This year was my first year ever attending Cucalorous and I have to say, I really regret not going when I first heard about it last year. I volunteered this year as a ticket box assistant and it was a great experience. Unfortunately, because of the shifts I was given to volunteer, I was unable to go to the animation block or many of the other blocks I was interested in seeing. I did get to go to the repeat of the Minorca Shorts, however, on Saturday night. One of the main reasons I wanted to attend the “trigger-happy” shorts block was so that I could see Glenn Pack’s film “One Left Turn”. I really enjoyed it; it was a suspenseful story and the editing and way the film was shot only added to the tension. The other reason I wanted to attend this block was for the short starring Tony Hale, “Trouble and the Shadowy Deathblow”. I entered as a fan of Hale’s, but left TheaterNow with an even greater appreciation for him as an actor. The way this film mixed subtle humor with a dark storyline was right up my alley. I enjoyed the reveal of Hale’s character as a possible psychopath at the end through a montage of flashbacks with his narration layered over.
One film that I didn’t enjoy as much as the rest was “Bloodhounds”. I felt the story was lacking and the quality of acting and dialogue really took me out of the entire film. I know that in the Q&A afterwards, it was mentioned that this film was based off true events, but I felt the story could have used more embellishing to make it a more cohesive and interesting narrative. Short films can only cover so much, but this film seemed to leave a lot of questions at the end (like why the boyfriend approached the niece or why she started crying). The character development was also lacking, as I felt no sympathy or connection to any of the characters by the end of the story.
Because I was unable to attend the animation block (even though it was screened just a few feet from where I was volunteering), I looked up a few of the shorts on Vimeo and Youtube. I loved the shot of just the mother & daughter’s feet in “Where Do Cars Come From?” The mixture of live action and animation was so good, I could hardly tell one from the other. I also loved the creativity of “Crime: The Animated Series”; even though the drawings were so basic and simple, the narration, because it was real people telling their real stories, impacted me in a good way. This short in particular showed me that the visual isn’t always the most important part of a short; sound and creativity go a long way.
