EAR OF CORN SHORTS

The Ear of Corn Shorts was my favorite event of Cucalorus. Not only was it hosted by the great Andre Silva, the short films were all very unique and brilliant in their own way. Andre (not to suck up of anything) did a great job of choosing a spectacular group of shorts. Not only were the shorts very entertaining, but the venue set a good mood for an experimental film event. Jengo's Playhouse is a very small, intimate theater that gives off a vibe of the artistic aspect of film. It doesn't feel like a theater such as Lumina of even Mayfaire, it is unique in itself and provided a good festival atmosphere.

The movies that were showed during the Ear of Corn Shorts all related to landscape; wether is be a natural, urban, or digital landscape. The first film, Market Sentiments, was a rhythmic dance of property lines on a birds-eye-view of an area of land. The property lines divide the natural landscape to they varying rhythms of orchestra music. I found that as I was watching the film I was guessing where the lines might appear and lead to next. The rhythm of the music also dictated my predictions as my mind correlated the fast pace of the music with the fast pace of the lines.

One of my favorite shorts played during the block was CuteCuteCute. It is described as trying to take "instructional videos for kids, usually teaching the various sounds of animals or how to count up to 10 and changing the subject to more grown-up themes like abortion, child abuse etc." Although it was very disturbing, it was freak'n hilarious. My favorite parts of the film included: a cheery fetus being aborted singing, "if you can't care for me, maybe it's better to abort me," and when they showed the happy Nike shoe mascot dancing around with the subtitle "I give poor kids jobs," or a teddy bear dad with his hand down his child's pants claiming, "My parents support me." Each verse was ridiculously inappropriate but hilarious none the less. The crowd in Jengo's Playhouse was engulfed in laughter and often questioning the morals behind the film while laughing hysterically.

My favorite short of all was Autumnal by Scott Nyerges. The creative patterns that were created on the screen were mind blowing. I constantly questioned what methods he used to produce those images, but the only ones I could recognize were the film painting. The colors that were created were spectacular, as if he magically made rock crystals spew out a flow of florescent colors. If Scott didn't stay after for a Q&A I would have drove myself or Andre crazy with questions about the film. I didn't think he would reveal his secrets to us, but he did. He told us that the image that we were viewing were the chemical reactions taking place when he combined salt and ink. He zoomed the camera into the small reaction that was taking place to give it the appearance of a larger reaction. What was great about the Q&A was the fact that all the questions were coming from members of Andre's 6X1 class. All the shorts were almost equally fun to watch, and if it were up to me there would have been more in the block. It is amazing the variety and uniqueness of experimental films, and by watching them it opens your mind up to techniques and ideas that you may never have thought of.