- guardian.co.uk, Thursday February 1 2007 00.00 GMT
Sweet
Cybercinema serves up a super-sized helping of slushy, giggly small-screen romance every February without fail, because we know that our loyal viewership like a big hunk of online love for Valentine's Day. So pass me that adorable china-mug-stuffed-with-teddy-and-chocs, and let's get the cellophane off this year's selection. First up, we're smooching with gorgeously barmy short Sweet, starring the Mighty Boosh's Noel Fielding as Pete, whose girlfriend Poppy is dumpy, ginger, sex-mad - and completely imaginary. Which doesn't stop him cheating on her with the darkly pretty and very real Daisy. Caught between flesh and fantasy, which way will he jump? Director James Pilkington's wacky, slightly surreal comedy gives Fielding free rein for a lot of very enjoyably Booshian silliness. Featuring possibly the rudest sex you'll see on any screen this month, despite the fact that yes, he's copulating with thin air.
Marry Me
Busybody Ethan thinks he's proposing eternal happiness when he asks girlfriend Jen to marry him. But picturing a ghastly lifetime of pliant servitude, Jen decides to offer him eternal peace instead - with a little help from pills in his pasta, bathwater in his lungs and a breadknife in his vitals. Randy Slavin's bubbly New York black comedy manages to be tense and hilarious all at once, thanks to its quick, slick edits and nifty, merciless scripting. The ideal Valentine pick-me-up for the stifled sweetheart or the recently dumped, since the only hearts you'll see here are spraying arterial blood around.
Klay Valentines
"He called me 'beautiful' and that made me feel special." Valentine's Day has brought strife rather than sweetness to Klay World's animated tabletop trio of blobby little blue men, and there's a tug-of-love going on. Will Andrew desert Tom or will Dead Klay Guy carry the day with his invisible chocolates? Robert 'Knox' Benfer's whimsical, wisecracking klaymation series has become a roaring YouTube cult, and this episode's sweetly addictive mix of meaningless conversations and bizarre acts of self-harm will have you hooked long before the one-minute mark.
Nine and a Half Minutes
Filmed a few years before the advent of his cocked-eyebrow acting and Doctor Who action figures, David Tennant brings a callow, self-deprecating charm to this smart London romance, in which a couple of busy, love-shy yuppies spice up a blind date by using it to fantasise an entire relationship. Before the lights are down in the cinema they're at fourth base, and by coffee she's accusing him of sleeping with her best friend. Are fast-forward relationships the new speed dating? Or have they missed a trick? Josh Appignanesi went on to make the artily intense feature Song of Songs, and he and co-director Misha Manson-Smith deftly undercut their film's playful cynicism with a surprisingly poignant note or two.
Generation Love
What do ordinary British people of all ages think about love? In this rare example of an animated documentary, filmmaker Vessu wraps a gloriously various selection of vox pops in naïve school-exercise-book animation, to teach us that love is everything from "the chocolate in a chocolate cake" to "something like the weather, great one day, rubbish the next". Cybercinema's favourite respondent was 19-year-old Mark who cheerfully attests that it's all about attraction since "who wants to be loving a MOOSE?" It's got that Creature Comforts thing going on, that artful dissonance between voice and image that makes you sit up and take notice of what's said.
Enchanted
If you think that black-and-white silent movies are strictly for the NFT antique-celluloid-and-sandals brigade, Christian Ditter's wordless contemporary love story, composed in gorgeous greys and evocative glances, is here to change your mind. When a shy father-of-two finds himself tongue-tied in front of the woman he's been too shy to approach, a little voodoo magic from his children's doll sends him spinning into her orbit. Ravishing high-end cinematography, combined with lead actor Manuel Klein's astonished, eye-popping contortions, gives this spooky short a glossy, classic Hollywood feel.
Cupid's Adventure
Those of you who are smugly paired off this February 14 will doubtless enjoy spreading your lurve around by playing Cupid in this compellingly kitsch and sugary Newgrounds game. Using the arrow controls, you wheel around passing couples, sinking your magic arrows into them before the imps, your frisky rivals, can break them up. There's even a two-player mode, for the couple that believe you've got to play together to stay together. But for the lovelorn among you, we've lighted upon My Black Valentine, the perfect release for that all that pent-up emotion. Spin the wheel to choose your target from a whirl of pretty bouquets, bath salts, chocolate fondues and cuddly toys. Then send a high-velocity bullet through it, in live-action and full colour. Very, very unwholesome, and strangely satisfying, all at once.
