As I sit at stare at the DVD shelf, I realize how lucky and important this digital medium is for short film makers. Outside countless film festivals, DVD has been playing an important role in having some of these great works seen. Yeah, I know about Youtube, but I'm talking about real short film makers, not cell phone camera frat boys.
In an age, which many films and film editors, try to keep our short attention span, through ultra fast edits and hype visual style, you'd think a short film would be ideal for our current fast paced lives and ADD culture. A short film usually ranges from as long as 45mins to down as short as a minute.
Leading the way in getting short films seen, is Magnolia Home Entertainment, who has begun producing a collection of the year's Academy Award nominated short films. Here's an amazing chance to see these shorts and support a dying craft, or atleast in the Academy's eyes. If you watched the Oscar's this year, the winners of the three categories-live action, animation, and documentary-gave rousing speeches on the importance of short films. The Academy has threatened to rid itself of those three categories from the Oscars. So leading the charge to save short films is, Magnolia Home Entertainment. Thier newest disc, which came out on May 1st, is a collection from the 2006 Oscar nominated short films. A nice selection. They couldn't get three of the Animated nominated shorts, due to rights issues since they were produced by major studios, but you can find them on DVD anyway. This year's selction is rather mixed, but a must buy is A Collection of 2005 Academy Award Nominated Short Films which features some really outstanding short subjects like Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, Badgered, Six Shooter, but this year's disc features some great Sundance hyped shorts like One Rat Short and A Gentlemen's Duel.
Another important disc to cop, especially if sci-fi or horror is your thing is Synapse's Small Gauge Trauma. This disc celebrates the ever popular Fantasia Film Festival in Toronto, CA 10 year anniversary with some of those 10 year's best shorts to grace the fest's screens. I'll See You In My Dreams is a riot. In a small Spanish town, one man fights to save the population from zombies. doesn't sound to inventive, but the cinematography, the pacing, and the FX are top notch, with sly in jokes for fans of the zombie genre. The Separation is a beautifully stop motion animated short about the horrors of losing your closest kin, Love from Mother Only is perhaps the scariest and creepiest short here, featuring gore and possesion, and Tea Break feature a rather clever one note joke at the end. There's a lot of other great shorts here too: Miss Greeny (the shortest film is the funniest and stupidiest); Ruta Destroy (a bizzare musical); Chambre Juana (a beautiful Argento rip off), and Flat-n-Fluffy (a preverse animated, drugged out short). They're planning a sequel disc and I can't wait. It's a collection of artists around the world and features off beat, wierd, and horror films. A must see. Unlike the Magnolia disc, this does have extra material like audio commentaries, deleted scenes, and interviews.
If horror is your thing, then seek out Unearthed's Aftermath/Genesis, a collection of three shorts by an up and comer named Nacho Cerda. Aftermath is a highly controversial short that features no dialogue, beautiful camera work, and ultra realistic gore. It's a study of human emotions about death. What's worse than death? It's a ahlf an hour long, but as brutal and scary as any 90 mintue film I've ever seen. A girl dies and is taken to the coroner's room. That's all I'm saying about it. It's really incredible but borderlines what is acceptable to show and does it mean more than it shows? Its controversial and will include many arguements on people who see it. Genesis is sorta a sequel to it, but isn't as gorey. It's still highly inventive and gorgeously shot. The dvd has hours of extras, good extras that help further the understanding of what the director was trying to do and accomplish.
Kino has been a short film supporter for awhile now with great discs like Avant Garde Cinema from 1915-1945, which has uber rare shorts from Dali, Orson Welles, and others, Phantom Museums a powerhouse collection of the Brothers Quay stop motion epics featureing all their key shorts, and the Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer, a wonderful animator who rivals Harryhausen in craft and skill.
Other great short film dvds are: Short films of David Lynch, Dramalical: Web Shorts of David Lynch (a wonderful look into Lynch's mind), Fangoria's BloodDrive II (a great collection of newbie short horror films), and the 75th Annual Academy Award Nominated Short films (that features the Chubchubs! and how to get your short seen by the Academy).
