ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED 2022 Documentary Shorts

March 15, 2022

Documentaries are by far the most undersung filmmaking genre — no doc has ever won an Oscar for Best Picture — and short documentaries have the worst of the lot. Some of these filmmakers have spent years and years filming their subjects, then whittle their hundreds of hours of footage into a publicly-palatable half-hour. It’s a shame that the Academy are pushing this group of nominees to the sidelines for the 2022 broadcast because these filmmakers — even when they make something that doesn’t quite cohere — invest so much time and work and emotion and empathy into their subjects.

AUDIBLE

AUDIBLE is the latest from filmmaker Matthew Ogens, best known for his documentary CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO which followed around a set of Los Angeles costumed superheroes, but it’s also produced by Peter Berg, of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS fame. Like FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, AUDIBLE focuses on a high school football team, but this is an all-deaf team from the Maryland School for the Deaf. While the doc dives into how they communicate on-and-off the field, it excels at emphasizing the empathy and a specific kind of bonding that is rarely found in even the closest of social groups. Its use of subtitles, and insistance on displaying them, is also worth banging the drums for.

LEAD ME HOME

From longtime documentary workers Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk, LEAD ME HOME is an affective look at the homeless situation in tech-boom cities, notably San Francisco and Oakland, where tent cities are now very visible, as captured by their drone footage and contrasted by all of the modern construction work.

One of the more heartbreaking stories is that of Patty, who solely has her dog to keep her sane and safe from an abusive partner, and there are a litany of publicly posted signs stating ‘No dogs allowed’ in any space she would otherwise be able to use to bide the night.

THE QUEEN OF BASKETBALL

“Have you ever heard of Lucy Harris?” That’s the question posited from Ben Proudfoot (THE OX) and it’s a good one, as she was a revolutionary basketball player in a pre-WNBA era. Presented in a very face-forward Errol Morris way, this is an effortlessly pleasing doc that imbues Harris’ charms while also detailing how limited options for sport careers were for women — honestly, still probably are — even those courted by the Jazz.

“Long and tall and that’s not all.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRGsgb4WOzw

THREE SONGS FOR BENAZIR

A disheartening, slightly faltering, look at Shaista, an under-educated Afghanistan trying to escape from the opium trade by enlisting in the army. While well-shot and well-shaped by Elizabeth and Gulistan Mirzaei, especially when it comes to capturing the surveillance state that Shaista percieves, it leaves you wanting something a bit more thanks to a rather perfunctory end. Sadly, sometimes that’s just how spending years with a subject will work out.

WHEN WE WERE BULLIES

The documentary that dares to ask the question: “What if bullies were the victims all along?”

It’s a doc from prolific short film director Jay Rosenblatt that wants to examine mob mentality, youths’ desire to fit in — even if it means violence — but instead pivots to slight interviews and then almost completely writes out the actual victim. The hand-crafted animations used to set, and reset, the tableau of the bullying incident that incited the impetus for the film inject some liveliness into the film, but then leans far too heavily on it.

Despite the Academy’s sidelining of these works, you can still see them in the theater, as these shorts are currently playing in the Chicagoland area at the WILMETTE THEATER, 1122 Central Ave, Wilmette, IL 60091, USA!

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED 2022 Live Action Shorts

March 12, 2022

You can tell that the Oscars are returning to some semblance of normalcy when they start inexplicably removing airtime for the remaining less-glamorous categories. Case in point: the Academy recently announced that the winners in a number of categories, including editing as well as the three shorts categories (Animated, Live Action, and Documentary), would no longer be announced live during the primary broadcast. As noted by many film professionals, this feels like a betrayal by the Academy, that they’re whittling away what’s supposed to be a celebration of everything that makes cinema unique to make room for more stars, singers and half-baked skits.

It’s an especially egregious sin concerning this year’s Live Action Short nominees, as the short films are mostly a banner crop of emotionally affecting works:

ALA KACHUU (TAKE AND RUN)

ALA KACHUU is from German-Swiss filmmaker Maria Brendle and opens with Sezim (Alina Turdumamatova), a young Kyrgyz woman living in a small rural town, arguing with her mother, trying to convince her to allow her to head to Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, to take an exam that could garner her a higher education scholarship. Her mother is dead set against it, espousing that Sezim find a husband instead, and forbids her to take the exam, especially underscoring her personal disdain for the woman Sezim would be staying with.

