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.

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.

Lifeline

Animator and storyboard artist Andres Salaff won the Bronze Medal last month at the Student Academy Awards for his short film, Lifeline.

If you're interested in seeing more of Andres' animations, he has a handful of other videos available on his Vimeo account.

Reign of Death

Matthew Savage has offered up a compelling short, Reign of Death, featuring Noel Clarke of Doctor Who fame. Although Reign of Death features elements of both scifi and noir, I think it shares more in common with steampunk than tech noir in that the technological advancements serve better as anachronistic icing on a 1940s cake rather than indications of a possible future. In this regard, the film reminds me of Penny Arcade's Automata which also debuted last summer (continued in pages two, three, four, five, and six).

If you're interested in making your own short film, there are two great behind-the-scenes videos on Vimeo: Jonathan Dunn's Making of Reign of Death and Linus Hofmann's Reign Of Death VFX Breakdowns.

Things I Like, Things I Don't Like

Before Jean-Pierre Jeunet gave us Amélie, he had already perfected the style of his character introductions many years before in Foutaises (known as "Things I Like, Things I Don't Like" in the UK and "Small Talk" elsewhere in Europe). While Jeunet's developing talent is the main attraction, it's also clear to see why Dominique Pinon continues to appear in all of the director's films.

Go see Jeunet's latest, Micmacs, if you can find it... And yes, Pinon's in there somewhere.

Love in the Time of Zombies

This Spencer Susser short features Mia Wasikowska (aka. Tim Burton's Alice) as the teenage crush of a young man recently orphaned during the zombie apocalypse. The tone lies somewhere between Shaun of the Dead and Gummo. But whether you're facing undead hordes or mere societal decay, who doesn't want a girl that can dispatch swift shovel-swinging justice?

In addition to shorts, Susser also does ads and he unveiled the feature-length Hesher (featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman) at Sundance earlier this year.

The Tarantino Code

The secrets of Quentin Tarantino come under scrutiny in a diner scene that could be ripped straight from one of his own movies. Except, y'know, in Portuguese. This short film, starring Selton Melo and Seu Jorge (of Life Aquatic fame), analyzes QT with a fanatic's eye for details. Check out Hungry Man TV for a variety of short films and web series.



Are they all crafty clues or are some just coincidences? You be the judge. Either way, it's more fun than trying to spot Alfred Hitchcock cameos.

"Federer is the tennis player version of Tarantino..."

Wait... what?

May The Fourth Be With You

Merry Unofficial Star Wars Day!



A long time ago, before Star Wars according to a three year old, before Star Wars retold by someone who hasn't seen it, there was Evan Mather. I first saw Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars and Godzilla Versus Disco Lando during my freshman year of college... ten years ago now. While they might seem unremarkable in the YouTube storm of action-figure opuses, nobody makes better use of Meco.

The Raven

Ricardo de Montreuil has made a splash with his $5,000 scifi short, The Raven. The film has already drawn comparisons to Alive in Joburg which later became District 9. Who knows... perhaps we'll be seeing a 2-hour version of this in the years to come.

Spawn of Grindhouse

Remember Machete? You know... one of the fake trailers from Grindhouse? Well it's due out later this year (September 3). I'm guessing Robert Rodriguez has been un castor ocupado between this and producing Predators.



As if that wasn't awesome enough, Hobo With a Shotgun - AKA faux trailer that won the SXSW 2007 Grindhouse Competition - is currently being filmed as a full-blown feature. Playing the title character? Rutger MFing Hauer. Get pumped.

Will Eli Roth bring us Thanksgiving? Will we ever get to see Nic Cage play Fu Manchu in Werewolf Women of the SS? One can hope.

When Video Games Attack

If you've ever played a video game made in the 80s, Patrick Jean is your new hero. Jean directed Pixels for the French visual effects company, One More Production.

Ridley Scott Hearts Unicorns

Philips has commissioned a series of short films, Parallel Lines, to air on April 8th at their website. The kicker? The films all use the same unifying theme, and since the filmmakers are all from Ridley Scott Associates, that theme has something to do with unicorns.

Anyway, you can read more about the individual shorts and their creators over at /Film.

*UPDATE*

My favorite short, "The Gift":

Codehunters

Codehunters looks like the Gorillaz got crossed with Final Fantasy VII characters and shat out into Borderlands.

The Life Arachnid

I think Wes Anderson's penchant for ensemble casting would make him go whole hog for the entire Avengers team. Personally, though, I think he'd have more fun with Runaways.

While I'm dreaming, Quentin Tarantino will reboot X-Men, J.J. Abrams will reclaim Star Wars, Joss Whedon will do Y: The Last Man justice, Guillermo del Toro will bring The Walking Dead to life, Peter Jackson will dazzle us with Fables, Zack Snyder will use his 300 magic on Northlanders, Paul Greengrass will unleash DMZ, Martin Scorsese will find the darkest parts of Scalped, and Christopher Nolan will take the WildStorm universe seriously enough to create a trilogy featuring characters from Team 7, Stormwatch, and The Authority.

Did I miss anybody?

Troops

This is an old favorite. Kinda makes me wish they'd made TESB and ROTJ episodes of Troops, too.

I wonder how a Star Wars version of The Wire would play out... instead of dealing drugs maybe they could smuggle Bacta or something like that.

Noah and the Whale

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for Spring.

Keep on Shining

In some ways, Kevin McCullough's Electropolis reminds me of Mark Osborne's More, but it's clearly the more optimistic of the two. I believe the message is the same in both, however... stay true to yourself and what you love. Don't take the road less traveled just 'cause Robert Frost said so; make up your own damn mind.



P.S. Thanks to aithnea for the shout-out on reddit.

Rent-A-Person

Kurt Kuenne is most widely known for his documentary, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, but he's also been producing brilliant short films for many years. Be sure to check out his award-winning Validation. And, while we're on the subject of uber-cute super-sap, throw Patrick Hughes' Signs on the fire, too.

Time and Time Again

Moral of the story: invent an invisibility cloak before you invent a time machine.

Or, you know, just don't kill anyone. We wouldn't want to have to redefine murder-suicide.