There are many other great shorts not on dvd or are on other dvds that feature a movie and have the short as a bonus. To see George Lucas student short Electronic Labyrinth THX-1138:4EB you'll need to get the 2 disc special edition of THX-1138, his first movie, in case you didn't know. Or to see David Crinenberg's remorseful short Camera, you have to get the Criterion Collection's version of Videodrome.
There's so many shorts, and I haven't even covered or ranted about the lack of support fro documentary short subject not getting seen. If the Academy cuts those three categories, its their own fault. DVDs help survive shorts, but instead of bulldozing us with Coke comercails and other nonsense before a movie at the theatre, how about showing us a short film?
Until next time, press play.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Issue #1 - Dead Genres
Welcome to Staring at the DVD Shelf, issue #1.
As I was staring at the DVD shelf, I saw a few titles that come from a genre that seems to be no longer in use. Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Comedy, and Drama genres will never die, there the basic categories when pitching a film or making a film. But whatever happened to the Westerns? No one makes them anymore. But the Westerns would seem ripe for a comeback. Or are they here but in something new? But why did these go away?
The Westerns were some of the most profitable and popular genres pictures to make in the first 50 years of film. John Ford, Howard Hawks, and stars like John Wayne, Jimmy Steward and Gene Audrey are all classics people involved with these genre. And the there was the Spaghetti Westerns. Gritty, bloody, sweaty, an anti-thesis to the American films in almost every way. So why did a genre really born out of American pride and dream die off? There was Dances with the Wolves, Tombstone, and more recently Open Range, sure but it isn't like the studios are pumping out these at even a 1/3 of what they use to. Some say Blazing Saddles killed the genre. But with themes of conquest of the wilderness, codes of honor, the lonesome hero, the western genre always tickled Americans fascination of the Old West. You would think that not only Deadwood, but directors like Martin Scorsese and John Carpenter, who lovingly stated that would do a western picture, the western genre seems ready to take off again.
But is the Western genre dead, in a down spot, or moved on to something new? This might seem unjust but think about it: the Superhero genre is the new Western. Yes, i know superheroes are different in concept and medium, but we're in a superhero movie boom. 1978's Superman is the superhero's genre starter much like the Westerns 1908 Great Train Robbery. Each started mildly but excitingly, and were later the template for future genre success. While the superhero genre was minimal with only Superman and Batman films, the underrated success of Blade and the mainstream acceptance of X-Men, the genre is at an all-time high. Spider-Man, a smash box office hit was only undone by more smash hits like X2, Spiderman 2, and Batman Begins. We're at the zenith point now, with Spiderman 3 on the verge to conquer. The BO for Spiderman 3 really won't mean to much in terms of genre success. It really comes down to next year: Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight, and if those have strong legs, then the genre will be here for another 10 years for sure.
As for the comparisons, each usually have lonesome heroes, a conquest of environment (westerns had the frontier, superheroes have the world of average people), each feature a journey, each have ideals, and each are quite iconic. Can't think of the West without thinking of the Duke's tall presence and hat. Can't think of a superhero without thinking of the Man of Steel and the Batsignal.
Westerns really died to over-population of films of that type and stories being retold and stale once the genre was past its zenith. The Superhero genre is the new Western: people will get sick of radiation, origin stories being identical, typical masked villains, and the hero saving the day. At least there's the comics.
As I was staring at the DVD shelf, I saw a few titles that reminded me of Grindhouse. Is anyone else tired of talking about Grindhouse? Magazines to podcasts, everyone had that word on thier lips. Heck, I was even excited too. But when Grindhouse debuted at #6 and then in its second week dropped to barely hanging on at number 10, to only fall further, it only confirmed what I was kinda expecting: dead genre. Sure, I and a lot of other people enjoy the grindhouse movies of the 70s. Coffy, Cannibal Holocaust, They Call Her One Eye, I spit on Your Grave, I Drink your Blood, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, man I could go on and on about these movies, but ultimately nostalgia is a bitch. You just can't make these films now. We're too conservative, too politically correct, too prude, to make or see movies about sex, gore, and rudeness.
Taratino and Rodriguez tried and tried hard. They loved those movies too. The faux trailers were things of genius, but the film was undone by self-referential jokes and insider knowledge for most of my generation to not care about. Planet Terror was bloody fun but wore on and became to wink wink. Death Proof started hot and fizzled due to a lackluster, if not bad second half and characters.