Sezim is undeterred and opts to run off to take the exam, to stay with her independently minded friend and get a job at a bakery. She glows as she eases into this new life, one of personal responsibility and individuality, and even learns how to drive a car.

While locking up the bakery at the end of the day, she gets a call from her friend, happily noting that her exam results are in! And then Sezim is grabbed by several young men, thrown into a car, and instead of living her best life as a free woman in the city, she’s forcibly married to her kidnapper, a man who doesn’t shy away from the fact that he wanted to abduct her co-worker, not herself.

Brendle tells this horrifying, but all too common, tale with an energetic verve that tugs at the viewer, while also leaning hard on visual burdens. It’s a hard watch, but one worth putting yourself through.

ON MY MIND

From 2002 Academy Award Live Short winner Martin Strange-Hansen (for THIS CHARMING MAN/DER ER EN YNDIG MAND) comes this piece about a man who just wants to sing a song for his unseen wife at a bar. At first, it feels like a one act stageplay, almost an exercise in character desire and denial, but then it turns the corner and reveals itself in a way that will clutch at your heartstrings. Especially noteworthy is how the film utilizes breath in ways that won’t cause you to wince in a pandemic way.

PLEASE HOLD

PLEASE HOLD, from Mexican-American director KD Davila, is the sort of dystopian depiction of the modern prison system that could easily be a BLACK MIRROR episode, or at least would be if that reality weren’t already here and prisoners weren’t unfairly detained and nickel-and-dimed until they’re bled dry. Starring Erick Lopez (CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND’s Hector), Davila’s use of visual confinement as well as the all-too-real sort of digital interface is particularly Kafka-esque.

THE DRESS

THE DRESS is credited as being written and directed by Tadeusz Lysiak, but allegedly he collaborated with actor Anna Dzieduszycka, who plays the lead Julka. Julka is a little person working as a maid in a Polish hotel, someone who is thirsty with desire — as visually expressed by her constant diet of slim cigarettes and booze — and seems to hit it off with a trucker, who schedules a date with her the next time he swings into town.

Dzieduszycka is brilliant in the role, but THE DRESS falters near the end, pivoting to prove an unnecessary point. Despite that, the first two-thirds are a fantastic character study, but you’ll know when you should bail.

THE LONG GOODBYE

Not to be confused with the Raymond Chandler work of the same name, THE LONG GOODBYE is a piece from director Aneil Karia (LOVESICK, SURGE) and penned by Karia and lead Riz Ahmed (SOUND OF METAL, THE NIGHT OF). It made the streaming rounds many moons ago, but deserves to be seen on screens larger than one’s phone as it’s a visual whirlwind of a large British South Asian family enjoying their day together, at least until those outside turn on them.

As with many of these works, THE LONG GOODBYE is not a traditionally fun watch, but it’s an important and engrossing one. Short films can summarize a lifetime we’d never be able to imagine within a fraction of the running time, and it’s a shame that the Academy has opted to relegate them to the sidelines. However, you can still see them in the theater, as these shorts are currently playing in the Chicagoland area at the WILMETTE THEATRE — https://www.wilmettetheatre.com/ — 1122 Central Ave, Wilmette, IL 60091, USA!

DIETLAND (2015)

March 10, 2022

CONTENT WARNING: Eating disorders.

I previously recommended the TV adaptation of DIETLAND back in January which I described as a ‘woman-focused FIGHT CLUB’. While I last watched the show when it first aired in 2018, revisiting the pilot inspired me to check out the source material, Sarai Walker’s novel of the same name.

Upon reading it, I was struck at how close Marti Noxon’s adaptation hewed to the source material, while still fleshing Plum’s story out to be a bit more action-oriented to meet the requisite runtime of a TV series. However, the novel has an interiority and command of character that strikes closer to the reason why these pieces exist, which is:

Fuck capitalism, your body is fine, accept it and stop funneling money into the weight loss industry, but you will never, ever, be able to fit in without fighting for your right to do so. (And you still might hate yourself for doing so.)

