When you read about a guy named Kaleb Lechowski getting a gig directing some expensive sci-fi film, this short might be the reason. Lechowski made the CG short R’ha over a period of seven months, animating it on his own while studying film and animation at Berlin’s Mediadesign Hochschule. Lechowski’s people are happy to note that he’s only 22, and will turn 23 in March.
The short presents and interrogation between an alien and a machine. It’s well-animated, if not exactly crafted with much nuance. Lechowski has probably earned himself a career in digital animation with this, at least. Coming as it does just as Zero Dark Thirty goes wide, the subject matter is interesting — the same blend of interrogation techniques that are at the center of the debate over Kathryn Bigelow’s film are the core of the story here. While I’m not wild about this short overall, I do like seeing that controversial subject matter put into a different context.
See the short below.
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Posted on Monday, January 7th, 2013 by Angie Han
One of the reliable highlights of any Pixar release is the short film that plays in front of each feature. Not only are they invariably sweet, funny, and inventive, they’re often a great way to check out the studio’s rising talents. When Monsters University opens this summer, we’ll be seeing the Pixar directorial debut of technical artist Saschka Unseld, who helmed the six-minute short The Blue Umbrella.
While Pixar has a reputation for innovative, intricate animation, Unseld’s piece pushes into a whole new direction with a startlingly photorealistic look. What hasn’t changed, happily, is the studio’s signature warmth and humor. The plot concerns two umbrellas that take a shining to each other one rainy day. Watch the first clip after the jump.
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Want to see the world premiere of the brand new, Wolverine-inspired, short film Logan (pictured above)? Why is President Obama hanging with Spider-Man? When will Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D. premiere? Which Battlestar Galactica star is joining Arrow? How did Christopher McQuarrie‘s Wolverine film differ from James Mangold‘s? Was a superhero movie top movie from 2012 from IMDB readers? Is a Punisher fan film the best Punisher movie to date? Where can you buy some near-mint, vintage Captain America trading cards? Read about all this and more in today’s Superhero Bits. Read More »
The day a movie turns a profit, the vultures come out to pick. More often than not when a movie becomes a hit, people accuse the filmmakers of stealing their ideas and sue them for a taste of the profits. A recent example is the highest grossing movie of all time, Avatar. Writer director James Cameron and Lightstorm Entertainment are reportedly fighting multiple lawsuits concerning the film, one in particular from a man named Gerald Morawski who accuses Cameron of stealing his pitch about a war between a native tribe and a mining company.
To combat this lawsuit, the filmmaker wrote a 45-page text for the court, nearly a small autobiography, detailing all the points in his life where Avatar began to blossom into an idea. They date back to his childhood. One of the biggest examples, though, is a short film he created in 1978 called Xenogenesis, which Cameron says in the document, contains material that “may be used in the Avatar sequels.” What could that mean? Watch the film yourself and discuss below. Read More »
Growing up, we all hear stories. Myths and rumors about our hometown and surrounding areas that probably aren’t true. But… maybe one is. Maybe one was about an older kid at your school who did something crazy, or an old man who lives in the woods who may or may not be a killer, or a secret government facility one town over. Every town has its stories and director Charlie Kessler decided to make one a reality.
The result is Montauk, a six minute short film combining several different types of “found footage.” The media cleverly overlap to tell a surprising story of a violent and horrible incident on the beaches of the Long Island community from which the film takes its name.
After the jump, check out the film and read our interview with the director for a few answers to pressing questions. Read More »
The internet being the incredible repository of video that it has become, every once in a while a very early short film turns up from a famous filmmaker. Today the example is Nocturne, from Lars von Trier (Antichrist, Breaking the Waves, the upcoming Nymphomaniac).
The 8-minute film from 1980 won Trier the Best Film award at the Munich International Festival of Film Schools. It tells the story of a woman who is extra-sensitive to light as she deals with the aftermath of a dream featuring almost a slasher movie scene. This is a better version than has been online in the past, and students of Trier should check it out. Read More »
Jeremy Renner hosted Saturday Night Live this week and, considering he was a part of the year’s most successful film, the subject obviously came up. I’m talking about The Avengers, and SNL went all out, dressing cast members as all of the main characters: Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Nick Fury and Maria Hill. They even dressed Bobby Moynihan as the Hulk. Renner suited up as Hawkeye and brought up an issue many of us were thinking about during Joss Whedon‘s film. Check out the funny skit below. Read More »
Briefly: Though it underperformed at the box office, most critics agree that Tim Burton‘s Frankenweenie was the director’s best film in years. Combining his love of the macabre with childlike wonder, heart and humor, it’ll surely be a home video discovery for fresh audiences for years to come. That process will start on January 15 when the DVD and Blu-ray hit shelves and one of the highlights of the disc is a brand new short film called Captain Sparky vs the Flying Saucers.
The short was written by Frankenweenie co-producer Derek Frey and will run two minutes and 20 seconds. That’s all the information that’s available at the moment but it sounds promising. (Hopefully this will be one of the short films the character Victor makes using his dog, Sparky.) Thanks to Stitch Kingdom.
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