This year, I was asked to help view movies for AFF and give my opinions on the submitted works. Although I was able to watch a smattering of features during this process, many of which I could not bear to finish, I felt I became most useful as someone who would watch shorts. There was a plethora of shorts submitted to the festival and I must have watched about 100-150 of them. Of these, I found about 20-30 that I felt were really exceptional and deserved to be in the festival. Of these 30 or so, only 7 made it into the festival. So, I can recommend these shorts without any hesitation:

Program 1 - Rejected ((Don Hertzfeldt) A hilarious yet simply cartoon that shows no mercy. This one will have you rolling. Hertzfeldt's earlier film, "Billy's Balloon" is even better than "Rejected" making him an animator to look out for.

Program 2 - Allred Fishburns in Love (Danny Greenfield) Although this is a rather typical "young-Jewish-boy-coming-of-age" story, Greenfield is able to make something really sweet and likable come forth. The young actor in the lead is quite effective.

Program 3 - Waking Mele (Anne Misawa) Beautiful, troubling and poetic, "Waking Mele" is an awesome example of how dreams and poetic narration can drive a film forward. Just because this film isn't your standard fare doesn't make it any less affecting or poignant. Misawa should be proud of her effort. Her young cast is also exceptional.

Program 4 - Genesis and Catastrophy (Jonathan Liebsman) What could be a ham-handed short paying straight from the "Twilight Zone" school of scriptwriting turns out to be a troubling and pointed film. Based on a work by Raold Dahl.

Program 5 - none

And short before films: The Closet (before "Certain Guys") (Shawn Schepps) A really funny and delightful moment of time. Perfect and perfectly funny.

f-stop (before "The Poor and Hungry") (Christopher Slevin and John Johnston) Slightly interesting and charming short about a love affair at a photo booth. But really more than just that. Not what you would expect from the synopsis.

Me and My Old Man (before "ABCD") (Georgie Roland) Poetic, beautiful to look at and melancholy, this reminiscence on the family patriarch supercedes it's simplistic film device (narration with music over silent, 16mm, B&W images) to become a engrossing meditation on family, heredity and a predisposition towards failure at romance. Haunting.

Of the short chosen that I have seen and did not like, only two appear, ""Boundaries," (Program 1) which was so lame I can't even remember what it was I didn't like about it, and the godawful "Hot Broads," which is opening Program 3. This group of shorts is sponsored by Reel Women, so maybe it's a chick thing, but the short is a ridiculous, low0-budget piece of crud that attempts to be funny and wild and succeeds in only being dull and annoying. It's not a short film, it's a headache on celluloid. AFF should be ashamed. This is what happens when you let other groups associate themselves with your festival.

Of course, almost everyone of important in AFF is female, so...

I probably won't have time to take in any shorts showcases this year, so I may only be able to catch a few during screenings. However, I would urge everyone to take in all the shorts they can.

I'll try to update this with some more thoughts on the shorts later in the festival.

More of Lodger's reviews indexed alphabetically! Just click your favorite letter to go there.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

HOME

In Association with:

Posters From!

Get your Movies

Please Visit