To summarize: Plum Kettle is an ghostwriter giving private email advice to whomever mail her under the name of teen lifestyle magazine empress Kitty Montgomery. Plum is also fat, has always been fat, and wants to get surgery so she’ll be ‘Alicia’, her given name, the thin girl waiting inside of her. While working for Kitty, she’s roped into a group of ‘Jennifers’, an extremist organization that has no qualms about killing men and women who perpetuate a masculine agenda at the cost of women’s lives. Matters escalate.

While Noxon’s adaptation scrutinizes the changing of Plum from a meek, self-loathing woman into a revolutionary, Walker’s novel takes a different tact in exploring the dichotomy between who Plum feels as a fat person, and who she’d feel like as Alicia, a thin person. The Jennifers are backgrounded, a means to an existential end. It’s purely about Plum and the reader’s journey.

Look: I know I’m a middle-aged CIS dude. I am not the target audience for this work. However, I’ve struggled with my own weight issues. As a teen, I was definitely a calorie-counting anorexic, a behavioral note that DIETLAND hammers home. At my lowest scale reading, I was 130lbs, which for a 6’2” person was not healthy, but health be damned — I was a lithe goth boy!

Then, after working in diners and then meeting a woman who introduced me to the wonders of fine dining — as opposed to the same reliable carbs I’d routinely eat — I got fat. Then I found a very stupid, but very healthy and fun way to lose that weight: DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION, a videogame that knows a bunch of weight-obsessed folks play it, as it counts your calories with each track you dance to. It was way ahead of PELOTON with gamifying weight loss but, sadly, apparently is no longer profitable, and no longer exists due to the whims of its corporation.

Predictably, I gained the weight back, although under better circumstances: mostly beers in-between theater screenings and the like. I recall waking up one morning and realizing ‘oh, I’m just a fat person. This is who I am now.’ I felt a bit at peace with that reckoning. I stopped weighing myself and just started accepting my girth for what it was.

Then, the pandemic occurred, and in a fit of stress-induced anxiety, lost twenty pounds without even realizing it, which then provoked a flood of endorphins and, well, I thought: I lost this much through inaction, so let’s try action! And now I’ve lost at least fifty pounds, I can wear pants and shirts I haven’t worn in over a decade — although that’s probably a fashion crime — but I still feel like garbage. My wife calls it self-control, but I know the real term for it, and I haven’t felt the same sort of acceptance that I felt when I told myself that I was fat.

What DIETLAND instills is that the fat, insecure person will always live in you. It becomes part of your identity. You will always see them, even if others don’t. It’s a resignation that, in the novel, leads to a personal and political revolution. In real life, that doesn’t really happen.

I’d like to say I ‘recovered’, but as anyone who has struggled with weight knows: there’s no recovery; not really. There are highs and lows, at least until a final acceptance, which is the ultimate point of DIETLAND, but at the end of the day, DIETLAND is still a fictional work. Living with that is far harder than turning the last page.

I don’t feel that most men think about their looks or weight, or at least more than they have to which — by American standards — is very little if they’re heteronormative. I’m thankful to have a network of friends I can confide to about this, but I fear many don’t, which is exactly why I’m writing this. I can say: both the series and the book have helped me process a number of weight-related issues, and if you suffer from that, maybe these works will speak to you, too.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED 2022 Animated Shorts

March 8, 2022

The Oscar Animated Shorts category can be trying under the best of times, as all too often it’s chock full of overly-sentimental pablum, but thankfully this year’s crop of nominees are supremely intriguing, thoughtful, experimental entries that play with the form. It’s also surprisingly wall-to-wall not-safe-for-work so, if you’re thinking about taking youths to see it, you might want to think twice.

