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Spotlight on Shorts: From the Future With Love

Let’s be honest, economics isn’t the sexiest topic of discussion, yet if listen to the talking heads from both sides of the right/left political spectrum, you’ll find most of them spend a good amount of time dedicated to the subject. Since most films focus not only on delivering a message, but making it entertaining as well, it’s hard to find a movie that attempts to thematically present the implications economic systems have on society. K-Michel Parandi’s “From the Future With Love” is one of the few short films that manage to address this without getting bogged down with the specifics.

At first watch, you’ll notice that “From the Future With Love” is treading on familiar territory. Films like Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop are also placed in a future where corporations have invested in policing the world. Just as in Robocop, “From the Future With Love” suggests that problems will inevitably arise when the corporate priority of increasing profit margins meets the societal need for security.

In the future presented in “From the Future With Love”, there are various corporate-run policing outfits which all claim different territories. Each provide different packages, much like insurance packages, that ensure varying levels of security. Their jurisdiction stretches as far as their client base reaches similar to telecommunication providers. What we begin to witness is the negative effects this has on people’s security, as those who don’t have the financial means are only allowed a certain level of police involvement and are subject to a bevy of lesser crimes. To add to that, the inherent competitiveness of Capitalism reaches violent proportions as different police outfits begin to fight over territories.

From a filmmaking perspective, “From the Future With Love” uses some interesting storytelling techniques. Much like how Robocop integrated advertisements throughout the film to stress how every aspect of the future had become increasingly commercialized, “From the Future With Love” features its own commercial outlining the technology and packages the police now offer.

Visually “From the Future With Love” is impressive. A lot of detail went into the cosplaying of this film. The police are decked out in black and white armor, similar to a Stormtrooper, but with added red and blue flashing lights as decoration. It’s like the merging of officer and squad car, all in one. Furthermore, each unit is outfitted with their own drone sentry, foreshadowing the result of our drone programs.

The CG also pays a good amount of attention to detail. In one scene you can see an officer take aim at a mechanized dog. Through his visor, you can see a target reticule mirroring precisely where the officer is aiming. All this adds to the ever-important “cool factor” that sci-fi films are known for.

Spotlight on Shorts: Preferably Blue

“Preferably Blue” is a nice little animated short out of New Zealand and is directed by Alan Dickson. It’s a dark comedy that is told in the same vein as “Twas a Night Before Christmas”. In it the Easter Bunny has hit rock bottom. Things are so bad that he’s taken to drinking and is dependent on anti-depressants. He comes to the realization that the cause of his depression is stems from children’s love of Christmas over Easter. This turns the bunny into a Scrooge of sorts and he devises a plot to kill Santa Clause and take his magical sack. What results is an adult version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

“Preferably Blue” manages to just toe the line between adult humor and children’s fairy tale just enough to keep both intact without corrupting the other. I’m not saying that you should gather the kids around the computer screen and roast chestnuts to it, but those of you that grew up with the old Rankin/Bass TV specials. Although it’s CG animated, you will immediately see where “Preferably Blue’s” inspirations come from. “Preferably Blue” manages to keep of some of the innocence intact by delivering a lot of its humor through double entendre. After a while of viewing the film, you can’t help but begin to laugh at lines like “Santa’s sack”. Sure, you may think the humor is somewhat sophomoric, but get too clever and you begin to lose the childish magic commonly associated with Christmas tales. Also, by keeping it light-hearted, it allows the audience member not to take darker themes like murder and loss too seriously.

Much like The Grinch, “Preferably Blue” stays true to the message of so many Christmas tales, that the holidays are a time for sharing, forgiveness and helping one’s neighbor. It is a set of beliefs so common, especially in Western Culture, it’s impossible to imagine a holiday story that doesn’t end by celebrating these festive principles. Even films like Bad Santa end with the anti-hero ultimately surrendering to lure of the Christmas Spirit. This seems to be the one unifying trait that separates holiday movies from all the rest. Although predictable, it’s become a standard, like weddings at the end of a Shakespearean comedy. This is not a criticism of holiday movies by any means. Holiday movies distinguish themselves from other cinematic fare in another important way; they’re rarely viewed outside of the holidays. With that in mind, Christmas and other holiday movies seem to play a very important role in moviegoers lives, to get them to share in the Holiday spirit.