Two for Two!!!! Unreal! I haven’t found two great short-films in a row in like two years! It has a clear joke, no words, told in pictures, and is just well done!
This short is only 3 minutes, but you appreciated the angst! This random man, who is very thin, gets on an elevator with a max capacity of 2000lbs. The elevator rapidly gains passengers of the more expansive variety. As a formerly fat person, I felt for the guy because I remember when my body took up too much space – especially on airplanes. As I would approach my row and seat, I would see a look of fear and disappointment.
It’s hard to be fat, but it can be beaten! In this man’s case, he is rapidly calculating how many more pounds of humanity can enter the elevator before he plunges to his death!
There are many times when I watch a short-film with FEAR because so many are just terrible. “The Gunfighter” is VERY funny and I put it in the MUST WATCH category. For my dedicated readers, you know that recommending a film as a Must Watch is a small club. The Gunfighter won a number of awards, however, very few of the actors or directors went on to a big career, which is a real shame. See, I can still pull depression from the jaws of happiness. I think I need a Rx.
The Gunfighter takes the Western and gives the characters the ability to hear the Narrator (Nick Offerman). This creates a lot of comedy because the narrator is determined to have everyone in the saloon kill each other. I know this is dark, but it is HILARIOUS! The narrator reveals who is having affairs with each other, who is having sex with a man’s favorite sheep, and a prostitute who was given a disease from a man who has sex with a man’s favorite sheep.
This is definitely a short-film to watch …. like right now!
Death has been on my mind A LOT the past several months. I recently lost my Uncle and he was a lot closer to a Dad than what I was assigned. My uncle lived an authentic life and was OUT when it was not okay to be out, but in the words of the philosopher Bruce Springsteen- “Closets are for Hangers.” Sadly, he suffered a great deal, but he faced Death like a Man.
In this short, Death has a life- A really really really banal life. He acts out in school, gets drunk in college, marries, and gets run over by a car. Actually, how he died was the most interesting event that happened to Death.
I’m really trying to be nice here, but sometimes I just can’t. You might notice that I tagged Alex Magana; well, he makes terrible short films too and I feel like Alex should get a royalty when someone else spits out a crappy film. Apparently, Marcin won some awards for THIS??! So ugggghhh, I guess people like terrible things sometimes.
Where did the short go right? It had a beginning, middle, and an end. I can write that without a doubt that this was a film that was made. Also, this film had a script where words were written down. I can assume that real dollars were spent to make this…film, which is fine. I mean, well people can buy all sorts of things with cash. It should be noted that as a society we forbid people to spend money on certain things: murder, heroin, but maybe this could be considered to make that list…let’s not rule that out. He did murder my time and patience.
Where did it go wrong? It was boring. I really just did not care that Death had a boring life or that he had children. If anything, I thought it was tacky. I really didn’t find the writing really moving. I never cared about Death as a “Person”. I did Chuckle Out Loud COL once, but that’s it. You could say, Case, you’re down and grieving; of course, you’ll hate this, BUT I argue that this short-film is still crap and the filmmaker is not great and should do something else with his time. Decoupage? Extreme Couponing? Boxing? Whatever, just stop bothering us.
I once wrote that we could stop Alex Magana from making films – he can only be so strong and if we ganged up and brought a tall guy, we could taunt him by holding his camera up really high and make him futilely jump for it. There’s basically TWO Alex Magana’s now; so, we might have to bring more people into stopping them, but we can do this! Left, Right, Libertarian, or Vegetarian let’s stop them- TOGETHER!
It’s good to see you again. I’ve been away, but now I’m going to take you back in time. All the back to 2012. Yes, things kinda sucked then too, but not as much as for this protagonist especially because he is about to fall from a plane at 43,000 Feet. I have to give him credit- he died like a Man – calm, cool, and collected *tips hat.* May we all go out with such courage and dignity.
This short is hosted by Dust, a Youtube channel that focuses on Science Fiction, but I guess this counts because …. He talks about math? Whether this counts as Science Fiction or not (it does NOT), it is still a fun short film. John Wilkins (Dylan Pharazyn) calculated how long he has before his body impacts the earth from 43,000 feet. It appears that he calculated this before being blown out of the plane.
John contemplates how he should fall to lessen his impact on the head, what he should say to the press if he survives, and his encounter with a homeless person. What got to me was that at no point did he express fear. He stared down death and normally you would think of a STEM person being weaker or less manly, but his calculations calmed him. I have to write that math calms me down too. I know a number of people who had bad experiences with math, but math has an ability of calm because it forces order from chaos. There is no possibly of a sequel for this Man, but his ability to look at his impending death within the structure of mathematics spared him anguish because Math is order and can be the remedy for fear.
I absolutely recommend this film, especially if you want to give math a second chance.
After a fantastic run with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man trilogy, director Jon Watts shows no signs of slowing down. His next project, Wolfs, is one he wrote, produced and directed with a little assistance from Apple Films. The film reunites Oceans’ Eleven stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt as a pair of competing fixers that are forced to work together. It’s not too far removed from Michael Clayton for Clooney or Bullet Train for Pitt. The film also stars Amy Ryan (Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building) Austin Abhrams (HBO’s Euphoria) and Poorna Jagannathan (HBO’s The Night of).
(New York and the other TSL branches are covering for the Texas Division until power is restored. We wish the the best and hope for a speedy recovery. Coincidentally, my little brother’s just West of Dallas Ft. Worth, and I haven’t heard from him yet. Stay strong out there!)
It looks like Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) and Maui (Dwayne Johnson) are back for another adventure. While we aren’t given too many details as to what this entails, one major change will be the lack of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s involvement, musically. Fear not, as both Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear (known as Barlow & Bear, of course) have taken on musical duties. We’ll see where this takes us.
Hi, everyone! A series of recent storms have knocked out our power down here in Texas. It might be a day or two before power is restored. Stick with us and thank you for your patience. We’ll all be back soon. — LMB
As with all of Van Halen’s early videos, this video shows off what made the band so special, the mix of Eddie’s virtuoso guitar work and Diamond Dave’s showmanship.
Because of my sprained wrist, I’m going to take a few days off from doing my retro television reviews. (My wrist is definitely healing but it still hurts a bit to type.) So, this feature will return at the end of the week, on Sunday, June 2nd!
Through the Shattered Lens 