The very first short was a sort of documentary/infomercial for a nonprofit group, and at first I was afraid that the whole festival was gonna be like that, but thankfully it wasn't.
Pigeon: Impossible was the first film. I'm usually a hard sell when it comes to CG movies, but I thought this was actually cute and really well done. But hey! You can watch the whole thing online here:
Hairytalewas the next short. I can't find any pictures online, but it was a documentary about a guy in the UK who used to own a hair salon and realized how much hair gets thrown into landfills...so then he dedicated his life to finding alternative uses for discarded hair and made...a hair chair. Had a funny final line.
Salt(2009) was next, not to be confused with the Angelina Jolie movie of the same name. This film followed photographer Murray Fredericks (check out his photography on the website, it's amazing!) on his journeys to literally the middle of nowhere in Australia. He explained the concept that the place where he was going, he could see NOTHING anywhere on the horizon for 360 degrees. CRAZY. I had no idea places like that still existed anywhere in the world (other than the ocean). It raised a lot of questions for me... This film has a lot of breathtaking shots. As I understood it, Fredericks shot all the footage himself over several years and then later it was edited down into the film. He had a really great eye for the shots, but I guess that makes sense because he's a photographer. In the end, though, the film was a bit long for my tastes...I'd rather go see an exhibition of the photography.
Scrapertown is a documentary short from a series about California called California is a Place (I will definitely be watching these later). It follows a group of kids in East Oakland who are part of the 'scraper bike movement', where people fix up their bikes with interesting paint, decor and decorate the spokes. The bikes are pretty cool. The organizers of the festival told us that they were gonna try to get a kid from the film to come speak at the festival, but he didn't show. Boo!
The Crab Revolution,was an awesome, adorable French animated short. I loved it! French just seemed to be the perfect language for this story. Or maybe the voice actor was just really good? Watch here:
I didn't see Fat Tire Fury on IMDB. It's basically footage of a mountain...bike...unicycler. The ultimate rush??
I couldn't find any suitable pictures of Living Lightly.....chronicles of a farming cult with a scythe (yes, scythe) fetish. I don't mean player hate here but uh...yeah.
A few photos of the evening:
cool kinetic sculpture at the Brower Center. I wish this were video!
DEEP FRIED PIZZA at Sumo Grub--not a bad spot to grab a bite after a late showing in Berkeley as they are open late. They have tons of deep fried desserts...for the heart attack in you
For some reason, the plot of The Diving Bell and the Butterflydidn't interest me when I first heard about it, but I was wrong! This movie is really engaging. The style of filming from the POV of the paralyzed Bauby could've easily been done too cornily, but it really wasn't. I love how this was filmed.
Madagascar, Carnet de Voyageis a sort of pastiche or scrapbook in film form of a man's trip to Madagascar. It utilizes many different styles of animation.....it's breathtaking in some parts, but in others it looks a bit less fleshed out.
Let's Polluteis a subversive environmentalist film done in the style of corny old educational videos. I think corny=corny rather than corny=funny, but the old people in the theater seemed to think this was hilarious. The animation is styled like a kid's cartoon. There were a few good jokes. My favorite think about this short was how the animators utilized lots of interesting patterns.
The Gruffalowas nearly half an hour and almost put me to sleep. It's based on a children's book. I'd never heard of this book because I don't have anything to do with kids, but you can tell it's based on a children's book because:
1. the story is repetitive, and children's stories are repetitive
2. a name like "The Gruffalo." Enough said.
I just really, really hate children's stories. This was boring. The music was cool. Kids would like this. (I think?) Helena Bonham Carter did one of the voices.
The Lost Thingwas OK. Full of washed out colors with a bit of angst.
Day & Nightis my Oscar pick. It was awesome! Conceptually and visually the best film shown. According to my sister, this was shown before Toy Story 3 (which I haven't seen).
This is the whole movie, although youtube quality really isn't ideal for watching this:
The next two were just bonus shorts, they weren't nominated for Oscars this year.
Urs. What is an "Urs"? Who knows. Quiet little movie with a sort of impressionistic animation style.
Finally, some movies I actually want to see are playing in theaters! While most people here in the states were watching the Superbowl, I was checking out The Illusionist. My sister is a big animation fan so I saw this with her. We caught it at Camera 3, the independent theater downtown around here. They also have a donut shop inside called Psycho Donuts (their vegan donuts are tasty!).
Clocking in at 80 minutes, The Illusionist is somewhat short, but because it's the same sort of non dialog driven style as The Triplets of Belleville, 80 minutes is somewhat a blessing.
My interpretation of the story? A sad tale about a world that can no longer believe in magic.
I also can't wait to see Ip Man 2and Hanyo! I also noticed that there's a showing of The Room this week. I haven't seen it yet so I am totally there.
My sister really wanted to see Coco Before Chanel, so we netflixed it. Unfortunately, it turned out that Coco's life pre-fashion designer was pretty uneventful and not really worth making a movie about (even thought I have a personal interest in fashion). She had a couple of boyfriends. She was headstrong. And so on. Yawn. Audrey Tautou is charming as ever, though. Does anybody else think she looks kind of like a French Anne Hathaway? Oh, and the shots with the mirror staircase in the last scene ^ were cool.
