Randy Newman turned his satiric song “Short People” into a music video that appeared on MTV in the early 80s.  Not just short people make films; many people make short films.  In essence, a music video is just a new form of the short film, many of which — including those by Randy Newman — have been made by both short and tall people.  The short film is also a forgotten art form that deserves a return to mass-market theaters.  

In the days before satellite and pod casting, the only place to see moving images was at a theater where not only feature length films were shown but a variety of news, information and entertainment films — with the majority being short.  Many a Clark Gable picture would be preceded by a newsreel, a cartoon, or a non-fiction short, which in today’s media milieu would be analogous to a piece on a TV magazine show like 20/20.  When the medium of television infiltrated American living rooms, the short film slowly faded away as a theatrical presentation, turning into an Oscar category that pool players dread each year.  

What many people may not know is that the short film is as challenging to make as any feature or more so, whether a narrative or documentary.  The advent of cable TV has allowed for some new venues to show some short films, such as The Sundance Channel and the Independent Film Channel, and shorts have become the darlings — and saviors — of film festivals around the world.  Shorts have also become calling cards for unrecognized filmmakers that enable them to show off their abilities, even if those are shortsighted.

Having just finished presiding over a short film showcase in my small town of Moorpark, California, I have been reassured that our youth is still interested in making short films and are doing so in droves.  Of course, with technology making it easier for even Aunt Mabel to make, edit, and distribute a digital film, all from the comfort of the den, there’s also a lot of garbage that should never have been burned to a DVD, let alone shown to the general public. But the cream always moves to the top, as they say.

And speaking of cream, the short film thrives in the form of activist propaganda pieces, and I don’t mean that in a negative sense.  The short film allows the individual filmmaker or one representing a group to get out a point of view in a concise, viewable, and entertaining manner.  Case in point is a 14-minute film made by award-winning filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards, Tiffany Shlain called Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness.  The smartly made film uses a humorous approach to advocate the issue of a woman’s right to choose.  The film was an official selection of the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and finally has its television debut on The Sundance Channel this month (see below for dates).  I’m all for independent, artistic freedom of expression and know a film can be enjoyed even if the viewer does not totally agree with its politics, but all I ask of filmmakers is that they entertain, as well as advocate.  Ms. Shlain achieves this wholeheartedly, and like the old Michael Moore on the feature front, uses the form intelligently and without boring us out of our minds.  Not to be short, but you better not miss this great example of length-challenged filmmaking.  

Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness airs on The Sundance Channel on October 26 at 7:15 p.m., October 29 at 7:45 p.m., and October 31 at 10:45 a.m., all times Eastern. Check the schedule for other times.

Rich Burlingham

When I was a kid during the 70s, the made-for-television film was in its infancy, having been developed by Barry Diller at ABC.  One of the earliest examples of a MOW (movie of the week) that was so popular, it spawned not only more MOWs but a series as well, was Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1972).  It was about a hack journalist Carl Kolchak who went about digging up the dirt on serial killers who often were of the paranormal variety, such as vampires, all while wearing a seersucker suit and straw hat — kind of like Harold Hill in a Wes Craven movie.  The series didn’t live up to the movies and Darren McGavin, who played Kolchak, himself closed the series down by asking out of his contract after 20 episodes because he saw the show was becoming a parody of itself.  Its legacy remains as the granddaddy of the genre that begat shows such as Twin Peaks and The X-Files decades after.

Now 30 years later, the powers at ABC looked to their vault for ideas since listening to any original stories must be too strenuous.  They resurrected The Night Stalker (Thursday, 9 p.m.), tapping producer Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files) to bring the series back from the dead.  From one who saw the original, the current The Night Stalker should not be borrowing the title because it resembles little from the original, a show that was adept at using humor to temper the more gruesome aspects, at least for 1970s audiences.  Through the genius of Darren McGavin’s melting skeptic performance, the show never took the paranormal and serial killer themes too seriously.  This new version axes the humor altogether and tries to sex it up with a hunk playing Kolchak (Stuart Townsend) and giving him a babe, Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union), as a new partner in covering crime.  After viewing the first few shows, it looks like Spotnitz is trying to rekindle that old Mulder-Scully, are-they-or-aren’t-they relationship that was strung out for years on The X-Files, but hopefully the Kolchak-Reed hook-up will be all business for quite some time.  It seems the network suits don’t think a Darren McGavin-type character would fly in today’s TV culture. His Kolchak was an almost comic throwback to the smarmy tabloid reporters of the 1950s; this Kolchak is a brooding, noted, maverick journalist with a crawl in his gut because the FBI thinks he killed his wife.  It is his quest to find out what or who really killed her.  Do I hear Mulder crying in the background?

