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Late night short films you will never see again.

Started by astrozombie, December 09, 2011, 06:55:27 PM

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astrozombie

Hello there. I found a video tape the other night full of random films / programmes I had recorded a few years back. On there were a load of short films all British or European from a programme Channel 4 ran called 'The Outside Zone', got some great ones I'd forgotten all about on there like, 'Forklift Driver Klaus' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_h6oAj5p1g) for example. Some really clever little gems on there.

Got me thinking about all the odd short films I've seen over the years late at night on terrestrial television during the small hours of the morning and it got me thinking about one I don't think I will ever find again but I am going to describe it in detail as a last attempt to try and unearth it.

It was on BBC2 and basically it was a Christmas themed short. It started off with a recently widowed man living alone whose spending Christmas with his son and daughter who have both been away studying. Everything is hunky dory and their waiting on a visit from an Uncle. He turns up and he's very loud, leary and generally annoying and as a gift has brought them a pet goat. The Father goes upstairs to get some peace and the son and daughter go into the living room. The Father whilst upstairs goes into the airing cupboard and unravels his dead wife which he robbed from a graveyard and begins to have sex with it/her. The son and daughter begin to have bumping incestual fanny fun and it is starkly revealed that this isn't your normal Christmas. The final shot is of the Uncle bumming the goat.

This is real. I remember sitting down and watching this with my mouth open mouthed in awe. Anyone know what this is? It only entered my memory again when I found that short film video.

Jim Jarmusch

I remember The Shooting Gallery that Mark Kermode use to host. French Doors short was regularly played and has always stuck with me. There's a few I'd link to find again. One involving a newsagent in NYC and you get to see all the different perceptives of customers and the Korean owners Rashomon style. Another one that involved someone with a stall selling tomatoes on a crossroads in the middle of a desert.

batwings

I remember a short film from the 90s that was often on when I was up late smoking. It starred the actor who played the chief thug from Robocop as a businessman who kept reliving lunch hour over and over again a la Groundhog day but a lot more bleak.

Bobby Treetops

#3
Quote from: batwings on December 09, 2011, 08:11:21 PM
I remember a short film from the 90s that was often on when I was up late smoking. It starred the actor who played the chief thug from Robocop as a businessman who kept reliving lunch hour over and over again a la Groundhog day but a lot more bleak.

It's called 12.01PM
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3658897066407234303#

Spoiler alert
Hope you don't get too bummed out by the ending
[close]

Bobby Treetops

On the subject, I remember watching a short French film late one night and although it's a simple idea, it's always resonated in my memory.

It's about a married couple who book themselves into a hotel room but as they unpack things start disappearing (including a comb). By the end the husband (or the wife) disappears, so the wife then calls reception in panic. A member of staff comes up to their room only to find it's deserted, but as they leave they notice a comb on the bed.

Any ideas?

Brundle-Fly

Out Of Town (1988) Macarbre short about a rambler who gets his foot stuck in a hole and nobody helps him, he get's beaten up by a yokel at one point and the story ends quite chillingly. Very much in the same vein of Spanish  short film, Le Cabina. 


v00n

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on December 09, 2011, 09:00:46 PM
Out Of Town (1988) Macarbre short about a rambler who gets his foot stuck in a hole and nobody helps him, he get's beaten up by a yokel at one point and the story ends quite chillingly. Very much in the same vein of Spanish  short film, Le Cabina.

Highly recommended. If anyone wants to see it, it's here: http://macleary.com/files/lacabina.zip




Cohaagen

- Tag 26, a post-apocalyptic German effort that owes more than a little to Stalker and others, but still quite good.

- something utterly bizarre set in a big high-rise office building that involved opera singers, a great deal of weird sex, and a final shot of a jar of mayonnaise shattering on the floor and some string bean lapping it up and giving an approving "mmmmm!" face. This was on Channel 4, as if it needs stating.

- Vroom Vroom Vroom: Melvin Van Peebles' sleazy, paraphiliac entry in the Tales of Erotica strand. A young guy takes his motorcycle out on the open road (studio set) every night whereupon it transmogrifies into a woman and they fuck.

Quote from: IMDbLeroy is a misfit boy. The other boys and girls in the town only pass over him. One day he saves an elder woman from being run over a bus. The woman has voodoo powers and concedes him two wishes. He chooses to have a motorcycle that transforms into a woman when he rides it at night.


