Friday, April 24th
The energy of the festival is really dying down now, and so is my enthusiasm for it. They really frontloaded the schedule this year, which I think was a mistake. I usually don't see so many shorts programs, because I prefer feature length films, but the options were underwhelming in the past couple days.
Today started off with another shorts program, called Fantastical Shorts, and this was by far my least favorite of all the shorts programs.
A Peacock Feathered Blue (**) is about a kid who gets made fun of at school, but is determined to do well at the school science fair. This one has an incredibly sappy ending.
Glory At Sea (***) is about a group of people who lost loved ones during Hurricane Katrina. When one of the dead magically rise to shore, they all get together on a boat and look for the rest. This one had some really nice cinematography and a couple of interesting characters. (7/10)
Skylight (*1/2) is another incredibly sappy film. This one consists of a grandfather telling a little girl a "magical" story, which she finds out is a story from his own past. The story is anything but magical, and the ending doesn't make any sense.
The Key (*1/2) takes place in a future where people grow their own hydroponic food. A guy who lives in the sewer watches a girl who walks by every day, until drops a key and they finally meet. Again, the cinematography is good, but we barely learn anything about these characters, so why do we care if they meet?
The best of this bunch was certainly The Attack of the Robots From Nebula-5 (***1/2). It's a Mexican short shot to look like an Ed Wood film, and it's about a young man who believes robots are going to come from outer space and attack. It follows his hilarious efforts to warn his friends and family. This one is very clever, with some awesome visual cues and a hilarious performance from the lead.
The only other film I saw today was The Death of Alice Blue (*1/2), a Canadian film about a young woman who gets a job at an ad agency and soon learns that the agency is run by vampires. Sounds like a fun premise, but this one is a little too bizaare. The film is more interested in trying to be clever than telling any kind of coherent story. Everything exists in such a cold, absurdist reality that it's hard to really connect with any of the characters, so even when things start to make some kind of sense at the end, you don't really care what happens. However, I will give props to the art director and cinematographer. They both did a great job here, but it was in service of nonsense. (4/10)
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