Shorts Programs – SLIFF Review

Review by Wyatt Weed, Pirate Pictures

Once again, the St. Louis International Film Festival is fast approaching. Primarily sponsored by Stella Artois and now in its 20th year, the fest has really established itself as one of the best around. It will hit multiple venues around the city beginning November 10th and continue through November 20th.

This is a call, a challenge to the local filmmakers out there: Get up, put on your shoes, and go see some of these films. You owe it to your fellow filmmakers and yourself as well, because the work is amazing.

As one of the volunteers involved in assembling the shorts programs, I have to tell you, the shorts I have seen thus far are nothing less than spectacular. This past summer’s Showcase of local talent featured some of the most technically proficient pieces I have ever seen, and this years’ SLIFF is following suit – technology is getting better all the time, and that technology is being utilized by filmmakers all around the world.

Pixar-level quality is evident in a number of computer animated pieces. “Mac N’ Cheese” and “Alex and the Ghosts” are in the same class as “Cars” and “Monster House”. For all of its technical virtuosity, “A Morning Stroll” is also one of the most hilariously graphic shorts you will ever see as a plucky little chicken goes nose to nose with a rapidly deteriorating zombie. Wackiness ensues.

Similarly, “Enrique Wrecks the World”, a more traditionally animated piece, begins sweetly enough and then spirals into lunacy. If you like “Happy Tree Friends” or “Llamas with Hats”, this piece will slay you.

The best of the animated bunch might be “The Origin of Creatures”, a striking post-apocalyptic piece that defies my ability to figure out how the filmmakers accomplished this – I believe it is part miniature and part computer animation, but it is unlike anything I have ever seen.

Of the live-action shorts, they vary from the dramatic to the comedic to the outrageous, as usual, but the level of production quality has never been greater. “Dolls Factory” is a fascinating piece that is part Metropolis and part Jean-Pierre Jeunet. It is also, in my opinion, photographically perfect. “Ex Sex” is as sexually graphic a piece as I have seen, but still manages to be tasteful and heartbreaking.

“Recess” and “The Extraordinary Life of Rocky” are both beautiful to look at, but feature two very different and darkly humorous takes on childhood. You will never look at the game of “duck-duck-goose” – or remote controlled helicopters – in the same way ever again. The absolutely ridiculous but no less funny “Red Moon” reminded me of “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”, complete with stylized effects and sets.

Star power also runs strong in this year’s shorts. Michael Biehn of “The Terminator” stars in “From Darkness”, a creepy thriller that has a strong “X-Files” vibe. “The Third Rule” features Jason Biggs of “American Pie” and Joel Moore from “Avatar”. Scott Thompson from “The Kids in the Hall” stars in two shorts, and even plays his own mother.

In fact, there is so much star power this year that two entire shorts programs (Stars 1 & 2) are dedicated to name actors and feature the likes of Gérard Depardieu, Jeremy Davies, Rita Wilson, Anna Paquin, Jason Ritter, John Hurt, Wes Bentley, Selma Blair, J.K. Simmons, Sasha Grey, John Hurt, Brendan Gleeson, Tom Hardy, and Julia Stiles. Even the great Sir Anthony Hopkins makes an uncredited appearance – but I won’t tell you which short he appears in…

Rounding out the amazing assortment of shorts is a selection of science fiction pieces, and once again, they benefit greatly from advances in digital production and effects. Three of them – “Protoparticles”, “Cognite”, and “Yuri Lennon’s Landing on Alpha 46” – all feature lead actors in spacesuits who have very different adventures. “Yuri Lennon” plays its first few minutes from one amazing point of view as an astronaut enters the atmosphere of an alien planet, while “Cognite” has only one line of dialogue in an otherwise completely visual piece. “Gear School – Plug and Play” is the best live-action interpretation of Japanese Anime ever filmed. You will believe attractive teenagers in skin-tight suits can fly.

I have only nicked the surface of the approximately 400 films playing over the 10 days of the fest, so please take a few moments and go to www.cinemastlouis.org, familiarize yourself with the theaters, download the schedule, AND GO SEE SOME FILMS!! To be a filmmaker is to be familiar with both the technology and the techniques out there, so get out of your comfort zone and go see something new. I promise you will be challenged to make your next film be better than the last after seeing what the rest of the world is doing.