I was all prepared not to like this incarnation of The Night Stalker, but after viewing the first three episodes, it has grown on me — and though I think they should have called it something else, I believe it deserves an audience.  It is more down-to-earth and real than The X-Files but still with shocks and twisty storylines to keep you watching.  I hope the relationship isn’t pushed between the two leads and they give more airtime to the supporting players, Jain (Eric Jungmann), the Jimmy Olsen-like photographer, and the newspaper editor Vincenzo (Cotter Smith).  Thursday is no “Must-See TV” anymore, but if you have nothing better to do, tune in to The Night Stalker for some small-screen thrills and chills.  If you were watching closely to the pilot, you may have seen Spotnitz’s homage to Darren McGavin as he digitally placed his Kolchak into a newsroom scene.  Nice touch.

The Night Stalker is worth a try.

Rich Burlingham

In the last hundred years of filmmaking, there have been different eras where a vast array of subjects, styles, approaches, and themes have been taken to new levels.  For instance, in the late 60s and early 70s, directors took on serious subjects and presented them in a very real, raw, and groundbreaking manner.  Films such as Midnight Cowboy, Five Easy Pieces and Carnal Knowledge exposed audiences to lifestyles and characters never before experienced.

Then came Jaws and Star Wars which brought on the blockbuster era of action and special effects, and the small film that took on real-world issues fell to the wayside.  During the 90s, the so-called independent movement took hold, fueled by an infusion of foreign cash and the desire by many filmmakers to take on serious subjects again which created an influx of films — some good, such as The Crying Game, and many not so good (you know who you are).  The “Indie” movement has cooled somewhat and now what you get are these small films that were good enough to win festival awards with great acting but stories that leave you empty.  That leads us to First Look Pictures’ Forty Shades of Blue, directed by Ira Sachs (The Delta), written by first-timer Michael Rohatyn and Ira Sachs, and starring Russian standout Dina Korzun, Rip Torn (Men in Black), and Darren Burrows (Ed in Northern Exposure).

Forty Shades of Blue is about a young Russian woman, Laura, who lives in Memphis (hometown of director Sachs) with a much older legendary music mogul, Alan James, and has a young son with him.  She’s the typical lonely trophy wife, beautiful and kept and expected to act accordingly.  Laura’s life would probably have continued without change if not for the intrusion of Alan’s estranged son from a previous marriage, Michael, who returns home to escape troubles with his wife.  Michael’s jealousy, anger, and resentment towards his father, fueled by an attraction to Laura, become the center of the film.  The story is simple, the characters are not, and that is what makes this Sundance Film Festival 2005 Grand Jury Prize winner worthy of viewing; but like some good Kung Pao chicken, it leaves you a little wanting by the end.  

I was mesmerized by the simple but affective performance by Dina Korzun, who really does show forty shades of blue (as well as other colors), but the script never allows her the full opportunity to win the audience over.  Much of the publicity has gone to Rip Torn for a part that many actors could have played stereotypically.  Torn, who has a long history of great stage and screen performances, brings a very three-dimensional depiction of a man who can have anything he wants and is adored by thousands but who can’t achieve the love and respect from those closest to him.  Darren Burrows brings the same understated performance that he gave to Ed Chigliak in Northern Exposure as the son who never achieved the same greatness as his father but has to fight all the same, inherited, bad traits.  Understatement can sometimes get in the way of great storytelling, and in this case, the key relationship between Laura and Michael becomes so under the wire that you end up not caring what the characters end up doing.  You just want to shake them into realizing that there are people with real problems in the world, and when you put them in perspective, their lives really aren’t that bad.  Forty Shades of Blue deserves a viewing, but unless you like dramatic films that drop you in the middle of character’s lives and then ends with just a splotch of enlightenment, then I’d wait for the DVD.
  

Forty Shades of Blue is now playing at Film Forum in New York and starts Friday, October 7 at the Landmark’s Nuart  in Los Angeles and nationally throughout October.

