Billed as “Fast Food for Your Eyes,” the LA Shorts Fest, September 16-13, is a gateway to 
possible Oscar nominations in the short film categories, featuring some of hollywood’s top stars.
The 150 documentary, animation and fiction shorts range from “A Conversation About Cheating With My Future Self” to “ZZZ.”
One subject on hand is the afterlife of rock stars: Lukas Korver’s documentary “Pass the Bucket” records Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam’s new career, funding and building skate parks.
Those who liked “Searching for Sugar Man,” about the return of a mysterious folk rocker, might want a look at Ben Steinbauer’s “Brute Force.” It charts the reemergence of that pseudonymous rock musician (born Stephen Friedland). Brute Force was once promoted by the Beatles themselves. As an underground tidbit, Apple Records in 1969 made an unreleasable 45RPM record of Force, containing a small armory’s worth of f-bombs.
On that subject: on Sept. 12 at 10pm, LA Shorts screens a series of adult-material films. The highlight seems to be “The Op Shop” about three Australian grannies at a thrift shop who receive an unusual donation.
LA Shorts also has some star-power. Jake Gyllenhaal is a smooth serial killer in a video for the British band The Shoes, “Time to Dance.” Giovanni Ribisi is the lead in the Ridley Scott-produced sci-fi short by Luke Scott, “Loom,” about the downside of the synthetic meat industry. Vintage TV star Barry Bostwick and rising comic actress Lucy DeVito (she made a big impression in a small part in Sleepwalk With Me) team up in “Guess Whom” about a dangerous game between roommates.
And the much-maligned Shia LaBeouf takes the other end of the camera to direct his Cannes official selection “HowardCantour.com,” about a delusional film critic (Jim Gaffigan). Payback, certainly, since LaBeouf has been pitchforked a bit by critics in his time.
Kurt Miller and Greg Hamilton’s “The Movement: One Man Joins an Uprising” documents several people who have triumphed over their physical disabilities through skiing. It’s narrated both by Robert Redford and Warren Miller, a director that could be described as the only really successful independent filmmaker in history. (Miller is the ski-documentary pioneer who got in very early on the scheme of buying his own equipment and four-walling theaters.)
Some of the short films here even take on mainstream cinema’s preoccupation with the superhero. Phil Joanou’s “Dirty Laundry” has Thomas Jane recreating his role as The Punisher. “Item 47: A Marvel One Shot” was made as an addendum to The Avengers Blu-Ray disk. And the Finnish-short Dr Professor’s Thesis Of Evil, is a quick seminar with a bald-headed supervillain done in the style of Frank Miller’s The Spirit.
Tickets and schedules here (link to site.)
