Fantastic Short Film Friday - Arm

And we are back with another installment in our Fantastic Short Film Friday series, as we continue to showcase films released in the "lesser" known form of cinema- the short film.

As I mentioned in my last post, it's Oscar time and my favorite part of Oscar time is seeing which short films get nominated. However unlike last year, it's almost impossible to see the current nominated crop. Unless you went to the film festivals these shorts played at, chances are you missed out on your opportunity to see them (since many aren't online). This makes me sad because by the time they're finally released on dvd (1, 2, even 5 years after) most will have forgotten all about them. So yeah, these Oscar nominated short films, not many people get the chance to watch them. However The Sundance film festival have given short film lovers the chance to see the shorts that are being nominated for their festival awards. So I wanted to take the time and share the love. The first of the bunch I'll be taking a look at is a 9-minute screwball comedy called, Arm from filmmakers, Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos, Jessie Ennis. I found this funny in a slight kind of way, a very British comedy of happenstance and manners about the prevalence of technology and how it's taken over our relationships in every facet.

Here's the synopsis from Sundance:

To keep up with social pressure in a technological world, Chance starts a texting relationship with Genevieve. But tragedy forces Chance to realize that he was never in a relationship at all.
Now I can't embed it here since you can only watch the full short at Sundance's short film site on yahoo, but lucky for all of us its free! Check the film out here.

It's a modest short with some wonderful teenage acting that has some real high moments when you're watching it, but will quickly fade from your mind when done. However that doesn't mean that there's no substance here, no real charm. Chance feels like how I feel at times in this modern tech driven world, this tech first based human interaction - alone, confused and lost (shh, don't tell anyone that I'm a technical project manager for a major record label). I don't get it sometimes. I get the fact how sites like Facebook, Twitter and texting have changed our lives. What I don't get is why people place such importance on such forms of communication. But I'm an old man so there is that - turn off the rock and roll whatchamacallit you whippersnappers.

Check this out if you or someone you know fuels their days living mostly in cyberspace. Check this out if you remember young love, but want to see what it means in our modern age (it's scary). Enjoy this weeks dose of short form goodness in, Arm.