The stand-out piece is AFFAIRS FROM THE ART, from the well-regarded Joanna Quinn & Les Mills; it’s fifteen minutes of a sister/mother/wife observing her very eccentric, very oddball sister, narrating all the way as she also visually impresses her own personal obsessions. Think: a more vibrant, more personal Bill Plympton-ish work, reverberant lines and thrilling mouth animation in a wildly stylized way, while still disclosing a very singular, private story.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-xXpYGNPmk (NSFW)

Then there is the deeply skewed BESTIA from Hugo Covarrubias, about a Chilean fixer and her dog, all full of ceramic glistening, awkward pauses, and — as you might pick up by the title — it features perhaps the more tawdry sort of ‘downward dog’ you could imagine.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm7eKAXOkkc (NSFW)

BOXBALLET is one of the two most ‘traditional’ animated short, from Anton Dyakov, as it traffics in the usual sort of physical dynamics of animation: a brusque and formidable bruiser intertwines with a lithe, tiny dancer, accompanied by a rugged ‘Russian brutalism’ aesthetic and a minimal amount of dialogue.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ4fXsXXGCg (NSFW)

It wouldn’t be an animation category without an obligatory Aardman (WALLACE AND GROMMIT, SHAUN THE SHEEP, CHICKEN RUN) contribution, the second of the ‘traditional’ animated shorts. ROBIN ROBIN is centered around a robin adopted and raised by mice, all framed by a Christmas story. It’s cute; it’s fine; it won’t change your worldview, but it is adorable in the Aardman tradition of wide eyes and plush fur.

Lastly, there’s THE WINDSHIELD WIPER from Alberto Mielgo — best know for his work on LOVE, DEATH AND ROBOTS and SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE. THE WINDSHIELD WIPER is an extraordinarily well-executed but emotionally faltering piece of CGI that hews closer to video game aesthetics than what one would normally consider an Oscar-nominated animated piece. There’s an extended scene with two people standing next to each other in a grocery store, swiping left/right on a Tinder-esque app until they swipe right on each other, but never lock eyes. Yeah, it’s that sort of threadbare meditation on cultural alienation and ennui. However, what it lacks in substance, it makes up for in stylization.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s36kOHSyjQ8 (NSFW)

None the less, this is one of the more intriguing Animated Shorts categories I’ve seen in some time, and it’s well-worth venturing out for! If you’re in the Chicagoland area, they’ll be playing at the Wilmette Theatre (1122 Central Ave, Wilmette, IL 60091, USA) come March 10th!

SEARCH PARTY (2016-2021)

February 22, 2022

(HBO MAX/hoopla) SEARCH PARTY would have been a memorable cult TV show even if it were a one season-and-done and, while I was a bit gobsmacked to see that it was renewed not twice, not three times, but four! — I had no idea how this show could sustain itself for a second season, much less five — it’s always had a very singular dry, but confident and clever, comedic voice.

The first season introduces us to a group of self-centered, off-putting millennials tearing themselves away from their guac-and-toast brunch to solve the mystery of a missing acquaintance they barely know, and matters go amazingly awry.

I can’t quite describe the following seasons without diving into spoilers regarding the end of the first season, but each season tackles a different sort of genre: the second turns into a crime thriller, the third a legal procedural, the fourth centers around a kidnapping, and the fifth jumps into the a cultish future before going full horror.

If you’re having a hard time wrapping your mind as to how all that works without it becoming some sort of Ryan Murphy-ish anthology series, I don’t blame you. On paper, it sounds absolutely bonkers and, in reality, it’s a high-wire balancing act without a net that they manage to walk without barely a wobble.

It’s the rare show that gets to have its cake and eat it too: the actors (including Alia Shawkat as Dory, the propulsive element of the group) imbue the characters with a certain quizzical ennui that is irrestable, so you both love and hate them. You get to see them reckon with their selfish attitudes, but also empathize with them. Add to that some whipsmart dialogue, vibrant cinematography, a haunting electro score, and a litany of fantastic cameos from actors you’d never expect to see on a TBS show* (including Michaela Watkins, Ann Dowd, and one of Louie Anderson’s final performances which, unsurprisingly, is amazing), and you have an idiosyncratic show for the ages (or at least for ages 25-40).

For those brave enough to endure a trailer for the first two seasons (and the second season spoilers are very vague):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZQ8wJXPZvI
  • It’s worth noting that the last two seasons were HBO MAX-exclusives.

