ie - Favorite short movies

[ie]

I came up with this idea a little bit ago. Why not have a list of your favorite shorts?

I've seen a good amount of shorts, but I haven't seen every single one (having seen Scorpio Rising), so you know, there is some room for error still. I also just kind of whipped this together in a couple of minutes, so there's also additional room for error there as well, but I think it works for the moment.

Also, I was pretty liberal with the definition of a "short." Usually, it's less than feature length, which is somewhere between one hour and one and a half hours. I posted the length of the ones that might not apply as a short movie.

01) Beyond (Koji Morimoto, 2003)
02) Noiseman Sound Insect (Koji Morimoto, 1997)
03) Matriculated (the Animatrix)
04) Kid's Story (the Animatrix)
05) La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)
06) Wals voor de Storm (Reno Gouw, 2002)
07) Alive In Joburg (Neill Blomkamp)
08) Tempbot (Neill Blomkamp)
09) Roundhay Garden Scene; Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888)
10) World Record (the Animatrix)

11) The Second Renaissance Part 1 and 2 (the Animatrix)
12) A Detective Story (Animatrix, 2003)
13) Tetra Vaal (Neill Blomkamp)
14) No C4 for Daniel-Daniel (1987)
15) Program (Animatrix, 2003)
16) Adicolor Yellow (Neill Blomkamp, Adidas)
17) Alive With Technology (Neill Blomkamp, Citroën)
18) Hamburger America (George Motz, 2004) -- 54 mins
19) FrankenApe
20) Culture Jam: Hijacking Commercial Culture (Jill Sharpe, 2001) -- 57 mins

21) The Wicked Witch Project (1999)
22) Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody? (2005)
23) Un chien andalou [An Andalusian Dog] (1929)
24) Sound?? (1966)
25) Evolution (Neill Blomkamp, Nike)
26) Crab (Neill Blomkamp, Nike)
27) Warriors of the Net (1999)
28) Original Child Bomb (2004) -- 57 mins
29) It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964)
30) The Gamers (Matt Vancil, 2002) -- 48 mins

31) Leaving Jerusalem by Railway (1897)
32) What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963)
33) The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903)
34) The Tell-Tale Heart (Ted Parmelee, 1953)
35) Saw (short) (James Wan, 2003)
36) Reveille (2004)
37) The Tree Officer (2004)
38) Final Flight of the Osiris (Animatrix, 2003)
39)
40)

I didn't even have enough I was comfortable putting in a Top 50. Ah well.

[sacrilegend]

Have you seen any by David Lynch? I haven't, but I heard that they're spectacular.

[ie]

Nope. All I've seen by David Lynch has been his regular length Elephant Man and the first twenty minutes of Dune. I should watch more of what he has to offer, but I just don't have much of his work on hand.

[sacrilegend]

...and watch Mullholland Drive. Love it or hate it, you've got to watch it.

P.S: I made a major breakthrough today! Wings of Desire. Mindblowing.

[ie]

Yup, those are on a list of eventual movies to watch. Or something like that. Don't worry.

[criterionmaster]

sacrilegend said:

Have you seen any by David Lynch? I haven't, but I heard that they're spectacular.

I have, they are extremely fucked up, but still beautiful in a way. I actually think his weirdness works much more in the form of a short film, than a feature length. I saw two of them (well two and a half), Alphabet and one I have yet been able to find out the title to. I saw them on TCM back when they ran a huge “short films marathon.” If you like Mulholland Drive you would probably dig them. You could have watched them if the Lynch foundation or whoever didn’t bum rush YouTube and remove them from the site.

And ie, nice list. Thanks for including FrankenApe! I will come back with more thoughts on the films I have seen off of here sometime.

[ie]

Thanks and you're welcome.

SPOILER: Click to show

Actually, I don't think I could really rate FrankenApe, so really that was just more of a shoutout, but I'm glad you noticed.

[criterionmaster]

ie said:

05) La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)
07) Alive In Joburg (Neill Blomkamp)
09) Roundhay Garden Scene; Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888)
14) No C4 for Daniel-Daniel (1987)
19) FrankenApe
23) Un chien andalou [An Andalusian Dog] (1929)
29) It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964)
32) What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963))
35) Saw (short) (James Wan, 2003)

You have seen tons of short films my man, nice. I am really dying to see La Jetee, do you still have a link to the subtitled version? Alive in Joburg I feel is a little too high on your list, but since I haven't seen many of the films on here maybe it isn't. I really liked it but it didn't blow me away. Roundhay Garden Scene, always a nice choice. Do you have a link to the other film? No C4 for Daniel-Daniel I swear I watched this film on the Man Bites Dog DVD but I don't remember. FrankenApe! Un chien andalou is a masterpiece that gets better each time I watch it, really fucked up film. I liked the Scorsese shorts, but have you seen The Big Shave? I think that is the best out of them. And the Saw short was pretty cool.

