DRIPPED - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canadian Film Centre Worldwide Short Film Festival 2012 (Toronto) - Opening Night Gala: Award Winners From Around The World

Dripped (2010) dir. Léo Verrier
RATING:***
Review By Greg Klymkiw
L'équation de Klymkiw: French Movie + Whimsy + Jackson Pollock Tribute = Good Intentions & Mild Entertainment Value. Superb craft is on display in this not-so-sickeningly whimsical animated short and a pretty cool idea to boot. An art thief blessed with a unique gift involving two of my favourite things - ingestion and regurgitation - scurries about Gay Par-ee in the 1950s plying his trade in a most unique and genuinely surprising way. It's basically a one-note joke with a decent punchline, but thematically it has a couple of layers and offers eye candy, a morsel of food for thought and a few decent laughs. Winner of Best Animated Short, Sitges, Special Prize, Krok IAFF

Canadian Film Centre Worldwide Short Film Festival - Toronto
OPENING GALA: AWARD WINNERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Bloor Hot Docs Cinema: Tuesday June 5, 7:00 pm
Bloor Hot Docs Cinema: Sunday June 10, 9:30 pm
Tickets and Info: HERE

LUMINARIS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canadian Film Centre Worldwide Short Film Festival 2012 (Toronto) - Opening Night Gala: Award Winners From Around The World

Luminaris (2011) dir. Juan Pablo Zaramella
RATING:**1/2
Review By Greg Klymkiw

L'équation de Klymkiw: Magic Realism + Whimsy = (for this fella) Explusion of Bile (though, for many others, delight).
The craft (I hesitate to use the word "artistry") in this digitally animated short is undeniable. This annoyingly predictable tale of a creative soul and his babe-o-licious co-worker hemmed into a dehumanized cubicle is, like most whimsical magical realism, sickeningly jaunty. The couple, along with hundreds of other toilers in an environment that inspires homogeneity rather than imagination, eventually break free of the shackles of bureaucratic efficiency in order to create a light from within that offers both freedom and love. King Vidor, frankly, wrote the book on cubicle-styled dehumanization in his masterpiece The Crowd - with, thankfully, NO whimsy. Vidor did his thing in 1928. It's dark and cool - even to this day. That said, if you're easily dazzled by eye-candy, but precious little else, you'll greedily gobble Luminaris up. The rest of us can regurgitate it after the initial ingestion and/or file under "forgettable". Winner of the Annecy 2011 - Audience Award & Fipresci Award, Special Jury Prize - Seoul Int. Cartoon and Animation Fest

Canadian Film Centre Worldwide Short Film Festival - Toronto
OPENING GALA: AWARD WINNERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Bloor Hot Docs Cinema: Tuesday June 5, 7:00 pm
Bloor Hot Docs Cinema: Sunday June 10, 9:30 pm
Tickets and Info: HERE