The 4th Short Film Hall of Fame

I have the first two left to go and I'll be sending in my list.

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I was watching A Dog's Life via the provided youtube link, however the original score was removed from the video due to a copyright dispute, and while I thought the music the uploader substituted would suffice, I discovered that it ends after just 10 minutes, and the rest of the film is truly silent.

I'm watching it on Dailymotion instead now. Though it's a couple of minutes shy of the youtube runtime, it does seem to have a full musical accompaniment. I think some people mentioned this earlier in the thread but I forgot all about it haha.

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A Dog's Life (1918)
Dir. Charlie Chaplin

While I hadn't previously seen A Dog's Life, I was aware of the film and how its commercial success was important to both the stability of Chaplin's studio, and to his foray into feature-length filmmaking. I had also read about how troublesome the dogs were to work with, which is something I couldn't help but think about every time one of them was on screen. Luckily it didn't distract me from the film too much, and I enjoyed the whole thing as expected.

I was strangely impressed with how quickly Chaplin ate whatever he was stealing from that food stall. His feigned innocence as the vendor looked around was probably my favourite part of the film. His gestures during the scene where he acts as the hands of the unconscious crook were simply memorizing to watch as well. I'm very glad this was nominated because it would've taken me ages to get around to seeing this on my own.

Dog's Life DOES have a lot of the magick and joy of Chaplin. A really great short!

I had a different reaction to the scene with the food vendor. I thought there was no way that the vendor couldn't have known what was happening because Chaplin was the only one who was close enough to the food, and the vendor had to notice that the food was disappearing. I wondered why the vendor didn't move the food to the back counter, so Chaplin couldn't reach it.

And in the scene with Chaplin acting as the hands of the crook, I wondered how the other crook didn't notice that his sleeves were too short, so the arms must have been someone's else's arms.

Maybe I read too much into these things sometimes?

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I thought he was trying to catch the Tramp in the act. The vendor never saw him take any of the food, but he was suspicious of the Tramp and the dog from the beginning. Without proof it's just one person's word against the other's. He starts to try really hard to catch the Tramp stealing food, but is just too slow. Is it realistic? No, but it's not really meant to be so it didn't bother me.

I assumed the other crook was already pretty drunk by that point. They were celebrating an insane score. The man they stole from apparently had enough money in his wallet to literally start a new life in the country after all. Now, on the American version of Whose Line is it Anyway? I always loved the "Helping Hands" bit (where Colin Mochrie acted as the hands for Ryan Stiles), so I probably have a bit of bias for that gag haha.

I kept thinking of that one as well. Gene Wilder does a really great variation in Haunted Honeymoon where he uses a dead man's legs.

Coincidentally, I rewatched Haunted Honeymoon not that long ago.

I am glad that you liked it so much. And Mel Blanc is one of the voices in there. This was actually an MGM short.

You know what? I always thought that was deliberate. Why? So he could get people to think "Why would he put the spoon back in with the sugar?!". I guarantee you that there was someone sitting in the theater and watching that movie in 1921 asking that same question.


I have 12 of these to watch, I think. Are any of them no longer to be watched? I think they are still eligible, right? I was getting a little confused with the posts. I will get going with the rest of them tomorrow, and I plan to finish them by Thursday.

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I love "Whose Line is it Anyway?", but the "Helping Hands" bit is my least favorite part. It's always the same thing, just with different words and a different guest. It's just too predictable to be funny most of the time.

I didn't think it was deliberate. I just thought it was an oversight, but I guess you could be right.


As far as I know, they're all still eligible. There was a question about Titu's noms for a while, but he replied that he's still in.

I only have 2 shorts left. Never Weaken, which I think I've actually seen at least part of before, and Mystery of the Leaping Fish. I imagine I'll have them watched before the start of the weekend.

At least we agree on that much haha.

I was trying to find an appropriate Whose Line? gif to add, but that somehow lead to watching clips of the show, which lead to watching even more clips of the show, and then I completely forgot what I was even looking for in the first place.