[ie]

Here ya go:

La Jetée - subbed

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge


Thanks. One of the things I like about shorts is that there isn't all the bullshit that you often times find in feature length movies. If you're making a 90+ minute movie and a 15-minute movie can tell a more compelling, deeper, more meaningful or even just plain entertaining story than the one you're making, you have a problem. Basically, why sit through two hours of bullshit if you don't have to?


You need to see La Jetee. It's a requirement for movie buffs, QED.

I thought Alive in Joburg was great. I did just kind of whip it together.

If you're talking about shorts, and you don't mention Roundhay Garden Scene, you're doing it wrong.

No C4 For Daniel-Daniel was basically a parody of the trailer concept. The whole movie was a trailer, and it doesn't quite follow a traditional movie format, but I liked it because it would be fucking awesome to see a feature length trailer like this one.

I've seen most of the Scorsese shorts. The Big Shave just didn't really do anything for me. I know, a whole lot of implied meaning and context behind the movie, but to me, it's still watching a guy shave his face off. Not exactly relevant to my internets.

I liked the Saw short as well. Actually, it seemed more realistic than the feature length, even though there was enough worthwhile about the first one only to where if I saw the special edition (with Saw 1 and the Saw short) for $4~, I'd buy it.


I'm going to be working on this list a little bit more, once I get enough time.

A question: There's this series of four shorts collectively called Sweat Punch. I've seen three of them, and combined I'd probably put them at around #15 or #20, but seperate, I'd maybe only put the first and third one on my list (third being at around #15-#20, first being at around #45-#50). Should I seperate them, or just kind of bulk them all together? (They're not really related, besides in name and studio that produced them, but it just seems more appropriate to me to bulk them together.)

Also, I don't really include music videos. It gets too messy. Basically, I go off of whether it's on IMDB, with a couple of exceptions. (Sweat Punch, the other Blomkamp shorts, et cetera.)

[criterionmaster]

ie said:

Here ya go:

La Jetée - subbed

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge


Thanks. One of the things I like about shorts is that there isn't all the bullshit that you often times find in feature length movies. If you're making a 90+ minute movie and a 15-minute movie can tell a more compelling, deeper, more meaningful or even just plain entertaining story than the one you're making, you have a problem. Basically, why sit through two hours of bullshit if you don't have to?


You need to see La Jetee. It's a requirement for movie buffs, QED.

I thought Alive in Joburg was great. I did just kind of whip it together.

If you're talking about shorts, and you don't mention Roundhay Garden Scene, you're doing it wrong.

No C4 For Daniel-Daniel was basically a parody of the trailer concept. The whole movie was a trailer, and it doesn't quite follow a traditional movie format, but I liked it because it would be fucking awesome to see a feature length trailer like this one.

I've seen most of the Scorsese shorts. The Big Shave just didn't really do anything for me. I know, a whole lot of implied meaning and context behind the movie, but to me, it's still watching a guy shave his face off. Not exactly relevant to my internets.

I liked the Saw short as well. Actually, it seemed more realistic than the feature length, even though there was enough worthwhile about the first one only to where if I saw the special edition (with Saw 1 and the Saw short) for $4~, I'd buy it.


I'm going to be working on this list a little bit more, once I get enough time.

A question: There's this series of four shorts collectively called Sweat Punch. I've seen three of them, and combined I'd probably put them at around #15 or #20, but seperate, I'd maybe only put the first and third one on my list (third being at around #15-#20, first being at around #45-#50). Should I seperate them, or just kind of bulk them all together? (They're not really related, besides in name and studio that produced them, but it just seems more appropriate to me to bulk them together.)

Also, I don't really include music videos. It gets too messy. Basically, I go off of whether it's on IMDB, with a couple of exceptions. (Sweat Punch, the other Blomkamp shorts, et cetera.)

Thanks for the links; I will check those out soon.

Yeah, exactly, if the story calls for a feature-length then make it one, but if it doesn't you shouldn’t try and pad a film to make it so.

I will have to watch that short on Man Bites Dog DVD then, since I don't think I saw it.

I loved The Big Shave for its simplicity. It was so simple, yet Scorsese got everything he wanted to get across. And it is also a very striking image, a man cutting himself while shaving, sends a shiver down my back. I hate when it happens and after watching the film I hate it even more.

I would put them separately, I am against grouping sequels together, or any movies together, on a list unless you feel they all are exactly the same in quality.

Yeah, music videos definitely don't count as a short film. They would be a completely different list in my opinion.

[ie]

Yup, yup.

I don't really have anything else to say on The Big Shave, so I'll be moving on...


I decided to seperate the Sweat Punch shorts. I would have, if I would have rated them about the same, but because, simply put, some were better than others, I had to rank them seperately.


How about short films that use an entire song as its soundtrack? This is the thing: where do you draw the line between a short film and a music video? If The Mars Volta were to commission Godard to direct a ten minute movie with them providing the soundtrack, would it be a Godard short or a music video by The Mars Volta?

(I'm not sure if there's enough to talk about to bring this to its own thread.)