Why Everyone Should Love Short Films

I forgot how much I loved short films. I was recently out in Las Vegas for the MAGIC tradeshow (fashion-- apparel, accessories, sourcing, etc.) and I went with a friend to the Dam Boulder City short film festival (she was there with her parents and helping out and I tagged along), and we got to see the finalists of the shorts festival. Although a lot of them were good, my favorite was Fruitcake, which is about a man, although socially different than the majority, hits on a lot of the same things we all struggle with-- trying to fit in when he is still trying to define for himself what his life is and how to define his own self worth, etc.

I'm particularly drawn to shorts not only because I have an incredibly short attention span, but also because there's nothing excessive. It's almost as though it's the skeleton of a film laid out in its rawest form. The characters are usually introduced in the first frame-- most of the information given to the audience is given through the implication of actions, objects in the background and the scene. The things that we take for granted in many of the longer movies becomes that much more important in a short because the director really only has 12-15 minutes to tell the story (hopefully) with a storyline arc and everything. I also find that, because the viewer is thrust into things midway through, that it elicits almost an instinctual bond between the viewer and the main protagonist. For some unexplainable reason, I notice that I feel much more for the characters in a short than in a full length feature film. Maybe it's because you have more time to realize the various facets of a character with more time and you don't feel so purely supportive when you realize that they love so freely (but love married men), maybe it's because deciphering the many implications of their life make you feel an unexplainable kinship, maybe it's because shorts are often more purely based on core problems/emotions-- loneliness, heartbreak, displacement, isolation, etc. that are simpler than some full-length films (think of Star Trek, for example). Whatever the reason, go watch one. Thank me later.

PS- Don't overlook animated shorts. They're awesome too. Mr. Hublot? Awesome.

Stuck In Love Soothes My Woes

I've been on quite the Netflix binge recently. Due to the absolutely ridiculous weather that we've been having (Seriously?! A 40 degree swing in less than 16 hours? Really?! Highs in the negative degrees? What IS this place?), I just hang out mostly and watch movies that are streaming on Netflix. I recently watched one called "Stuck In Love", which I actually really liked.

I want to caveat by saying that I have very low expectations of Netflix, since I'm usually stuck watching ridiculous things like "Biozombies from Outer Space Part 5" or something like that (usually it's recommended by Max, which I think is absolutely ridiculous because they sunk a bunch of money into this thing that is very unlikely to actually tell me what I want to watch, especially because the most recently watched list is probably so crazy varied that it would be hard to pin down anything I like to watch). ANYwho.

So Stuck In Love focuses on a man who is a famous author. He has two children, an older girl and a younger boy, who he is desperately hoping will become authors as well some day. He has recently divorced his wife (~1 year ago) and is sleeping with the (married) neighbor down the street while not so secretly hoping that his wife will come back. From the children's perspective, it's a movie about growing, trying to figure out who you are and, in the son's case, learning just how freeing/awesome/terrifying it is to be a young adult and actually be able to make your own decisions for the first time in your life. Watching it as a 28 year old, I felt strangely torn between the two main roles in the movie. Was I supposed to relate more to the guy's kids? They're growing and maturing and trying to figure out their lives much like I am, but at the same time, I'm a little too old to try to pretend that I'm as naive as they are. Yet, I am too young to really relate to the man in the movie-- I'm not a divorcee, I don't have children, I'm not left pining over a life of what could have been (okay, I lied, I am constantly agonizing over the decisions I've made in my life and trying to figure out if I made the "right" ones, so I guess maybe I am more naive than I think). But there's something about his life that calls me to me as well-- he's lonely because he is thrust into an unfamiliar situation where he just isn't sure what to do, he is constantly feeling adrift by not being able to relate to those that he's supposedly closest to, and he feels like he's in limbo between what was and what could be. I can relate to all those things, and I haven't even had my mid-life crisis yet.

Regardless, I would highly recommend this movie. It's filled with the happy parts that make you long for your family, sad parts that make you think back to the first time you fell in love (I heard the first cut is the deepest, or so the 80s tell me) and some truly awesomely awkward parts that make you miss those weird growing years while silently relishing the fact that those are behind you. It does have a happy ending.