Category Archives: Short Films

Los Angeles Streetcars – The Final Years

by Cimaxion

 
This is a short documentary about the last of the Los Angeles Yellow and Green streetcar lines of the mid-1950s. For me, Los Angeles is the most beautiful American city because of its nearly mystical relationship with the natural landscape intruding so markedly upon the urban scene. One gets the feeling that at any moment the terrain could obliterate the city entirely. The resulting dichotomy makes for eerie and unsettling intrusions of nature into the urban landscape. Turn a corner, even today, and you are quite likely to find yourself looking up a natural hillside with only a dirt path for access. Old films like these fascinate me for their glimpses of the cityscape and its long-ago relationship to the desert surroundings.
 
 
 

Carry That Weight: Super 8 Film by Andrea Nevi for Italian Tribute to the Beatles

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Andrea Nevi of Italy directed this short film that is apparently a music video for a band called Mama’s Gan. The band has recorded a female tribute to the Beatles and this is their version of ‘Carry That Weight.’ I like it and I like the film a lot. I also like that beautiful face of the actress who is probably a member of the band. Incredible! I think I might fly to Italy to meet such a face. Every shot in this film is magnificent, but it’s that face around which the film pivots. I don’t think it is very easy to film a beautiful face. I know I always get very distracted whenever I try. I end up dropping my camera and forgetting all about what I’m doing.

Nevi’s film is a free-flowing beauty shot in Super 8. It won ‘Best Italian Film’ at the International Super 8 Film Festival 2011 in Milan, Italy.

Jam Tomorrow: Animation by Hayley Jukes

by Cimaxion

London animator Hayley Jukes made this stop-motion portrayal of an artist dealing with the various problems encountered when everything in one’s world contains life. Animators give this life to things and can’t always control the outcome. I particularly like the untied sneakers, the coffee urns, and the interesting sofa. Also, I just realized today that some of the music seems to be from a circus. Jukes appears to be making something in a simple way, framing shots so that she can perform and animate in what appears to be a single-handed effort. But she has a natural sense of composition that interests me for its ability to convey a mood. This is not the kind of film one makes to impress people. It’s the kind of film one makes to express something. It has that directness of technique and enthusiasm for mechanical discovery that I see in old avant-garde films of the 1920s and 30s. Jukes is using a very analog fun with cameras and objects style in a digital era and has the requisite talent for all true animators: the ability to imbue things with life.

http://vimeo.com/39724250

L’Amour, Toujours L’amour: A Short Film by Daniel Ablin

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Ah yes! Oui! Bon! Merci! The urge to do away with one’s mate in favor of an improved version with more passion never leaves us, does it? But of course when French lovers murder one another it is just so full of life, wit and oh I don’t know what!

This clever and charming film is by Daniel Ablin and features an actor from the Comédie Française, Christian Blanc. The woman is played by Mireille Rivat. The film doesn’t push too hard, favoring a delicate touch with its humor, and it keeps the silent film thing just enough under control and just modern enough to avoid annoyance.