Celebrity Shorts

“What I’ve always wanted to do is direct.” More cringe­worthy words have never been uttered, when it comes to Hollywood stars wanting to switch sides of the camera. But is that fair? Lots of actors have gone on to respect­able careers as dir­ectors (Clint Eastwood and Ron Howard to name just two, though I’m not a fan of either). So here are six shorts: vanity pro­jects or first forays into a new career? I’ll let you know.

• Glock (12 minutes, USA, Director: Tom Everett Scott): Written, dir­ected by and star­ring Tom Everett Scott, this is a harm­less bit of fun con­cerning a newly-trained spy who waits for his phone to ring with secret mis­sions. Extremely broad humour and a standard short film “punch line” ending. (7/10)
• Eve (22 minutes, USA, Director: Natalie Portman): Olivia Thirlby plays a young woman vis­iting her grand­mother (Lauren Bacall) who drags her along on a date with a wid­ower (Ben Gazzara). The younger woman is eager to dis­cuss her mother Eve but the older woman avoids the sub­ject. There’s some indic­a­tion that Eve is troubled. I thought Bacall brought a real sense of grav­itas to the pro­ceed­ings, even as her char­acter rather shal­lowly pur­sues Gazzara for his money. Thirlby was also strong as a ser­ious young woman looking for some answers. Portman was wise to keep the story small and tightly-focussed, and her dir­ec­tion is any­thing but showy. Sufjan Stevens’ piano score added another layer of class. (8/10)
• Monday Before Thanksgiving (19 minutes, USA, Director: Courteney Cox): Filled with the worst sort of clichés and plot con­triv­ances, including some wisdom-spouting voi­ceover at both begin­ning and end. A truly bad script, too, about being happy and single or some­thing. Sad to see Laura Dern in this sort of dreck. (5/10)
• One Of Those Days (14 minutes, UK, Director: Hattie Dalton): Derek Jacobi’s per­form­ance lifts this rather shop­worn sub­ject matter, playing a man who finds him­self and his wife caught up in some bur­eau­cratic bungling on Judgement Day. Slickly shot, though not ter­ribly ori­ginal. (7/10)
• The Spleenectomy (12 minutes, USA, Director: Kirsten Smith): Similarly, Anna Faris rises above some mediocre material, playing twin sis­ters, one a scattered and unsuc­cessful com­munity theatre act­ress, and the other a prim sur­geon. Of course, there’s a case of mis­taken iden­tity. And a pre­co­cious cute son with glasses. Meh. (6/10)
• Sparks (24 minutes, USA, Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt): Based on a short story by Elmore Leonard, Sparks is the most overtly showy of the films I saw tonight. Gordon-Levitt takes a risk with some of his tricks but I thought he mostly suc­ceeded. Eric Stoltz plays an insur­ance invest­ig­ator trying to determine if Carla Gugino’s char­acter burned down her own house. The noirish plot and dia­logue are con­trasted with some jar­ring editing decisions and oddly arti­fi­cial props and sets. Beginning and ending with scenes of Gugino singing with a rock band added some great energy. (Director’s site) (8/10)

In my research, I dis­covered that both Monday Before Thanksgiving and The Spleenectomy were part of Glamour Reel Moments, a com­pet­i­tion run­ning annu­ally since 2005, sponsored by Glamour magazine and Suave shampoo! Each film was appar­ently “inspired” by an idea sub­mitted by a Glamour reader. Another film from this year’s edi­tion, Streak was dir­ected by Demi Moore and starred her daughter Rumer Willis. Initially, I wondered why that one didn’t make it into this pro­gramme, but seeing as the two Glamour-sponsored films were my least favourite, I’m not really bothered to track down Demi’s effort now.

Tagged as: #wsff09, shorts, worldwideshortfilmfest