Year In Review: The 11 Best Short Films of 2011
2011 Year In Review By Scott Beggs on December 30, 2011 | (7) Comments
Over the course of the year, curating the Short Film of the Day feature has given me a deep and affecting appreciation of the art form. Before, I hadn’t given much thought to the little bastards, but the truth is that they are incredibly versatile and representative of the boundaries that film can break. They can be jokes told well or human dramas driven home. They can be a perfect bite or demand to be expanded into a full meal. They can feel classic or break out into the long, strange realm of experimentation.
They are so much more than movies with short runtimes.
There’s one difficulty in judging them, though. With such variation, pinpointing how one can be better than another gets to be tricky. So, no matter the order, the one constant is that all the movies listed here are outstanding at what they do.
The other (small) problem is that sometimes short films spend a long time touring festivals and otherwise being unavailable online. Thus, eligibility here is based solely on when a movie hit the web for us to digest. In that way, it’s the best short films from 2010-2011, but I have a feeling that that trivia won’t matter once you sit glued to the screen at the talent on display here.
11. The Man Who Never Cried
In this sweetly dark comedy from writer/director Bradley Jackson features Ralph Winston (Keir O’Donnell) as a children’s party clown who has never cried in his entire life. Not when he saw E.T.; not when his father dies. After that tearless tragedy, he vows that he’ll learn to cry before the funeral. It’s a great, slightly somber story with a lot of heart (and cream make-up).
10. Zombie in a Penguin Suit
Leave it to a short film featuring a marketing mascot changed into a brain-hungry monster to teach all a little bit about humanity. This short from Chris Russell is a killer idea done with bloody beauty.
9. Always a Family
In remembrance of 9/11, on its tenth anniversary, StoryCorps put together a series of animated shorts which used recordings from the family members of victims of the terrorist attack. This particular story hit incredibly hard. It’s soul-squeezing stuff, and it requires tissues to be within reach.
8. Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared
Absurdity lives. This pitch-perfect parody of children’s programming left my jaw on the cement because it looks like it was made by Lucifer after singing show tunes and fornicating violently with the Teletubbies.
7. The German
Is it possible to deliver blockbuster budget effects with an indie wallet? Hell yes. Nick Ryan‘s short is as much proof of that as it is proof that he’s got a stirring eye for action (especially dog fights).
6. Mourir Auprès de Toi
Spike Jonze. Olympia Le-Tan. A partnership in explosive, vibrant creativity that yields something in stop-motion that’s reminiscent of an old Looney Tunes cartoon.
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