance favorites the Zellner Brothers (I think they've had a new film or two in the festival for at least the past three or four years), and Calvin Reeder's absurdist horror film Little Farm. The latter is a grungy, disarmingly low-fi bit of exploitation, chock full of gore and incest and really great FX work, marred only by some out-of-place ghosts that seem to have wandered over from an early David Lynch short. The Zellner Brothers, meanwhile, continue their series of dirigible epics, this time venturing unexpectedly into the realm of biography. I'm curious as to what came first - the need for closure on a particularly personal issue, or the opportunity to blow up a car.
Sadly (but understandably) unavailable is the winner of the Best Short Film award: Don Hertzfeldt's Everything Will Be Okay. I can't wait to see it on the big screen when this year's installment of The Animation Show comes to town.
If anyone has any additional recommendations (or warnings, for that matter), let me know. Also, check out Jamie Stuart's podcast for Filmmaker Magazine, which features a brief interview with Ray Tintori and lots of terrifically edited montages of Park City in action.
Posted by David Lowery at January 29, 2007 02:49 PM
Comments
thanks for the link...i loved all the shorts you mentioned, esp. TINSMAN...i also liked DAD. it moved me in a surprising way.
Posted by: frank at January 30, 2007 02:49 AM
I just watched Dad, which was good. I also really liked this one called Songbird, which was very charming in a Svenkmyer-ish fashion.
Posted by: Ghostboy at January 30, 2007 11:35 PM