Tagged: short film
Short Film Review: Bodybuilder Kim Kold is Dennis (2007) the Inspiration for Teddy Bear (2012)
*Spoilers & Such*
Dennis (Kim Kold) is an introverted bodybuilder, who lives with his elderly mother Ingrid (Elsebeth Steentoft). One day he decides to call up Patricia (Lykke Sand Michelsen), this cute chick from the gym and ask her out on a date. Suspecting that his mother won’t like him hanging out with anyone other than herself, especially not a woman, he tells her that he’s going to the movies with his friend Peter. His passive aggressive mother obviously knows that he’s lying to her and manipulates him into making him feel guilty. Mothers, right? Continue reading
Short Film Review: Werner Herzog Makes Ramin Bahrani’s Plastic Bag (2009) Come to Life Through His Iconic Voice
Ramin Bahrani’s Plastic Bag is exactly what you think it is: The story of a plastic bag. Not just any plastic bag: A discarded plastic bag. Abandoned by his maker, the plastic bag drifts across the landscapes of rural America (North Carolina), to finally arrive at his final destination: The ocean. Or as plastic bags call it: The vortex. Legendary film and documentary director Werner Herzog lends his warm and calming voice to the title character, a brownish plastic bag from a supermarket. Continue reading
Review: Jason Reitman’s One-Joke Short Film Consent (2004)
Judah (Todd Waldman) and Penny (Rachel Vacca) are about to get it on after a successful date. Before they can have any kind of sexual activity however they need… A condom? Nope, a sexual consent form. What’s that? Basically just a list of all the things Judah wants to do to Penny, and vice versa. While they’re at it, why not let their lawyers review the contract? Though it does ruin the mood a little. Once the two college kids went over every little detail of what they’re about to do, they’re ready to go, but surprise, surprise: Penny’s roommate walks in. Continue reading
Watch & Listen: Elle Fanning Sees The Stars for the First Time in ‘First Stars I See Tonight’ Short Film
First Stars I See Tonight is a black & white animated/live-action cross-over short film. It narrates the story of a girl (Elle Fanning) with night blindness and how her dad (James Patrick Stuart) gets her these military goggles to see the stars. It’s a lot of voice-over narration, incessant I should say, but it’s quite a sweet story and it’s less than 3 minutes, so if it even sounds mildly interesting to you: Check it out! Continue reading
Alphabet Movie Meme – A Self-Indulgent “Self-Interview” of 26 Movie-Related Questions
Originally created by The Drama Llama (funny blog name, I must say), the Alphabet Movie Meme is, a fun series of questions, all movie related of course. I found out about this on a blog I follow called Film Grimoire. If you know me at all or read my blog, chances are a lot of my answers will seem predictable to you, but I hope I can still surprise you with some of those letters. If you like this idea, please post your own Alphabet Movie Meme, I’d be really interested in reading other people’s answers. There are some fun questions and I’m sure other people have far less boring answers. In any case, here’s my own edition of the Alphabet Movie Meme. Enjoy! Continue reading
Check Out: Elle Fanning in Rodrigo Prieto’s Short Film LIKENESS
Who’s Rodrigo Prieto? You might ask. Valid question. I had no idea either. He’s a cinematographer. He has worked with some of the hottest directors on some of the hottest pictures: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo and the upcoming Martin Scorsese film The Wolf of Wall Street (to name a few). Quite the résumé. I’m stunned his name didn’t stuck with me, because looking at his filmography, those are all beautiful looking films. After such impressive collaborations it looks like he’s ready to direct a something of his own. Continue reading
15 Seconds of Horror: Kinder Sorpresa
15 Seconds of Horror is an Instagram series created by Tim Buel and Cody Rhyse. They are encouraging filmmakers and film fans to join in on the fun and make shorts and so I did. I randomly came up with an idea this past weekend to make an extremely short short. It’s actually not as easy as it sounds to tell a story in 15 seconds, but I always like a challenge. Unfortunately, not being very practical with Instagram, I shot this with a normal consumer camcorder and then uploaded it to Instagram. However you really should shoot with your iPhone (or iPod), because otherwise Instagram will just crop your video. So anyway long story short we ended up putting it on YouTube.
