The SXSW Film Festival went virtual for 2020 and all the shorts are, as of this writing, still available to stream from a Mail Chimp webpage. The four on this page were nominated for the SXSW Grand Jury Award and the last one won it. I didn't do a lot of research before randomly picking the first three out of over fifty available.
Basic (2020) is hilarious and only four minutes long. Director/writer/star Chelsea Devantez (her credits include executive story editor for the sitcom Bless The Mess) scrolls through Instagram trash-talking someone. On the official SXSW platform (now closed), there was a very funny intro by Devantez, in which she explains that she's wearing a ball cap because she cut her own bangs and strongly urges everyone not to do that. Amy and Jack saw this short and the intro with me and liked it a lot, too. I watched the others by myself. Side note: I looked for the intro video but found this tweet instead. Also funny!
Summer Hit (2019) is twenty minutes long, about some attractive foreign students in Berlin, focusing on a woman from Spain and man from Iceland coupling and uncoupling. It's pleasant enough. Directed and written by Berthold Wahjudi, who is German, it has subtitles.
Vert (2019) is a twelve minute drama about a happily married British couple in the future celebrating their anniversary with some virtual reality. Nick Frost (last blogged for The World's End) plays the husband for director/writer Kate Cox. I enjoyed it.
Symbiosis (2019), the winner, is thirteen minutes long and not very enjoyable. Hungarian director/co-writer Nádja Andrasev give us a wordless animated story of a woman tracking her husband's philandering. There's plenty of sex. When we watched the SXSW movies on May 6, I looked in vain for this one, and just watched it today. Meh.
Watch Basic and Vert for sure and then you can pick and choose from the long list on Mail Chimp.
Friday, May 22, 2020
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Elephant (2020)
Amy, Jack, and I liked a lot this year's Disneynature documentary about a tribe of pachyderms. This one is narrated by Meghan Markle, credited as Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex.
Co-directed by Mark Linfield and Vanessa Berlowitz, it lives up to the brand, which you can explore on their website. Each entry in the series boasts breathtaking closeup photography that always has me trying to figure out how they could get the shots, as well as interactions between the young animals and their elders. It's perhaps not for the youngest viewers, because some animals usually don't make it, either due to age or predators.
The lovely African-tinged music by Ramin Djawadi can be streamed on Apple Music and Spotify, among others.
Linfield was last blogged for Chimpanzee (another Disneynature doc) and Djawadi for A Wrinkle in Time. The last Disneynature movie we saw was Penguins.
We watched Elephant a month ago on Earth Day as intended. With a few new Apple devices in the house we have a trial subscription to Disney+, and you know how those Mouse folks roll--there aren't any workarounds to see it legally another way, at least this year.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are averaging 77 and 74%, respectively. We look forward to the series each year and were not disappointed.
Co-directed by Mark Linfield and Vanessa Berlowitz, it lives up to the brand, which you can explore on their website. Each entry in the series boasts breathtaking closeup photography that always has me trying to figure out how they could get the shots, as well as interactions between the young animals and their elders. It's perhaps not for the youngest viewers, because some animals usually don't make it, either due to age or predators.
The lovely African-tinged music by Ramin Djawadi can be streamed on Apple Music and Spotify, among others.
Linfield was last blogged for Chimpanzee (another Disneynature doc) and Djawadi for A Wrinkle in Time. The last Disneynature movie we saw was Penguins.
We watched Elephant a month ago on Earth Day as intended. With a few new Apple devices in the house we have a trial subscription to Disney+, and you know how those Mouse folks roll--there aren't any workarounds to see it legally another way, at least this year.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are averaging 77 and 74%, respectively. We look forward to the series each year and were not disappointed.
See You Yesterday (2019)
Amy, Jack, and I loved this sci-fi drama about teenage black Brooklyn science geeks who travel back in time to stop a murder. Winner of the Best First Screenplay Spirit Award for director/co-writer Stefon Bristol and co-writer Frederica Bailey, it's terribly clever, playing on Netflix, and clocks in at just under an hour and a half, including lots and lots of credits. My regular readers know I always sit through all the credits, to read and acknowledge all the work that goes into moviemaking as well as to continue the vibe by hearing every bit of the music.
Eden Duncan-Smith is terrific as the hair-trigger tempered C.J. as is Dante Crichlow as her best friend Sebastian. They played the same roles in a short film (15 minutes, 2017) of the same name. Michael J. Fox has a wonderful cameo as a teacher. And, before he speaks, we see him reading Kindred, Octavia Butler's 1979 novel about an African-American woman who travels back in time to pre-Civil War America and has to deal with the injustice and oppression of slavery.
Spike Lee is one of the producers and this has his fingerprints all over it, from the Brooklyn locations to the police brutality, to the real connections between the characters. The movie was also nominated for the Best First Feature Spirit Award.
From composer Michael Abels' website you can stream a few minutes of the compelling score and from this one you can find links to all five songs listed in the end credits.
Lee was last blogged for BlackKklansman and Abels for Get Out (I was afraid to see Us (2019), Jordan Peele's next horror movie, which Abels also scored to much acclaim). Duncan-Smith has ten other credits, including the short, and this is Crichlow's third, including the short. Bristol and Bailey make their feature debuts with this project.
We are solidly with Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 95%, on this one, not with its audiences at a hateful 34.
Eden Duncan-Smith is terrific as the hair-trigger tempered C.J. as is Dante Crichlow as her best friend Sebastian. They played the same roles in a short film (15 minutes, 2017) of the same name. Michael J. Fox has a wonderful cameo as a teacher. And, before he speaks, we see him reading Kindred, Octavia Butler's 1979 novel about an African-American woman who travels back in time to pre-Civil War America and has to deal with the injustice and oppression of slavery.
Spike Lee is one of the producers and this has his fingerprints all over it, from the Brooklyn locations to the police brutality, to the real connections between the characters. The movie was also nominated for the Best First Feature Spirit Award.
From composer Michael Abels' website you can stream a few minutes of the compelling score and from this one you can find links to all five songs listed in the end credits.
Lee was last blogged for BlackKklansman and Abels for Get Out (I was afraid to see Us (2019), Jordan Peele's next horror movie, which Abels also scored to much acclaim). Duncan-Smith has ten other credits, including the short, and this is Crichlow's third, including the short. Bristol and Bailey make their feature debuts with this project.
We are solidly with Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 95%, on this one, not with its audiences at a hateful 34.
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