#61: "freaky place to visit"
Welcome to issue #61 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU. It’s a festive time of year! Soon there will be children loose in the city streets collecting their treats, the ravenous little munchkins, and that means it’s time for festive seasonal hijinks!
Okay, that’s enough festive seasonal hijinks. I think we can get started now!
Scottovision
“Just Right” (2023) - The director, writer, and star of this short film, Camille Wormser, delivers the brief tale of a woman with obsessive-compulsive disorder who simply wants to go out with friends, but self-imposed complications threaten to overwhelm her. Wormser has OCD herself and wanted to defy stereotypical portrayals by depicting the situation with levity, and she thoroughly succeeds; indeed, her comic timing in the lead role is a masterclass. The film premiered at Slamdance.
“Magic Ring” (2022) - From the official description: “Slipping between planes of consciousness and existence, an armed pursuit in Brooklyn results in a series of out-of-body experiences.” Writer/director Alex Ashe unpacks and expands the realm of a man’s dying moments, giving space to supernatural encounters and ephemeral memories that coexist before his eyes.
“DOG-E” (2020) - The strange fusion of man and canine known only as DOG-E has an addiction to ordering from Amazon, bringing him to the attention of dark forces. Eventually DOG-E is summoned through a portal in an Amazon locker to an audience deep within the massive and unearthly Amazon warehouse supreme, an Amazon warehouse that encompasses all other Amazon warehouses and yet itself stands alone as the - wait for it - Prime warehouse. (Easily amused, that’s me.) Created by Milton Melvin Croissant III for Adult Swim’s Smalls series of short films.
“Big Hands Oh Big Hands, Let It Be Bigger And Bigger” (2012) - In a factory where all the workers have comically big hands, a boy with ordinary hands is nothing but a nuisance. (Set aside the question of why this boy wants to work in a factory instead of play in a playground.) But when calamity strikes their town, the boy comes to the rescue. This animated short film from Lei Lei is the definition of whimsical, a stylized spray of absurdist colors and sentiments. Bonus vid: check out Lei’s “Magic Cube and Ping Pong,” set in a town where everyone has a Rubik’s cube for a head.
“Yeah The Boys” (2024) - Seems like a simple enough premise for a short film: “Yeah the Boys follows six young Australian men as they sink beers over an afternoon and well into the night.” But the scene unfolds via choreography by Vanessa Marian that is raucous and lovely at the same time. It’s almost a blend of dance and fight choreo, communicating through intense physicality the bond these individuals share as they churn through hours in the backyard together, alternately taunting and supporting each other, releasing or at minimum ignoring the pressures of daily life in favor of a keen drunkenness. Directed by Stefan Hunt, this film’s been a festival hit this year and for good reason. Oh and I almost forgot to mention: the dynamic original score is by The Avalanches.
“Craig’s Pathetic Freakout” (2020) - When Craig smokes pot, he sees through to the underlying nature of reality, which in his case is being trapped in a short film by Graham Parkes, in this short film by Graham Parkes. (Stay in school, kids!)
“I Decided To Leave” (2016) - In this short animated fairy tale, a man’s quest for meaning produces a variety of possible outcomes in his life, all of which seem to unfold simultaneously. The juxtaposition of his work life with his ambitious fantasy lives is clever and a bit stark; we’re never quite sure if the man is holding it together. Narrated with dry understatement by Tim Key, directed by Dan Britt.
“AUGURE: Infinite Trolling” (2024) - This 17-minute tour de force is a whirlwind mega-music video, announcing itself as a celebration of the album listening experience and then proceeding to deconstruct that experience into a rapid-fire series of snippets, any one of which could be its own standalone video given the chance. The experience compresses four complete soundtrack albums into its limited running time, as it follows four central characters through a myriad of segments shot on location in the Congo, some reminiscent of TikToks, others (most, actually) full cinematic slices of surreal life in charged emotional environments. Written & directed by Belgian rapper & singer Baloji.
“The Body Is Art” (2024) - Singer/dancer FKA twigs has begun the promotional push for her new album, Eusexua, due out in January. She recently previewed a good chunk of the album via this dance performance / concert appearance during London Fashion Week that organizers indicated was meant to “celebrate the beauty of our bodies in motion.” Twigs apparently dropped this definition of “Eusexua” to her fans on Discord: “a state of being. a feeling of momentary transcendence often evoked by art, music, sex, and unity. eusexua can be followed by a surge of bliss and feelings of limitless possibility. also used to refer to: the pinnacle of human experience.” So yeah, that all sounds pretty good.
“Metachaos” (2011) - And finally, we revisit a recommendation I made in my one (and only) list of horror-themed recos all the way back in issue #3. I like to characterize this animated short film by Alessandro Bavari as footage from the security cameras on an undocumented maintenance level of hell. Not the flashy and weird hell of a Jack Chick tract, but rather like a deep level of the Backrooms where thousands of incomprehensible entities congregate in their spare time. Freaky place to visit, wouldn’t wanna live there.
Exit Music
Sending you out this issue with an upbeat, mostly indie/alt.pop focused mixtape I made earlier this year for a friend who was familiar with virtually none of the featured artists. It’s called the Open Your Eyes Mix, named after a School of Seven Bells song in the mix; you’ll also hear Magdalena Bay, The Bird And The Bee, Christine and the Queens, Shygirl, Rina Sawayama, and over a dozen others.
Here's the YouTube playlist with this issue's recos. Please enjoy responsibly.
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
Scotto