Our short is a home invasion flick and I didn’t use any particular inspiration for this one. Usually I think of a director or style I want to reference, but this time I just followed my own instincts. The result is something slightly less stylish, but hopefully effective. Of course having seen tons of genre films I can now see some Giallo and Eastern European influences, but they’re mostly unintentional. Editing the film down from one and a half minutes to fifteen seconds was the real challenge, but my brother is a fantastic editor and so he helped me out a great deal. My other brother plays the villain or il pazzo, as he likes to say and my little sister is the victim. Kinder Sorpresa is just Italian for Kinder Surprise, the delicious chocolate egg by Ferrero, which in our case however is a pillow i.e. the murder weapon.
Prada Presents: Wes Anderson’s Castello Cavalcanti
Quirky indie director Wes Anderson made a new short film financed by Italian fashion brand Prada. The almost 8-minute long short is about an Italian American (played by Jason Schwartzman) race car driver crashing his car during a race in a (fictitious) Italian small town (Castello Cavalcanti) in the 1950s. Of course the film/ad looks beautiful as only cinematographer Darius Khondji is able to do. The story was co-written with no one other than fellow Academy Award nominee Roman Coppola and has a very Italian feel, while at the same time feeling unmistakably Wes Anderson.
As an Italian I was thrilled to hear my language spoken in a Wes Anderson film. Prada and Anderson are of course a great fit. He has worked for them before doing a commercial for Prada Candy L’eau (with Léa Seydoux). This isn’t the first time Anderson has worked with luxury brands (in general), for example on The Darjeeling Limited where all the luggage was designed by Louis Vuitton. He’s also done his fair share of Adidas product placement in films such as The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
Personally, I’m all for directors working with big brands if it helps them getting money to finance more of their art. Especially art house directors and auteurs who sometimes struggle with getting their projects financed are able to do something creative in exchange of a bit of “selling out”. Other notable examples I’d love to mention are David Lynch’s Blue Lady Shanghai (for Dior), Wong Kar-wai’s BMW short The Follow and any ad that has Sofia Coppola’s name on it of course.
Lukas Moodysson’s Talk (1997)
Birger Andersson (Sten Ljunggren) is a retired Volvo employee that has nobody to talk to. Feeling lonely and isolated from society he visits his former workplace everyday in hopes that ex-colleagues might still have time for him. But everybody’s busy and nobody has time for a boring old man. Birger doesn’t give up. He starts randomly calling people in the phonebook, but soon that’s no fun either. Miraculously, a young Jehovah’s witness Hare Krishna recruiter, Mahapadu (Cecilia Frode), shows up at his door. Briger isn’t interested in religious talk, but he is looking for companionship. After a couple minutes Mahapadu realizes she probably won’t make a new disciple and decides to leave, but Birger has something else in mind. Continue reading
New Web Series ‘Cobra: The Man Behind the Man’
My brother started a Web Series series called Cobra: The Man Behind the Man. Basically it’s the Cobra (Bubbles) action figure from the Lilo & Stitch film in a series of improbable, almost surreal, irreverently funny short adventures. It’s filmed in (almost) stop-motion style.
I’ve had the pleasure to co-direct episode three called Get in my Car after the only English line Marcello speaks in La Dolce Vita (1960). In this episode Cobra is convinced he has to save this little girl from a weird cast of characters. In reality the little girl was never in danger: It’s all in his head. In other words this was my spin on Leon: The Professional, Gloria and Man on Fire with a hotheaded, war-crazy bodyguard instead of the usual hero.
I know it’s shot amateurishly, but that’s the whole premise of the series. Yes, it’s silly and doesn’t make a lot of sense, but again that’s how it’s supposed to be. Rough editing, crazy camera movements and not a lot of attention to detail. It’s more of a guerrilla approach. I still hope people can get at least a good laugh out of it. We certainly do not take ourselves very seriously, like at all.
Special thanks to my sister for helping us out and lending us her barbie car and dolls and stuff.
black is white 