Okay, I know I said I was going to be posting a follow-up to Thursday’s column on the Public Domain status of the John Wayne movie McLintock! today, but to be honest, it’s more complex than you might think, and since part of the reason for shifting things around here was to give myself the time to go as in-depth as I really want to on some of these issues rather than simply post something because it’s time to, I’ve decided to put that off for a couple of days so I can do it properly.
However, rather than not give you anything today, I’ve decided to go ahead start up one of the new “occasional” features that I’m bringing to the blog.
Short films, when they’re done right, can truly be some of the most interesting works out there. The key to that sentence, though, is “when they’re done right”. All too often, however, it can seem like the film makers behind shorts simply have a scene or two that they have fallen in love with and that they want to put on film, but they forget that no matter the length or limitations they are working within, they still need to tell a full story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Otherwise, well, you haven’t really made a film, have you? You’ve just shot a scene or a series of images.
(Unless, I suppose, you’re trying to go for a surrealist vibe or something like that, but those films are a case unto themselves.)
So what I want to do here is spotlight some of those films that I think do get it right, and that, since most theaters don’t show shorts ahead of features anymore, unless you’re specifically looking for them, you most likely won’t see.
Now, I’ll admit that you could accuse me of stacking the deck by starting off with this one, since not only is it animated (which actually, I think, lends itself just a bit more to the short film), but it was nominated for an Academy Award (yes, there are actually three short-film categories that receive Oscars – Animated, Live-Action, and Documentary – and, even more interestingly, they are one of the few categories that allow international entries, which, given the fact that Hollywood has forgotten how to make a movie under 3 hours and 47 minutes is probably a necessity), but even given that, I’m still willing to bet that most of you out there haven’t seem it.
Animal Behaviour is a 2018 short film from Canada, written and directed by directed by Alison Snowden and David Fine. Its cast includes Ryan Beil as Dr. Clement, Taz VanRassel as Victor the ape, Leah Juel as Lorraine the leech, Andrea Libman as Cheryl the mantis, Toby Berner as Todd the pig, James Kirk as Jeffrey the bird, and Snowden herself as Linda the cat. It has a total run time of just over 14 minutes.
Which means, you can watch the whole thing below in probably less time that it took you to read this blathery introduction.
Enjoy!
Ten little monkeys jumping on a bed
One Got Fat is a production of Interlude Films which did a number of PSAs to be shown in schools, and features a group of school children dressed as monkeys who are riding their bikes to a nearby park. Along the way each of them fails too observe a bicycle safety rule and because of it meets a rather grisly fate. The entire film runs about 15 minutes and is narrated by acclaimed voice artist Edward Everett Horton, whose voice you will immediately recognize if you spent any time watching Rocky and Bullwinkle as a child.
Coming into writer/director/producer Brian Petsos’ 2014 short film Ticky Tacky, you could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps you had stumbled upon some missed early Wes Anderson film. After all, there is the initial shot of the record stylus being placed on an LP thus establishing the source of the classical music which will make up the bulk of the soundtrack for this 15 minute short, and then there is the stylized wide-angle strictly-balanced establishing shot, in which, like many of Mr. Anderson’s set-ups, the right and left sides of the screen are practically mirror images of each other.
I’ve written before about just how hard I think it is to create a truly great short film and the hazards that both the screenwriter for this sort of film and the director face when it come to being able to establish unique characters that are not merely two-dimensional placeholders which move the plot along, and to providing an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end, rather than just shooting a scene and calling that a complete film.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have the insanely talented Oscar Isaac to play the lead in your film, but as we know from Inside Llewyn Davis, even he can’t redeem everything he’s in. (Sorry, I know it’s kind of a cheap shot, but despite the acclaim for Davis, I really found myself disappointed by it.) In this case, Isaac certainly brings his “A” game, turning on an emotional dime and providing a truly compelling and at times downright terrifying protagonist. (Is that really the right word for this role? Hmm…)
Another smart move that Pestos makes is casting the young Julian Shatkin as Isaac’s aide de camp. Shatkin proves himself well worthy of his role, and his seeming youthfulness provides the film with one of its most shocking moments.
The son of Dr. Charles E. Bowers and his wife, Mary I. Bowers, Charles Raymond Bowers was born in Cresco, Iowa. His early career was as a cartoonist on the Mutt and Jeff series of cartoons for the Barré Studio. By the late 20s, he was starring in his own series of slapstick comedies for R-C Pictures and Educational Pictures. His slapstick comedies, a few of which have survived, are an amazing mixture of live action and animation created with the “Bowers Process.” Complex Rube Goldberg gadgets also appear in many of his comedies. Two notable films include Now You Tell One with a memorable scene of elephants marching into the U.S. Capitol, and There It Is, a surreal mystery involving the Fuzz-Faced Phantom and MacGregor, a cockroach detective. He made a few sound films such as It’s a Bird and Wild Oysters, and wrote and illustrated children’s books in his later years. For eight years during the 1930s he lived in Wayne, New Jersey, and drew cartoons for the Jersey Journal. After succumbing to severe arthritis, his wife started drawing them under his direction.
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