California is a Place

I heard about the California is a Place film series while at the Short Attention Span Environmental Film Festival.  I went home and googled the project and found that they're all posted on the website, so I watched them all today!  They look great in Vimeo HD.  For some reason, though, none of them but Scrapertown  (my thoughts on that short are here) are on IMDB.

Uppercut was actually filmed right here in Silicon Valley.  It's a short about a bunch of computer engineer dudes from Google and whatnot that all have a "fight club."  It kinda makes me wonder how many other similar clubs there are out there.  A lot of the rhetoric where the guys were talking about how fighting "makes them feel alive" etc was kind of like l-o-l to me...but still interesting.

El Rey is a short about the Mariachi scene in Los Angeles.  The guy they interviewed, who is a trumpet player, is obviously very passionate about mariachi music.  It made me jealous that this guy had something in his life that he loved that much (ha-ha).  It seems kind of judgmental to say, but I personally don't really like mariachi music and I would always wonder things like "who the hell are the people who listen to this?" so it was interesting to actually see those people in the film.

Honey Pie  is a short about the guy who makes real dolls...kind of a topic I didn't know I was interested in until I saw it.  There is also a cool documentary that I can't for the life of me remember the name of....that I saw online..about the users of real dolls and that was super interesting too..

Cannonball is a short about dudes who skateboard in empty swimming pools in foreclosed houses in Fresno.  Uh, yeah...I don't know, I personally think skating in a pool sounds fun, but not so fun that I'd want to clean out a bunch of dirty abandoned pools?  I mean, isn't it fun to get some skateboarding variety rather than swimming in empty pool after empty pool?  OK, forget it, what do I know, anyway?

Big Vinny owned car dealerships. He was livin' large...until the economy tanked.  This was sad...I used to work at a car dealership that is now gone too, so it makes me think about that...oh, and how the world is ending cuz gas is FOUR DOLLARS A GALLON NOW OMG.

I couldn't find any pictures of Borderland, but it's about a few people who patrol the California/Mexico border.  The wall shown in the film is pretty crazy looking...I've driven all around the country but I'd never seen it.  I guess it's a part of California that you don't really ever drive to unless you live there.  When I was in Texas, I didn't see any wall like this...actually, I was struck by how the "border" was basically just wilderness...so uh anyway yeah this was interesting.




I really liked this series because I am a proud Californian myself..but really, anyone would enjoy them...and you can watch them all online so there's no excuse.