Alma
Red House Painters – Song For A Blue Guitar
The Cask of Amontillado
To mark the bicentennial of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe: January 19th, 2009; this adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s dark and twisted tale of vengeance… Produced and directed by Mario Cavalli.
Requiescat in pace.
Watch it. (Flash Video)
Dix
Dark, harrowing short film showing the complexities of psychological and obsessive behavior.
Directed by BIF. Visual effects: The Mill.
Watch Dix. (Flash Video)
via Ehrensenf
Mamá
Two young sisters do everything they can to avoid confronting their mother, who seems to be visiting from a strange — and very scary –- planet in a different universe than the one they inhabit.
A short movie directed by Andy Muschietti and produced by Barbara Muschietti, soon(?) to be made into a feature film.
Watch it. (Flash Video) [Thanks, T.]
Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island trailer
This is unlike anything Scorsese has done before. Watch the trailer here.
Forgotten Places
Forgotten Places from ?Zac Boyet?.
A textbook for future horror film set designers.
Love Hurts
A horror film that can scare you straight.
Ida’s Luck
Beautifully storytelling of a little girl with dark eyes and mysterious powers.
Part one & two. More Skary. (thanks T. Storm)
The Look
A lot of interesting choices in writing, pacing and acting.
Best Online Videos for 2008
We have posted some wonderful stuff this year, our annual best-of list gives us a chance to celebrate some of them. Dek has a great round up of his favorites. Also, our 2006, 2007 lists.
Shorts
Best Short: Glory at Sea – A 25 minute tour de force that uses a contemporary tragedy (Katrina disaster) to create a powerful myth that seems as old as the hills.
Special Mentions:
Best Stop Motion: Illuminant – To experience this on a big screen like I did at Carrboro Film Festival was incredible.
We posted quite a few innovative stop-motion video including Lucia & Adjustment
Best Short Doc: Bullet Proof Vest
Best Hidden Product Placement: The Ramp
Best Acting in Shorts: R.L. Jackson & Tori Lee in Remember When
Best Abstract film: Pencil Face
Also:
Special mentions for Animations:
Web
Best Web Video: Dr. Horrible – It is nice to see big name talent doing web content. It certainly lived up to the hype. Hopefully, this is a sign of good things to come.
Special mentions:
- The Guild
- Goodie Bag
- West Side (nothing since June)
- Rhett & Link
- Epic Fu
Music Video
Best Music video: Fleet Foxes: White Winter Hymnal – After a year full of shocking videos, especially in content, the one video that haunted me was Sean Pecknold’s animated classic. Simple in style, resonant story and a great fuckin’ song.
Sexiest Music Video of the year: Toe Jam
Special mentions Music videos:
- How much of a woman
- Damien Jurado – Caskets
- Bjork – Wanderlust
- MGMT – Time to Pretend
- The New Pornographers – Myriad Harbour
Commercials
Best Commercial: JC Penney: Aviator – Also the cutest video of the year. The direction is pitch perfect.
- Carrboro Film Festival (it is good to love one’s own work)
- Zürich Chamber Orchestra
Other awards
Best Interview of the Year: Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin – Unintentionally hilarious that changed the course of the presidential elections.
Best Parody: SNL’s version of Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin – Saturday Night Live came back with a bang. Even more wicked than the original.
Best Online Radio: This American Life: Super
Note: Some of these videos were not released in 2008, they are included here because this is when we discovered them.
All Apologies
Hilarious little short by Marc Milstein about the excessive amount of apologies in social interactions. The lead actors (Michael Capes & Jason Shipman) are simply awesome. Get them a show already!
Dr. Horrible
Josh Whedon, writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, directs this videoblog/show starring Neil Patrick Harris. Be a little patient because it picks up from its slow start wonderfully. A clever tale with ample amounts of wit.
Watch it – download it on iTunes.
This is an incredibly successful internet phenomenon (making it to the Time’s Best Inventions of 2008!!). A couple of thoughts:
- Length. People keep saying the shorter is better online. This has been true but the internet is evolving and with it the perception that the internet is some sort of distraction from other forms of media will change. I can’t wait, very promising for storytellers.
- Whedon said it was a small budget with the budget in the low six figure amount. Yes, I am with you when you say “that is a small budget”. But this is clearly an investment. This video series will be a full fledged something. This is just the beginning.
- I hadn’t heard about it till the Time’s article. But Googling the show, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that this is megahit. Whedon is quoted as saying as getting a thousand hits in a second in this USA Today article. What is amazing to me is that I hadn’t seen it earlier. I maintain this blog about online video, I spend (too much) time looking for online video content and yet this thing lives successfully outside of my world, my blogs, the places I visit for almost 5 months. Incredible. Shows you the size of the internet and how small you really are.
- Musicals do great online. I was talking to Rhett & Link about their incredible videoblog (more about them later) and they were saying their most popular videos end up being their music videos.
The fine art of poisoning
A delicate and lovely dense macabre exploring one of the darkest of human aberrant notions: how easy it would be to poison a person. Domonkos masterfully mixes old and macabre footage providing a gentle chill to the complacent. Is that a real photo of a corpse mixed in with his lovely animation? The thought is there for those who choose to think it.
Watch it. (Quicktime)
More Bill Domonkos at Lumen Eclipse as well as at his place.
Les dents de la nuit
And here’s a different take on vampires and movie titles.
The sequence was lovely crafted at Deubal, while the movie is the debut feature of Stephen Cafiero and Vincent Lobelle AKA Les Elvis.
Watch. (MPEG-4)
Download. (Huge MOV)
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