shorts raze they were a series of afterthoughts when i first found them. a way to fill dead airtime. connecting tissue sandwiched between the films broadcast by a premium cable network that's now just another word for wanting. none of them showed up in the program guide. they were little whispers in the dark. years later, i learned i had a channel devoted to short films lying dormant on my digital cable box. bravo chipped in with the occasional offering after that went dark too. then they abandoned their arts-driven programming to become a reality tv dumpster fire. i fell in love with the urgency of the format. the short film is what the short story is to the novel. what the ep is to the lp. what the single edit is to the extended mix. at its best, a short can tell a tale as compelling and complete as any full-length film. let today's selection serve as a tribute to the great gordon pinsent, who just passed away a few days ago. he accepted the role of francis weary with a poem he wrote and delivered to director stephen dunn. i wish i could read it. there's something bittersweet and true here about the horror and exhilaration of childhood. and this might be the only time i've ever witnessed an end_credits sequence that's moved me to tears, aided in no small part by what's become my favourite sufjan_stevens song. the pop-up book designed by karen justl becomes a small film of its own, elevating the larger work around it through the sheer force of its beauty and inventiveness. life doesn't frighten me (2012) dir: stephen dunn watch: https://vimeo.com/43331383 230301 ... raze the big snit (1982) dir: richard condie i had this thing i loved to do when i was a kid. i would get up early on saturday mornings while the grownups were still sleeping, turn the tv on, sit cross-legged on the living room floor, and watch animated short films produced by the national film board of canada. i didn't know that was what they were. there was never any information made available about what i was seeing. but once a week, for half an hour, on one of the lower channels, i was privy to the kind of children's programming i longed for and never really found anywhere else. it broke my heart a little bit when all those strange and wonderful cartoons i loved but couldn't name went away with no explanation or fanfare. two richard condie films made regular appearances in those saturday morning transmissions. one was "the_cat came back". the other was this brilliant little spit in the eye of despair that has some wise things to say about what it really is to care for someone and make a life with them. i think most of it went over my head when i was eight years old. i just thought it was funny. now it moves things in me i had to go through hell to learn were mine. watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1S5pAF1YYA 230311 ... raze the imom (2014) dir: ariel martin the most unsettling thing about this morsel might be that the glimpse of a possible future it provides isn't so far removed from where we are now. i imagine charlie brooker's nightmares look something like these thirteen and a half minutes of dark speculative fiction. watch: https://vimeo.com/157977103 230330 ... raze kill brass (2010) dir: michel kandinsky a battle of wits and wills waged between a master sniper past his prime and the new kid on the block, caught between reverence and a desire to prove himself. starring the great canadian actor ron white, who was never as well known as he deserved to be. watch: https://vimeo.com/17216592 230426 ... raze the life of death (2012) dir: marsha onderstijn this was conceived and hand-drawn by a dutch animation student. which is kind of incredible. the richness of the imagery and the depth of the story being told here — without a word of dialogue to help it along — shames a lot of films with hefty budgets and big studio backing that purport to be about life and death. i'm looking at you, "meet joe black". i saw it once, years ago, in one of those happy algorithmic accidents the internet sometimes affords. i thought it was beautiful. i watched it for a second time last night after it randomly popped back into my head, and it fucking wrecked me. it's a good thing there aren't any squirrels in it, or i might have disintegrated. watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofnCdC8P70g 230617 ... raze troll concerto (2005) dir: alexandre franchi a bilingual apocalyptic fable in which we learn that the cello may be useless in combat, but it can bring hope to those who dare to dream in a world that no longer values love or imagination. watch: https://vimeo.com/44078131 230731 ... raze neighbours (1952) dir: norman mclaren aside from its technical innovations (treating live actors as stop motion objects; a soundtrack created by physically scratching film stock in what must be one of the earliest examples of experimental electronic music, similar to the oramics technique of drawn sound developed by the brilliant daphne oram), this anti-war film carries a humanistic message that's even more relevant today than it was seventy years ago. watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_aSowDUUaY 230810 ... raze burnt grass (2014) dir: ray wong here's proof that you don't need a bunch of fancy special effects to create an effective science fiction story. all you need is a compelling premise and actors who are believable enough to make you wonder what you might do if you were wearing their shoes. director ray wong was inspired to write the script when he was dating a woman who had a twin sister. the fear that he might not be able to tell the two of them apart led to deeper questions about cloning and how fine the line between curiosity and madness can be. watch: https://vimeo.com/83606636 231122 ... raze coda (2013) dir: alan holly another animated film about death that made me cry, and another example of the arbiter of the end being depicted not as a one-dimensional teeth-gnashing villain, but as someone who's simply doing their job. in a just world, things like this would be shown on television instead of whatever dreck they're serving up now. watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkA3sLyEWdU 231204 ... raze memorable (2019) dir: bruno collet stop-motion animation and cgi are seamlessly integrated to tell the tale of an aging painter's slow slide into dementia. not one to watch if you're depressed, then. but a powerful piece of art. it was nominated for an oscar. it didn't win. it should have. the film was inspired by the paintings of william utermohlen, whose self-portraits made after his alzheimer's diagnosis document his fading faculties to devastating effect. the only full-length version i can find with english subtitles is on the book of faces: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=999251773782640 there's also a making-of featurette: https://vimeo.com/341301799 231223 ... raze side effects (2002) dir: scott allen perry this might be first short film i ever caught from the beginning. i was listening to "mingus plays piano" late one night about twenty_years_ago, watching tv with the sound muted and the closed captions on, when this small slow burn of a story made me want to take off my headphones and pay attention to what was going on. if you can get me to put mingus on the back burner for a while, you know you're doing something right. it isn't the best of the shorts i've seen, but it's stayed with me. and anything with doug jones in it is always worth watching. i just wish i had something better than 240p video to offer. this is the only complete version of the film i can find online. watch: https://vimeo.com/2033478 240114 ... raze lost_and_found (2018) dir: bradley slabe from about the time i was thirteen until i was thirty-five, i couldn't cry. i would tear up once in a while when i heard jesse winchester sing "sham-a-ling-dong-ding" or saw a movie that really got to me. watching the closing scenes from "mrs. doubtfire" out of context the day robin williams' death was announced ... that was rough. but wet eyes and a sore heart were as close as i could get to weeping. the blame likely rests with my mother and stepfather for beating my insides to a pulp and shaming me for having feelings until even the thought of crying felt like some sort of sin. i spent my teenage years and most of my early adulthood doing what i could to find catharsis elsewhere, wondering if it would take the death of someone i loved before i had access to those emotions that were always just beyond my reach. you know what finally broke me open? this short film. six years ago, i saw the thumbnail and thought, "oh, hey. i love stuffed animals. this should be cute and fun." by the time it was over, i was such a mess i couldn't speak. leave it to a crocheted dinosaur and fox to say things about love and sacrifice most people struggle to put into words. i have no trouble crying now. none at all. you've been warned. watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35i4zTky9pI 240301 what's it to you? who go blather from