Short chunks on shorts chunks – it’s the little things

I’ve watched about four rounds of shorts now. Before I came to the festival I reviewed a chunk of adult shorts and a chunk of shorts for non-adult-aged humans. Most I’ve enjoyed.

I figure I’ll offer some details that stand out for me in some of the shorts I’ve viewed since then, the first being a chunk of comedies.

Sean Ascroft’s “The Story of Bubbleboy”: The narrator sounds like the voice in Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride, reading Dr. Seuss and the film looks like it is conceived and shot by Edward Gorey. It is fun, dark and shot beautifully. What I don’t like is that, of course, Bubbleboy is saved at the end by a lovely young woman – an “angel,” the narrator gushes. It’s just such a typical thing that irks me. What about her life? And what, exactly, is she going to be able to do to keep him from wearing bubble wrap constantly? Isn’t wearing bubble wrap/wrapping everything one sees in bubble wrap the sign of a larger problem that should be talked about with a therapist instead of just expecting the girlfriend to keep one “sane”? Women are real, dammit, and when you start jamming halos on us, you get in trouble.

Jenny Bicks’ “Gnome”: Very cute – who doesn’t love a drag queen? The drag queens bringing the gnome all over the place and photographing it because they feel bad it does not get to travel is a little too close to “Amélie,” but it works, thematically. Lauren Graham’s buttoned-down Pucci-scarf-wearing empanada-sneaking suburbanite is great, left standing on her huge lawn at the end of the day, wondering. Girl power with fairy godsisters, even if the girls are anatomically boys. Good times.

Jay Rosenblatt’s “I’m Charlie Chaplin”: Is there a cuter child than Rosenblatt’s daughter, Ella, dressed up like Charlie Chaplin for Halloween? I don’t think so. What I love is that by the end of the day, little Ella as Charlie has had so much activity and candy (double-fisting it, at one point, with two different lollipops) that she ends up resembling Ron Jeremy more than Charlie Chaplin.

Ian Gelfand’s “Pitch”: Two damn lucky NYU students really screw up their big chance. Rather, Jason (Jason Fuchs) blows it because he just can’t get over people wronging him on the street, in restaurants, etc. It’s funny, but hard to watch because of his inability to let things go. There are touches of Woody Allen in the writing, delivery and talking to the camera, interview-style. Charming and twenty-year-old Jason Fuchs is at the screening for a Q & A and I swear he’s related to a Fuchs with whom I attended grade school. He doesn’t think he has a Brian in the family, though, but he promises to ask his dad.

Scott Calonico’s “Safety First”: Five minute film about two crazy, irritating characters who can’t seem to drive the hell out of a parking lot. Irritating, yes, but funny, weird, yes, irritating. Funny. I can’t really decide how I feel about this one. Though I do like the fact that they cannot even get through a knock-knock joke! Perhaps it is all attributed to the Bush/Cheney sticker in the back window of the car, the filmmaker seems to suggest.

Alam Raja’s “It’s Cool To Be Bad”: Hmm. I’m not sure about this one either! I think the filmmaker might really think it is supercooler than anything else to be bad – lots of drugs, random sex and the diseases incurred therein. Cool! I guess those can be good times, being bad is fun, etc. Perhaps it is the persistent superficiality I find boring, MTV editing and all. I guess, though, if you are honest about your disinterest in venturing below the surface, well, rock on. It’s funny though, because the main character makes this whole stink about Britney Spears and how she is obviously not a virgin but how she is teaching young girls to save themselves (how dare she?) under false pretenses and yet he buys/eats 20 kilograms of chicken under false pretenses just to get into some pants. I feel like the main character may be the real 20 kilograms of chicken.

The short films about relationships are all quite good and original:

Andrew Blubaugh’s “Hello, Thanks”: Comedic film based on Blubaugh’s experience with meeting people through personal ads. The way he points his toes, claw-like, when he puts his legs over one of the guys is for some reason, quite funny. Like: Murphy bed, painting on wood with tape to make a tree that will make him sexually attractive to someone else, “GWM, scruffy,” “maybe I just like words more than I like people.”

Matthew Lessner’s “Darling Darling”: I think it is (thematically) a fantastical (and hysterical) account of how odd it is, as a teenager, to meet the girlfriend’s father for the first time. Michael Cera (who plays George Michael on “Arrested Development”) as Harold experiences an odder meeting than most could think up – the girl’s father literally has a horse head, shredded newspaper and helium balloons fly all over the windy kitchen as the horse-headed father serves Harold “fresh Kool-aid” from a giant skull and plays guitar for him, gyrating in his face, while standing on the couch. Among other things. I like the song “She Comes in Colors” by Love.

Alex Rose’s “Call It Fiction”: Stop motion shots of the main character while he writes a personal essay for graduate school. Great cast, cute little boy, strings of interesting male and female characters in and out of the little asthmatic boy’s divorced parents lives/beds. Apparently Rose is at the screening but leaves right after his own film screens so no Q & A for us, lowly audience members!

Gwyneth Paltrow and Mary Wigmore’s “Dealbreaker”: All of the men Fran dates end up doing something really annoying, weird, or gross, marking the end of the honeymoon period and hence, the relationship. “I love jeans that are shorts,” one says, cheerfully, caressing the shorts’ legs. Another talks baby talk, another sings opera, one writes her a terrible poem/song, another snaps at the waiter and on and on. We wonder what the current guy’s thing will be? How about he takes a crap while she’s relaxing in the tub? But that’s not all. He doesn’t wipe. But that’s not all. He moves to get into the tub with her and she screams bloody murder. Funny stuff.

David Dean Bottrel’s “Available Men”: Robert, Rob, Stephen and Steve. Robert and Steve are supposed to meet to date. And Rob and Stephen are supposed to meet so that Rob can try to become Stephen’s agent. (I think that's the arrangement). But they get mixed up and the result is tension-filled and hilarious. “Service is key,” “Left me for somebody bigger,” “When it gets hard, and it gets hard sometimes - not all the time” and “Not afraid to roll up his sleeves and really get in there” are tossed about.

Ok. I’d better get myself pretty for Belcourt Mansion so that I can “roll up my sleeves and really get in there.”