High Concept / Low Budget Films
Friday, August 1st, 2003
8pm: Live music by The New Spain [details below]
9pm: Hi/Lights from the 2003 Film Festival
What are the films about? Fire, Legos, ponies, road trips, Darwinism, apartment hunting, dog walking, cat napping, corporate ritual, exploding record players, singing hot dogs, auditioning for MTV, corroding film, mustache profiling, Nazis, walruses, Bingo, robots, and cover bands. Each in its own way proving that when it comes to making a good movie, big brains are more important than fat wallets.
FILMS: The International Language Killing My Lobster (San Francisco, 2:00)
A mundane shopping expedition takes a strange turn as customers and sales associates learn a lot about hardware and human understanding.
Steak Michelle Dean (San Francisco, 2:00)
Not just an eye opening homage to every carnivore's favorite snack, this film features a freaky (juicy) voice over and a cameo by a cut out president.
Fast Forward 1 Alec Joler (Lawrence, KS, 3:00)
A $250 million dollar Jerry Bruckheimer action-adventure told in 180 seconds, scored by a human beat box, and made for the price of a box of Legos.
Addendum Bob Hurst (Iowa City, IA, 4:00)
An emotionally devastating account of what it's like to lose a film about someone losing their mind. Made entirely out of trim and extra footage, this film is a potent metaphor for the
Alzheimer's story it sought to capture.
Board Room Fritz Donnelly (New York City, 4:00)
No stranger to the solo film project, Donnelly (To the Hills, Rooftop 6/28/02; Money Was There Then, 7/19/02) returns to the hi/lo with a serious film about market penetration, demographic analysis, and a high-power meeting ... with himself. And yes, that's his up-turned mattress behind him.
Composition in Red and Yellow Roger Beebe (Gainesville, FL, 2:00)
A University of Florida film professor got in his car and drove to Berkeley. Along the way he filmed some of the places where he stopped for lunch. This is his transcontinental menu.
Pop Song 1 Meesoo Lee (Vancouver, Canada, 5:00)
A remix of the final scene from King Vidor's 1949 The Fountainhead that transforms the ascent of the world's greatest architectural achievement into the world's most doleful elevator ride, by the ever-prolific Lee (Procrastination, 6/28/03).
I'm With Stupid Ben McCormick (San Francisco, 4:00)
Various inanimate objects - a tortilla, an apple, a glass of orange juice—confront their fears and plan their future. The title is well chosen.
Call of the Wild Julia Sarcone-Roach (Brooklyn, NY, 8:00)
A hallucinogenic menagerie of flying cats and line-dancing bats populate the brilliantly colorful imagination of this RISD animator. Sarcone-Roach creates a Dr. Seussian
zoo hopped up on goofballs going about their business and making prank calls, too.
INTERMISSION
Fireplace Redux Jeffrey Hands (Toronto, 4:00)
Deleted scenes, director's commentary, and special features behind the holiday season video
everyone (without a working fireplace) can't get enough of.
To Hug and To Squeeze You Wago Kreider (Brooklyn, NY, 2:00)
With increasing dizziness, Kreider (House, Rooftop 6/28/02) intercuts footage from a wedding in the 60s with film from a local zoo. After a while the point is clear: the social conventions of animals are really all the same.
Making Love (Out of Nothing At All) Michelle Dean (San Francisco, CA, 1:30)
Animated hot dogs fly through the universe singing along to Air Supply.
Hang Time Craig Gerber (Los Angeles, CA, 7:00)
A cleanly told story about making your way to the top, falling to earth, and doing it
again, as told from the perspective of a guy who likes jumping around in elevators.
City Mood Spin Arno Salters (San Francisco, CA, 4:00)
A meditation on San Francisco by someone pleasantly mystified by population density, the cult of hand shakers, and urban cool.
Beige Ramsel Ruiz (San Francisco, CA, 2:00)
With a narrator's voice that would make Ira Glass proud, Ruiz presents a gripping look at the suburbs through the eyes of someone blind to every color, except one.
Mr. Slow Burn in "Drinking Problem" Colin Graham (Toronto, Canada, 4:00)
Traffic, meter maids, and the assailing force of time conspire to send this animated fellow over the edge. Line drawings and a martini-time score make the trip worthwhile.
Mabel's World Mark Edwards (San Francisco, CA, 2:00)
Mabel is a cat. She sits on a table. She has made peace with a world rushing by.
For two minutes, and with a Philip Glass score, we can, too.
Fast Forward #2 Alec Joler (Lawrence, KS, 3:00)
The full-blown realization of Joler's first Lego action flick features more gunplay, a helicopter rescue, and a blown dam. Seagal, Schwarzenegger and the folks who did the White Stripes music video have nothing on this guy.
Hunter Dawson Andrew Dickson (Portland, OR, 10:00)
Where do the knuckleheads on reality TV come from? Who aspires to share their life with
the masses? These questions are answered with this window into the mind of Portland's next Blind Date wannabe. We present you with Hunter Dawson's audition tape.
Music:
8pm: Enchanted Indie-Rock by The New Spain [thenewspain.com], who have been described as "early Police and The Cure battle Fugazi, Shellac and Sonic Youth." Hope that helps... We've never found musical descriptions to be that useful. Dissonant, haunting, melodic swells overlap the hiccups and harmonic pops of bass all sewn together by complex fever-pitch drumming.
