Father at Fifteen

Darren Thornton used to teach drama at a center for troubled youth, and - drawing from that experience - provides us with a challenging portrait of his short's title character, Frankie. Frankie is dedicated to the idea of being a good father, doting on his child-sized doll, but there are several scenes that underscore his immaturity. Thornton doesn't avoid indicting a cycle of fatherlessness. Apparent poverty doesn't help matters, but it isn't crammed down your throat as an excuse. "Frankie" simply lets Frankie talk to us about his world: ugly enough to be real, true enough to be beautiful.

The film has received a fair amount of recognition, and press for the European Film Awards grabbed an interview with Thornton last April.

Just Say No-No

James Blagden created this animated short about Doc Ellis' no-hitter (June 12, 1970) using audio from a Weekend America interview that aired on March 29, 2008. Doc describes himself as being "high as a Georgia pine" during the game, under the influence of LSD. In the wake of Major League Baseball's steroid scandal, it's almost encouraging to hear a story about a guy accomplishing one of baseball's rarest achievements while he was hallucinating.

GIF Talk

Evan Roth (of G.R.L. and F.A.T.) has created a 10-minute ode to the asinine antics of animated Graphics Interchange Format files. What better way to celebrate than setting this massive mashup to Girl Talk and marvelling at how obsessed we are with babies and cats and science fiction and...

Underneath it All

"Surface" is a great idea for a short, wondering what the view would be like from below the action. Fortunately, the experiment is well-executed under the guiding eye of Varathit Uthaisri (aka TU+), a Thai designer/director working out of New York. Varathit has also has a storyboard animatic for "Surface" available on his Vimeo account.