As quickly as I became happy and excited that such a film was going to be released, I became bored, tired, and didn't care. A fun experimental that doesn't need anymore attention or publication, please.
Dead genres. There's always DVD...
Until next issue, press play.
As I was staring at the DVD shelf, I saw a few titles that come from a genre that seems to be no longer in use. Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Comedy, and Drama genres will never die, there the basic categories when pitching a film or making a film. But whatever happened to the Westerns? No one makes them anymore. But the Westerns would seem ripe for a comeback. Or are they here but in something new? But why did these go away?
The Westerns were some of the most profitable and popular genres pictures to make in the first 50 years of film. John Ford, Howard Hawks, and stars like John Wayne, Jimmy Steward and Gene Audrey are all classics people involved with these genre. And the there was the Spaghetti Westerns. Gritty, bloody, sweaty, an anti-thesis to the American films in almost every way. So why did a genre really born out of American pride and dream die off? There was Dances with the Wolves, Tombstone, and more recently Open Range, sure but it isn't like the studios are pumping out these at even a 1/3 of what they use to. Some say Blazing Saddles killed the genre. But with themes of conquest of the wilderness, codes of honor, the lonesome hero, the western genre always tickled Americans fascination of the Old West. You would think that not only Deadwood, but directors like Martin Scorsese and John Carpenter, who lovingly stated that would do a western picture, the western genre seems ready to take off again.
But is the Western genre dead, in a down spot, or moved on to something new? This might seem unjust but think about it: the Superhero genre is the new Western. Yes, i know superheroes are different in concept and medium, but we're in a superhero movie boom. 1978's Superman is the superhero's genre starter much like the Westerns 1908 Great Train Robbery. Each started mildly but excitingly, and were later the template for future genre success. While the superhero genre was minimal with only Superman and Batman films, the underrated success of Blade and the mainstream acceptance of X-Men, the genre is at an all-time high. Spider-Man, a smash box office hit was only undone by more smash hits like X2, Spiderman 2, and Batman Begins. We're at the zenith point now, with Spiderman 3 on the verge to conquer. The BO for Spiderman 3 really won't mean to much in terms of genre success. It really comes down to next year: Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight, and if those have strong legs, then the genre will be here for another 10 years for sure.
As for the comparisons, each usually have lonesome heroes, a conquest of environment (westerns had the frontier, superheroes have the world of average people), each feature a journey, each have ideals, and each are quite iconic. Can't think of the West without thinking of the Duke's tall presence and hat. Can't think of a superhero without thinking of the Man of Steel and the Batsignal.
Westerns really died to over-population of films of that type and stories being retold and stale once the genre was past its zenith. The Superhero genre is the new Western: people will get sick of radiation, origin stories being identical, typical masked villains, and the hero saving the day. At least there's the comics.
As I was staring at the DVD shelf, I saw a few titles that reminded me of Grindhouse. Is anyone else tired of talking about Grindhouse? Magazines to podcasts, everyone had that word on thier lips. Heck, I was even excited too. But when Grindhouse debuted at #6 and then in its second week dropped to barely hanging on at number 10, to only fall further, it only confirmed what I was kinda expecting: dead genre. Sure, I and a lot of other people enjoy the grindhouse movies of the 70s. Coffy, Cannibal Holocaust, They Call Her One Eye, I spit on Your Grave, I Drink your Blood, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, man I could go on and on about these movies, but ultimately nostalgia is a bitch. You just can't make these films now. We're too conservative, too politically correct, too prude, to make or see movies about sex, gore, and rudeness.
Taratino and Rodriguez tried and tried hard. They loved those movies too. The faux trailers were things of genius, but the film was undone by self-referential jokes and insider knowledge for most of my generation to not care about. Planet Terror was bloody fun but wore on and became to wink wink. Death Proof started hot and fizzled due to a lackluster, if not bad second half and characters.
As quickly as I became happy and excited that such a film was going to be released, I became bored, tired, and didn't care. A fun experimental that doesn't need anymore attention or publication, please.
Dead genres. There's always DVD...
Until next issue, press play.
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