The Ventriloquist

I am not going to deny the fact that I don't like those things. I have had a very intense dislike for them since I was a kid because of that episode of The Twilight Zone. And wouldn't you know my brother owned a Charlie McCarthy?! It is all so creepy. Life was a little hard in the house sometimes with that kind of stuff laying around (or being shown on TV!). Anyway, nevertheless, I still liked the film. Felt kind of bad for Kevin Spacey's character, but at least that freaky thing is gone for him to finally grow up, I suppose. But where did he go? You see, it is kind of a horrible thought to think he is roaming somewhere.

Kind of like thinking about Mr. Marples (Seinfeld fans know what I mean) running around. Just terrible to me.


Envelope

I really liked this one, but this was a downer for me. There was some good humor and I liked the story. But in the end, I felt it was a little bit depressing. I think I may have liked it better than the first one that I watched, though.


The Cameraman's Revenge

I saw this quite awhile ago. I never had any intention of watching it again because I actually think it is kind of disgusting. But I watched it and I still had the same impression that I did the last time. The animation is really good. There really is some nice fluidity to the movements of the insects. Very human-like. I do get a kick out of the story. But I think the thing I like the best about it is the little movie screen that they are watching with the movie on it. It is a pretty good piece of film-making (even if using dead insects is disgusting to me ).

I was so terrified of that in The Twilight Zone when I was a kid, and if it was on TV, my brothers would deliberately call me into the room and make me watch it.

And if my brother's Charlie McCarthy would be out, I wouldn't go into the room. I wanted it nowhere near me. I can remember when it was stored in this one closet, and I was a little older, I would honestly walk past it with my hand covering my eyes. I still couldn't handle it. I was so happy when he took that thing with him when he moved.

Sorry, I had to watch it during dinner, and yeah, looking at dead cockroaches isn't all that appetizing, yuk.

Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor (2007)

Very Kafkaesque and to weird for my puny brain to grasp. I liked the animation style to a point, but the curvy giant head effect got old fast. On the hand I liked the way the rain looked almost 3-D and I liked the way the mist came out of the people as they talked in the cold.

Spider (2007)

Ha! This was well done. And damn it looked real too! I liked it and wished it had been a bit longer.

Ha! the title cards are speed up super fast that's for sure, just like Coke Ennyday when he injects himself. I could hardly read them. I'm thinking that was intentional. My favorite part was how he killed the bad guys by injecting them with a cocaine overdose, until they jumped up and down and went poof!

I've seen Never Weaken, but I plan to watch the last short film tomorrow morning, so I'll wait to post about it until then. I'm a bit tired now and don't have much to say anyway.

Has anyone been keeping track of how far along everyone is? I feel a bit behind in the 13th HoF, but think I might be ahead of most of the pack here. Also, is Dani definitely 100% out? I'm wondering if I should include Animal Beatbox and Bomb on the list I'll likely send tomorrow.

I watched a bunch more:

Animal Beatbox...very cute! and I don't usually use the c word. It was silly, fun.

Dust...I liked this one. A very intriguing take on an old tale. I'm surprised at how professional made some of these shorts are.

Feast... The dog was cute...ack the c word again! But I wasn't real captivated by it as it was repetitive. But still fun.

Flankers...This felt like a mini movie, it's impressive what they can do in the shorts. @Cosmic Runaway where was this filmed? I seen a Canadian flag but the accents sounded to me, like a combination of Irish and Welch.

The Ventriloquist...Kevin Spacey likeable in anything he does. He's a favorite actor and so it was good to see him here. He's so natural at interacting with the 'dummy'. At first this reminded me of Chuck and Bob from Soap, then it got more Twilight Zone. I liked the first part better. Good one.

Paperman...I really liked the animation style and the story idea too. I wasn't so much into the way they told the story I wanted more to happen, but still fun.

The House of Small Cubes...this is going to be one of my favorites in this Hof. I loved the world that this created, it was well thought out and interesting. I also liked the melancholy feeling this had.