The Great Oscar Baiter

A couple weeks ago we took a look at Grasshoppers , a short which condensed the history of the world into a pretty cynical ten minutes. In that post I mentioned that today’s short, History of the World in Three Minutes Flat , is a better (and, obviously, shorter) take on the same subject. And that’s certainly true. But is it much better? Well no. But let’s look at it anyway. (via Film Affinity) Released in the far flung year of 1980, Michael Mills' History of the World in Three Minutes Flat is another fairly obscure short for us. In spite of all the awards it received (including the presumably coveted Short Film Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival), there really isn't a lot of information or critical writing on this short available online. As such, I once again find myself in the unique positions of quite possibly writing the most detailed piece of criticism on a film and potentially writing a piece that will take longer to read than it will to watch the mo...

David Cronenberg’s 1986 film The Fly is, to my mind, one of the finest horror movies ever made, a disturbing and strangely romantic tragedy about the dangers of hubris and insecurity. The film even managed to score an Oscar for Best Makeup, proving that sometimes they give that award to good movies too. Absolutely none of this has anything to do with today’s film, which was released six years earlier and directed by Hungarian animator Ferenc Rofusz. I just wanted you guys to know I like cool horror movies as well as cartoons. But hey, the 1980 The Fly won an Oscar too, so I guess there’s a connection after all! (via IMDb) The Fly is a rather difficult short to talk about. Unlike a lot of shorts we've looked at, it's not really story driven. It's just three minutes in the life of a fly, told from the point of view of a fly. How does one judge a short like that? I often try to use the criterion of, "Does this film accomplish what it set out to do?" And in this ca...