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Abridged and amazing:
nine short films to love

Kate Williams
Sonoma Valley Sun

Film shorts are to cinema as the short story is to literature. Both distill and concentrate, cutting away the fat to deliver the goods in a dense and focused dosage that, when properly administered, has twice the potency of their more long-winded cousins, the feature-length film and the novel. In a well-made short, the viewer experiences the same range of emotion inspired by a feature-length film, but instead of having 90 minutes to get you to that place of epiphany or wonder or delight, short film producers do it in 10 minutes. Or 15. Or even less than two.
This year’s crop of short films featured at the Sonoma Valley Film Festival run the gamut on subject matter, from the nefarious machinations of Big Tobacco to the humdrum drudgery of the work-a-day grind, but they share a particular flavor, a certain quirkiness that inspires both consternation and delight.
“These little films are bleeding-edge, offbeat and original, perfect for the Lounge,” explains festival marketing director Greg Hittelman. “They’re ultra-indie, low-budget films that wound up being wonderful.”
Mia’s Lounge attracts precisely this sort of film by design. It’s where you’ll see “The Ten,” this year’s hilariously blasphemous bad-boy movie. Mia’s Lounge is the film festival’s tattooed little brother, the one with the cigarette and tight jeans who shows up buzzed for Easter dinner at grandma’s. On Saturday morning at 10 and again Sunday at 3, it’s where you’ll be floored by nine little movies a bit too raw for the Festival’s more upscale venues. And it’ll only cost you a 10 spot.
“Harry” is a movie about a man with too little. Hair. His whole purpose is to rectify nature’s joke, one he frankly doesn’t find funny at all. Our chrome-domed hero runs us all over San Francisco in search of the perfect clump of dead protein, the wig that will rehabilitate his life. We follow feeling gratefully amused that such a silly problem could actually divert us from our own, even for only 10 minutes.
In “Phillip Norris, Quitter”, we watch regular-looking people savor their cigarettes as the friendly voice-over offers excellent advice for healthy living, including “quit as often as you can.” The ending serves up a “Brokeback Mountain” meets propaganda moment that will make you laugh out loud.
“The Ghost of Sam Peckinpah” is claymation like you haven’t seen it before. Forget the crisp, clean lines of Gumby and Pokey, these characters look like kindergarten crafts and sound just as funny, too. On their way to “putting the capitol W back in Western,” our wanna-be Hollywood writer-cowboy-protagonist disses action-film heroes like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Vin Diesel, who cameo in lumpy parody.
“Replica” stars Sun colleague Daedalus Howell, who mimes a worker bee manning the night shift at a local copy shop with aplomb. He and his drone buddies drag themselves through another thrilling night photocopying “urgent” materials, blending the mundane with the fantastic throughout. Cross-pollinating the real world with an imaginary one, “Replica” inspires introspection with the daring suggestion that contact with things we don’t like should lead to aspiration for change.
In “Break-up Bob” we meet an entrepreneur who’s willing to deliver your bad news for you, for a price. If you’ve ever been on the wrong side of the table for the “it’s not you, it’s me” talk, this little film will resonate.
In the world of film, shorts are a bit like the ugly sister. Hidden in the shadow of the pretty sister’s klieg-lit life, alone and ignored, but often the more interesting of the two. At the Sonoma Valley Film Festival this year, the shorts program at Mia’s Lounge is a sure bet.
Nine films. Ten bucks. What more do you want?

The Lounge Shorts Program plays at 10 a.m., Saturday, April 14 and 3 p.m., Sunday April 15 at Mia’s Lounge, located at Andrews Hall at the Sonoma Community Center, 276 E. Napa St., Sonoma. Tickets are $10 at the door, or passes can be purchased at sonomafilmfest.org or by calling 707.933.2600.

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