Rich Burlingham

The karma of creativity in TV land works in mysterious ways, thus the abundance of alien, psychic, and in-search-of shows to hit the networks beginning last season and continuing this fall.  If you’re the type of viewer who liked Twin Peaks and the X Files, then you’ll be a happy couch potato camper with shows such as Lost, Medium, Invasions, and Threshold invading the airwaves this season.  

The buzz is in abundance for the hit show Lost (Wednesday at 9 p.m., ABC), and with recent Emmy Award wins it is sure to keep up the momentum, at least for another season.  What Lost has going for it is a great cast and a nice blend of action, mystery, intrigue, and human drama.  The problem with shows that have a continuing mystery as part of the fabric of the show is the need to sustain a level of anxiousness while always revealing secrets to satisfy viewers and keep the storylines in perpetual motion.  The X Files was successful because it would pepper the central storyline of FBI agent Mulder’s search for evidence of his sister’s alien abduction with stand-alone episodes that explored other bizarre paranormal experiences while retaining the core human relationship between the leads.  Lost has such a large cast and so many storylines that it will be difficult to keep it going for multiple seasons without becoming a parody of itself or getting so “inside” (like Twin Peaks in its second season) that audiences get turned off and leave in droves.    

Another sophomore show is Medium (Monday at 10 p.m., NBC), starring Emmy-winner Patricia Arquette, that is half cop show, half family show and half paranormal show.  Aha, you say, that adds up to 150 percent.  You are correct and that’s the problem.  Medium  is very adept at depicting a middle American family; it has all the elements that make a cop show interesting; and it portrays the psychic ability of the main character in a believable manner, but those are too many things to pack into one show.  If they would drop one of the three — family, psychic, or cop procedural — then I think they’d have a decent series, but at this point, there isn’t enough of either to keep me coming back week after week.

Two alien invasion shows have landed dramatically this season, and both contain great casts, excellent production values, and mystery storylines.  The better of the two, Threshold (Friday  at 9 p.m., CBS), had a two-hour premier that instantly grabbed you as it introduced the members of a secret government cabal headed by the Deputy National Security Advisor, played by the accomplished Charles S. Dutton.  After a cargo ship appears to have been attacked by an alien craft, an elite group of specialists called The Red Team are brought together to check out the strange goings on.  Headed by the attractive Carla Gugino (Karen Sisco), portraying a worst-case-scenario expert whose worst case happens to be alien invasions, the group consists of individuals with a distinct expertise and personality that makes each character, and their interactions, very watchable, much in the vein of the Star Trek franchises.  

Speaking of Trek, the superb supporting cast has Brent Spiner (Data in ST: Next Generation) as a forensic microbiologist, Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) as a womanizing mathematician and linguist, Rob Benedict (Felicity) as an astronautical engineer, and the resident commando, Brian Van Holt (Black Hawk Down) who keeps them all out of harm’s way.  What I like so far about Threshold is that it seems proud of its intelligence and the way it portrays the science by only explaining things when needed and in a seamless, organic manner, much like the characters in ER banter medical jargon.  I hope that the series doesn’t pander to network executives wanting to sex things up and that they let the geeks of the world word-of-mouth it to success.  If not, it can have another life as a feature film (see Serenity).

The other alien show is Invasion (Wednesday at 10 p.m., ABC), where presumably aliens have infiltrated a small South Florida town after a large hurricane blows through.  It is Invasion of the Body Snatchers for the 21st century.  A lot of critics have been raving about this show, touting its high production values and superb cast, but the premier didn’t impress me, and succeeding episodes haven’t gotten much better.  They have successfully set up all the players and their dynamics, but I just wasn’t blown away.  I saw no signs that the show would explore any new territory in the aliens taking over the world storyline and certainly not better than how Threshold is tackling the premise.  Only time will tell if Invasion can keep the big lead it inherits from Lost.

Another new show that should be included with this group is The Night Stalker, a reimagination of the 70’s TV movies and show that started this whole genre.  Since it was a favorite of mine as a kid, I want to savor the new version over time and weigh in later on whether it lives up to its predecessor.

As they say, stay tuned.

Lost: Must See.  
Medium: Pass.  
Threshold: Must See.  
Invasion: Wait & See.

Rich Burlingham