Brundle-Fly

Quote from: v00n on December 10, 2011, 01:06:34 PM
Highly recommended. If anyone wants to see it, it's here: http://macleary.com/files/lacabina.zip

Cheers v00n but I was hoping you had  a zip of Out Of Town for a moment there.  Gaah!!

Famous Mortimer

There's also (or was) a DVD series called "Short" which was packed with all sorts of short films, I think it's probably not around any more but they're worth tracking down.

phantom_power

I remember watching a short film on Channel 4 in the late 80s or early 90s about a man with AIDS who went around having sex with women. He was basically a serial killer called Celco AIDS or something. There was lots of arty, athletic sex and I think it was Brazilian. Any ideas?

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I remember seeing a brother/sister incest one last year that ended very badly, completely unlike the real life incest stories we know and love.

The Shooting Gallery was great for some truly odd films whilst in a hazey state of mind.

Right now two short(ish) b&w films in particular stick to mind:

1- A Scottish film in which a friend/brother grabs a guy who is lying in a drugged state and takes in his car away out over the Forth Road bridge and in to the Highlands (possibly Islands) to get him sorted out and off drugs. They end up staying at a cottage, with a family, and enjoying the tranquility of the remote setting. This all seems to work, if i remember rightly.

2 -  An American fim in which a young guy gets a loan to sort out some bother for someone or other meets a real nice girl and wants to sort himself out. Ends up with him sorting some sort of situation out and paying back the loan shark dude however he is stabbed in the process. I remember the end scence of him sleeping with his girlfriend under a boardwalk on the beach(in a very Calvin Klein style).

Wet Blanket

Two of these have stuck in my mind for a very long time.

The first, which I've mentioned here before, was quite a sweet short (rare for this sort of thing) about a guy who convinces all the animals in a park to fall silent to help prove how much he loves his girlfriend. I thought that was great when I was 16 but now it would probably make me sick.

And an Irish one about a guy on a train having a series of offbeat encounters, before he goes home to shoot himself and his rabbit. He shoots the rabbit then realises he's out of bullets. The closing credits run out to the White Stripes excellent version of St James Infirmary Blues.

Absorb the anus burn

I did manage to see this short film a second time, but it took fifteen years... 'The Stranger Left No Calling Card' by Wendy Toye is excellent on every level - also remade as a mid period 'Tales Of The Unexpected' with Derek Jacobi & Clive Swift. So, so... But the black and white original is a work of art with images and subtle twists that haunt me. My favourite revenge story; an example of visual poetry; even a morality tale short on saccharine.

'La Cabina' deserves the praise. I think it's a masterpiece. Saw it on a late night C4 slot and always stayed with me.... Will make a strong impression on most, I think. Such an amazing shift from gentle absurd humour to terrifying psychological horror. A Spanish mate assures me it's allegorical and explores the duality of life in Franco's Spain.

'My Wrongs...' I will never see this again as I didn't like it the first time. If ever an idea worked better in its original form, it's this one. Talking dogs: believable and funny on radio - as were brainwrong car crash cases like the narrator.... Okay, Paddy MacAloon (sic / sick) did his best, but 'My Wrongs' s C minus Morris... Is this the right place to say that Morris (despite being a brilliant writer and performer) has shown no flair or signs of greatness as a TV or film director?

Bingo Fury


El Unicornio, mang

Does anyone know the name of a film, possibly from the late 80s/early 90s (no later than '92) where this girl has the ability to fast forward and rewind time, and it's all seen from her POV, and she uses it to get revenge on her sister for something or other, and at the end she accidentally hits fast forward for too long then goes to the mirror and she's really old?

turnstyle

Ah, now.

I remember seeing an animated short years ago, a late night Channel 4 job.

This person was bing pursued by aliens, and kept trying to hide from them. I seem to recall them sheltering in a house and the roof being pulled off??

Anyway, eventually the aliens catch the main character...but it turns out that they are in fact the alien, and the aliens are the humans. DO YOU SEE?

Another one I recall was about a guy living a happy life...BUT THEN HE WAKES UP AND IT IS GREY AND HE HAS TO GO TO WORK AND IS SAD. Then he comes home, goes to sleep, and has nice dreams again. DO YOU SEE?

Christ know what they were called.

I miss coming across these random little shorts on the TV, whilst patiently waiting for a bit of tit in some euro film.

vrailaine

Quote from: Wet Blanket on December 12, 2011, 04:40:17 PM

And an Irish one about a guy on a train having a series of offbeat encounters, before he goes home to shoot himself and his rabbit. He shoots the rabbit then realises he's out of bullets. The closing credits run out to the White Stripes excellent version of St James Infirmary Blues.
Six Shooter innit? Academy award winning short by Martin McDonagh. Love it.

