This year you'll have to content yourself with my opinion of each film (that I most likely made up a fake name for, seeing as I didn't catch most of the real ones).
Oh, and the theme was keys. Not that that meant half the films had anything remotely connected to keys in them, but yeah.
1. The Applicant -- odd sci-fi one that didn't reveal the odd job applicant was an alien until the final twist at the end
2. Don't Mime -- one of my favorites of the night. Hysterical comedy about the dangers of miming, as related by a mime who'd mimed shooting another mime. Our narrator had to then pretend to be in prison for 12 years. But what about the other mime? Yeah, he had to pretend to be dead for the rest of his life. Don't mime, kids. Don't mime.
3. Skateboarding Kid -- poignant piece about a boy who wanted to skateboard with the "cool" kids, but ran over his keys and fell. He left, dejected, but one of the "cool" kids brought his keys back to him and then he felt like he was flying (at least I think that's what I was supposed to get from that ...).
4. Sven -- odd (though in a better way than number 1) subtitled film about Sven, favorite son of Sweden, who had done everything on earth as the absolute best, so took off for outer space. He was never heard from again, though to this day (evidently) the children of Sweden know that every time they see a falling star it is really Sven conquering new galaxies.
5. Kiss a Tradie -- another rather odd film about a woman who I think was dying and had this list of things she wanted to do before she died and one of them was to kiss a tradie (i.e., a carpentar/plumber/electrician/etc.). This was rather unfortunate as her husband wasn't one and it all got a bit complicated and I'm not sure if he dressed up as a tradie or if it was another guy or if she was having an affair or not. I think she managed to at least kiss a tradie though.
6. Y2Gay -- I'd say it was odd, but I guess that's a bit trite these days. It was about a man who'd built a bunker to keep himself and wife and best friend safe when gay marriage was legalized and the toasters stopped working when the world hit "Y2Gay."
7. Mother in Stars -- another poignant one about a Thai orphan boy probably about 4 who was adopted by an Australian couple and taken to very different, very strange surroundings for him. His real mother had told him she'd watch him from the stars, but he couldn't see the stars at night in his new house. When he escaped at night to find them a car ran over his binoculars.
8. Monkey Hair Cut -- a very strange film about two brothers. I feel like I must have missed something. They were both hairy and one had offended the other and there was a dream involved where the one thought the other was a monkey and his girlfriend told him to talk things through and there was a car crash where the one hit the other and cut a lock of his hair and they kept sitting at a bar looking hairy.
9. Eulogy for a Living Father -- another poignant one where the narrator said we only give eulogies when people die, but he wanted his father to hear how grateful he was while he was still alive, so it was a eulogy of a living father.
10. The Maestro -- look, I remembered a real title! I think it won third place and was quite good cinematically, though I thought it was kind of boring. It was about this homeless-looking guy who squeegeed people's car windows in the middle of the street and also then kind of conducted an orchestra of lights in the city. There were cool photo tricks in it, but not my favorite.
11. The Utterly Disgusting One -- I'm hoping I was missing some sort of satire or something in this one, but I really just didn't care for it at all. It was about a Scottish brother and sister who were dating each other. (Fiction, but still!) It was done documentary style and was following the court case laid out against them. In the end she ended up pregnant.
12. Animal Kingdom -- the winner! Everyone's saying it should just be a YouTube clip and not a big contest winner, but I liked it. It was just cute and fun -- a very catchy little tune about "dogs and cats and dogs and cats" and you're probably not really getting the tune too well just reading it, but, well, make up your own and imagine in. Or just google it; it ought to be on YouTube by now if it's not! It just listed a whole bunch of animals --geckos and llamas and llamas and llamas and llamas!!-- with accompanying animations. Evidently the don-KEY provided the key in it.
13. The Course of Untrue Love Never Did Run Smooth -- an artsy film that followed a generic relationship (was it in second person?) from beginning to end.
14. The Christmas Tree -- about a man out in the woods and it set you up to think he'd killed a man, but when he eventually made it home he'd just brought a Christmas tree for his wife and daughter.
15. The Darkroom -- all I managed to write down was "photos -- darkroom" and while I remember that scene, I can't remember the rest. I think I was confused. I think it was negative. No pun intended.
16. Birds of a Feather -- one of my favorites, and a real crowd pleaser. It was the wildcard that was brought in based on number of online votes before Tropfest. It was a mostly funny film about a bird therapy group. Each bird told of its woes -- not being able to fly, knowing he was going to get eaten for dinner, his mate getting killed in a jet engine, of not loving his son enough to regurgitate its food into the infant's beak, of being a slut even though she was a dove and supposed to be a symbol for purity, and the male pink flamingo who was not! gay but just happened to love Sound of Music.
No comments:
Post a Comment