- guardian.co.uk,
- Saturday December 01 2007 00:00 GMT
Where Have I Been All Your Life?
Gather round and toast your hands over our brazier of winter warmers, all sizzling short distractions from the dismal real-life landscape of dodgy donors, footie failures, and celebrity jungle smackdowns. First off, a cockle-warmer from the BBC Comedy Shorts scheme, in which nervous Liam doorsteps his unwitting biological father ("You've got a lovely lounge, Dad" - "It's a sitting room, actually") and sets off an explosive chain reaction in John and Angela's marriage. Director Jim Field Smith lets the engagingly tense confrontation scenes run and run, until even the furniture is squeaking with embarrassment. But watching Imelda Staunton, out of her Cranford corsets and letting rip as the rigid, frigid Angela, is worth the wait. It's not every day you see an Oscar-nominated actress yelping "Come here, you big ball of sex!" at a slob in a string vest.
Still Life
Chilly scenes of winter amp up the shiver quotient in this ingenious small-town sci-fi nightmare, as motorist Nathan finds himself out of petrol, and out of luck far into the snowy Canadian countryside. When a body slams into his windscreen, he's initially relieved to find that it's a mannequin. Until he sees that absolutely everyone else around here is a mannequin too. Jon Knautz's Twilight Zone-style chiller has a marvellously spooky stillness, punctuated with the sly sound effects and accusing sirens of the town's secret life, and capped with a gruesome twist that'll have you choking on your cocoa.
Quarterlife: Episode One
I reach for my revolver when I hear the phrase "Online video is the new TV". But this smart, funny and very well crafted new webisodic from Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskowitz (the thirtysomething and My So-Called Life guys) has pinged from life as a failed US TV pilot, to being rejigged in eight-minute episodes to create a buzzy MySpace show, to reincarnation at NBC as a TV show once more. Get into this angsty, twentysomething drama ASAP, so that you are fashionably au fait with artless video blogger Dylan and her bed-hopping mates, whose lives are a compelling whirl of crushes, cocktails and moping about their entry-level media careers. As Dylan says: "We blog to exist. Therefore we are idiots." I'll drink to that.
A Bout du Truffe
Seeing a chaotic auction room put a giant (1.5 kg) truffle under the hammer for a record-breaking $330,000 this week reminded me to flourish this truly original black comedy under your nose. Its hero Jean Dubois, a man engaged in a suspiciously tender relationship with his truffle-snuffling pig Carinne, is the least successful hunter in his family's truffling history. Then he stumbles on a boulder-sized specimen that could change his luck - if it doesn't change his predilections first. Director Tom Tagholm plays this fungal fun-piece absolutely straight, right down to the cheesy French love-theme muzak, and it's surprisingly cinematic. Which is probably why it carried off the TCM Classic Shorts trophy at the London film festival in November. Bon appetit!
High Maintenance
Now that Waseda University have invented a robot that can help you out of bed, and make toast (yes, really, right here) can the android husband be far behind? Not according to Phillip Van's glossy, Asimovian drama, where Jane's handsome computer-analyst husband is only offering "passive smoking, stilted conversation, and mechanical sex" - because he's a machine. So should Jane celebrate their anniversary, or upgrade immediately to a sportier model? Van's subtle narrative, and Nicolette Krebitz's cool, understated performance as Jane, keep one guessing to the bitter end. Nine minutes guaranteed to make you dream of electric sheep.
Viva Caligula
Heartbroken at learning that there will be no third series of Rome, Cybercinema cast her net wide for an entertainment equally decadent, violent, strategy-packed, and, er, classical. What she landed was this unabashedly adult, and shamefully enjoyable, game, in which you take on the mantle of the hated emperor Caligula, and rampage round Rome purging Roman citizens. Roaming over the letter keys to unleash 26 bizarre and deadly attack modes (we were particularly successful with "Flambeau in the Forum"), we slogged through the dinky mosaic levels of the seven hills of Rome, gutting gladiators, slaying senators, and YELLING into the microphone, which inspires cyber-Caligula to greater damage and higher scores. You have to off a great many teeny-weeny characters ingeniously to make it back to the Palace, where an omnisexual orgy with teeny-weeny slaves awaits you, apparently. We didn't get that far, since the stoical Romans showed an alarming propensity to kill us outside the Temple, with their short swords. Sic Semper Tyrannis.
