Posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 by Angie Han
Over the past few months, Ben Affleck seen his Argo pick up the PGA, DGA, WGA, SAG, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and virtually every other statue in sight. Now it’s considered the heavy favorite to nab Best Picture at Sunday night’s Oscars, which would make it Affleck’s first win since his 1998 Original Screenplay Award for Good Will Hunting.
But even the most celebrated filmmakers have to start somewhere, and sometimes those beginnings are humble indeed. While Affleck’s first feature was the well received Gone Baby Gone, his earliest directing credit on IMDb is actually a little seen short titled “I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney,” which Affleck himself has described as “horrible” and “atrocious.” Witness it for yourself after the jump.
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Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane might be hosting this Sunday’s Academy Awards, but his rival cartoon is actually up for an Oscar. The Longest Daycare, the Simpsons-inspired short film starring Maggie Simpson that played in front of this summer’s Ice Age: Continental Drift, is one of the nominees for Best Animated Short. We’ve already seen a short trailer for the film, but it’s now online in its entirety. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2013 by Angie Han
David Fincher hasn’t quite settled on his next film yet, but in the meantime he’s keeping busy with other types of projects. He directed the first two episodes of Netflix’s original series House of Cards, and produced the Halo 4 commercial we saw last fall. His latest non-cinematic effort is the music video for “Suit & Tie,” the latest pop single by his The Social Network star Justin Timberlake. Watch it after the jump.
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David Lynch got his filmmaking start with short films, and of late the short form seems to be what he’s most interested in whenever he goes back to the moving image. One of his latest works is a short called Idem Paris. Like his early film shorts, it represents an intersection between the worlds of film and art, albeit in a different form.
Anyone looking for a narrative experience here is going to be disappointed, as the film is essentially a documentary, free of any narration, that watches lithographic printmakers at work in a facility in Paris.
But those who appreciate Lynch’s affinity for tone may welcome this short. The high-contrast black and white images, the focus on specific machinery, and the clanking and hissing array of sounds within all call back to Lynch’s early shorts, and his feature debut Eraserhead. Read More »
The guys at 1A4 Studio have decided to try to animate Back to the Future Part I in just 60 seconds. Watch the cute black and white stick figure-style animated short film embedded after the jump.
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Nash Edgerton has made his mark as a stuntman (the Matrix films and Star Wars prequels) and actor (Zero Dark Thirty) but it’s his work as a director that we want to focus on today. Edgerton’s short Spider is a wicked, wonderful little thing, and his thriller feature The Square got my attention as a good take on how duplicitous dealings can go bad very fast.
Two years ago, Edgerton debuted the short Bear at Cannes, and last year it hit Sundance. Now, just after his latest short, The Captain premiered at Sundance 2013, we’ve got the online presentation of Bear. Those who’ve seen Spider will recognize Edgerton as the returning character, and might tremble a bit at this synopsis, knowing how things are likely to end: “Jack has the perfect birthday surprise planned for Emelie. Sometimes, though, plans go horrifically wrong.”
Watch the plan unfold below. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2013 by Angie Han
If you caught Wreck-It Ralph last fall — and considering its $182 million domestic box office gross, there’s a good chance you did — you’ve probably already seen Paperman, Disney’s buzzed-about 2D animated short. But if you missed it, or if you did see it but are just eager to relive the magic, you’re in luck. Disney has uploaded the six-minute film in full to YouTube, and you can enjoy it after the jump.
Using a combination of hand-drawn and CG techniques, the mostly black-and-white movie follows a man and a woman who meet by chance on their morning commute. They part ways before they have a chance to speak, but when he sees her in the office right across the street from his, he spends the rest of the day attempting to reconnect. Click through to watch the video.
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Posted on Friday, January 18th, 2013 by Angie Han
Whether you’re actually at Sundance or just jealously reading tweets from people at Sundance, you’re probably starting to hear some buzz about the year’s most promising indies. The difference is that those in the former category get to watch (or re-watch) those titles in the coming days, while the rest of us have to wait months or even years for them to hit theaters.
This year, however, the programmers are kindly throwing us non-attendees a bone by allowing us to watch some of this year’s short film debuts from home. The Sundance Institute has posted twelve shorts from the festival in their entirety, and you can watch them for free right now. Hit the jump to find out more.
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