FALLEN ANGELS – Murder, Obliquely (S01E05, 1993)

February 7, 2022

FALLEN ANGELS was a mid-90s neo-noir anthology on SHOWTIME that I only recently heard of, but the fifth episode of the first season, entitled Murder, Obliquely, features Laura Dern, Alan Rickman, Diane Lane, was co-written by Amanda Silver (THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE and a number of the new PLANET OF THE APES films) and directed by Alfonso Cuarón (CHILDREN OF MEN, ROMA). That’s a stellar team right there.

Murder, Obliquely is also based on the Cornell Woolrich short story of the same name. Woolrich wrote the source material for REAR WINDOW among loads of other very successful works, but by others accounts he had a very unhappy life: he married a woman in 1930 while knowing he was gay; the marriage was annulled three years later; despite being a prolific and successful writer, he was also a self-destructive alcoholic, living with his mother in shithole apartments until she died; then he spiraled out completely and became a recluse until he died.

I mention this because this adaptation of Murder, Obliquely very clearly leans into this background, if you read between the lines. (I’ll note that I have yet to read the short it’s based on.) It’s a Sirkian noir of infatuation — Annie (Laura Dern) becomes obsessed with inherited-millionaire Dwight Billings (Alan Rickman) but he can’t get over his ex, the recently-married Bernette Stone (Diane Lane). The story ends with everyone miserable, as noirs do.

Despite having the gauzy veneer of 90s cable television, it’s remarkable stylish with its costuming and art design — especially Dwight’s art deco home — as well as the dialogue, which manages to be distinct without feeling too broad. If you have thirty minutes to spare, it’s a great way to spend some time.

I don’t think anyone will mind a direct link to a fan rip in this case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eADTdrqu2cg

DISCO ELYSIUM: THE FINAL CUT (2019)

February 2, 2022

DISCO ELYSIUM feels like an imaginary videogame, the sort of game nostalgically described in hushed whispers by the protagonist in a cyberpunk novel; a game too lunatic, too distinct, too arty to actually be willed into the world. Yet, here we are.

However, when one spells out the basics of what DISCO ELYSIUM is, it sounds like an indistinct late 90s videogame: you’re an alcoholic cop investigating a brutal murder in a cesspool of a town populated by colorful, often distasteful weirdos, navigating around via an isometric RPG interface with walls and walls of text.

In reality, DISCO ELYSIUM’s real roots are in text adventures, in heading north, south, east or west, in finding the right responses to someone’s dialogue fragment. This is a game you read more than you watch or interface with. Not to belittle the complexity of the game’s systems — which are intentionally obtuse, complicated, and a fresh take on RPG levelling — but this game is first and foremost a vehicle to deliver writers’ words, and they’re some of the most enigmatically twisted and idiosyncratic words to describe the game’s unique, but also familiar, world.

Fundamentally, DISCO ELYSIUM is about introspection, identity, and masculine reckoning with a hostile world. Or maybe it’s not, and that’s just what I encountered in my initial play-through. Either way, it is an extremely dense, extraordinarily complexly detailed world, strikingly portrayed by Aleksander Rostov, one that feels a bit like HALF-LIFE 2 via cult-favorite adventure game series SYBERIA. In other words: bombed-out Eastern Europe.

If there’s one fault with DISCO ELYSIUM it’s that it is buggy, but I suppose that comes with the territory. Save early, save often. Otherwise, this is an astounding interactive experience, a game that will be talked about in hushed whispers in the years to come.

THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT (2021)

January 28, 2022

(HBO MAX) This is the real fucking deal, a vodka-fueled tonic for the litany of sad, isolated wine-women thrillers. It’s a Hitchcockian/De Palma-esque thriller that gives every woman agency and nuance and, while it’s nowhere near subtle, it is far more substantial than you’d think for a story about a woman who drinks far too much and sleeps in too many beds and wakes up to find her fling viciously murdered next to her.

To quote Brian Grubb, “it’s a goddamn blast,” and it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for lead/executive producer Kaley Cuoco (BIG BANG THEORY) who read this book by a dude and saw her vision for it, and made it happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP_WC5oOCe8