Phil_A

#21
Quote from: turnstyle on February 02, 2012, 09:20:18 AM
Ah, now.

I remember seeing an animated short years ago, a late night Channel 4 job.

This person was bing pursued by aliens, and kept trying to hide from them. I seem to recall them sheltering in a house and the roof being pulled off??

Anyway, eventually the aliens catch the main character...but it turns out that they are in fact the alien, and the aliens are the humans. DO YOU SEE?


This one sounds like Phil Mulloy's Intolerance II, which was actually the second of a part series, but for some reason Channel 4 only ever seemed to show Part 2.

One film that always sticks in my memory is Journey Through The Night, about a guy who has to spend an overnight train journey with another passenger who claims to be a cannibal.

I hope one day I'll find a decent quality copy of Alison De Vere's The Black Dog. There's an extremely poor quality multi-generational VHS upload on youtube which doesn't nearly do it justice.

NoSleep

Quote from: Bobby Treetops on December 09, 2011, 08:22:00 PM
It's called 12.01PM
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3658897066407234303#

Spoiler alert
Hope you don't get too bummed out by the ending
[close]

That one stuck in my mind for years, too. I think the similarity of Groundhog Day (made 3 years later) to this was close enough for there to be issues of copyright or plagiarism, as I recall. Just discovered there was another version made three years later (simply entitled "12:01") that attempts to lighten up the darkness of the first (made in 1990 and based on a short story from '73) including a happy ending, which I would say must be a mistake (without seeing it).

Phil_A

#23
Actually that reminds me of another(comedy) short that I must have seen on Channel 4 between 98-99, which was about an anally retentive office worker who suddenly discovers an unexpected gap in his schedule that never ends. At one point he tries to kill himself by jumping out of the window, but finds himself stuck suspended in mid-air. May've been called something along the lines of "Free Time".

Oh, one other thing I remember is that it featured a particular song that I've heard elsewhere, of which the outro consists of the word "TIME!" shouted repeatedly over a backdrop of clocks ticking. I've never known who it's by.

Edit: Looks like the song was "Time Has Come Today" by the Chamber Brothers. That's one mystery cleared up...

Wet Blanket

Quote from: vrailaine on February 02, 2012, 01:25:54 PM
Six Shooter innit? Academy award winning short by Martin McDonagh. Love it.

Kick arse. I've been wanting to see that again for years. A million thanks

Gavin M

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on February 02, 2012, 03:41:46 AM
Does anyone know the name of a film, possibly from the late 80s/early 90s (no later than '92) where this girl has the ability to fast forward and rewind time, and it's all seen from her POV, and she uses it to get revenge on her sister for something or other, and at the end she accidentally hits fast forward for too long then goes to the mirror and she's really old?

That's a Dramarama I believe.  We watched that when I was at school aged about 9 or 10, scared me shitless for a week.

El Unicornio, mang

That sounds right (they showed it to us at school too)! Looking at the list of episodes I can't figure out which one it was though (possibly "Sweet Revenge"?)

McDead

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on February 02, 2012, 06:17:33 PM
That sounds right (they showed it to us at school too)! Looking at the list of episodes I can't figure out which one it was though (possibly "Sweet Revenge"?)

More likely to be "Flashback" I would have thought. I had the devil's own time trying to track this film down last night cos of this thread, typing endless permutations of the phrases "schoolgirl" "remote control" "fast forward" into Google. Came up with nothing relevant, though needless to say a wank ensued.

Anyway, I also saw this at school (weird, huh?), so I was convinced it was part of the Middle English schools strand. Dramarama seems more likely, though there does seem to be some crossover between the two (Mr Magus is Waiting for You was shown in both). It had that distinctly 80s "video tapey" look (appropriate, considering the subject) and *possibly* featured a girl from Grange Hill, though I might be misremembering.


Famous Mortimer

12:01 is the Jonathan Silverman film, right? Well, the feature version. I remember getting it on video years ago after reading about its similarity to Groundhog Day (still one of my favourite films ever) and although Silverman is one of the world's smarmiest-looking actors, it's not that bad.

NoSleep

There's the 1990 "12:01 PM" which is the short (and linked above; well worth a viewing) and the full-length remake from 1993[nb]Also the year that Groundhog Day was released.[/nb] "12:01" which is the Jonathan Silverman film. I guess I'm going to have to look for that now (having enjoyed both 12:01 PM & Groundhog Day).