#WatchlistScreenCaps: Live-Action Shorts

Short Films (Live-Action)

The following is a chronological collection of screen-caps from every single live-action short film I watched between February 12, 2013 and February 12, 2014 (not including music videos). I've organized the titles into three categories: narrative, documentary, and experimental. I've drawn the line at "under 40 minutes" for runtime and (mostly) not included home movie-type YouTube videos in the documentary category. For a chronological lineup including feature films and animated shorts as well, visit my complete #WatchlistScreenCaps chronology. Links lead to previous pieces on a given film.

Narrative/Fiction

Voyage to the Moon (1902), dir. Georges Melies

Moonbeam monsters just missed the magic bullet

Rescued From an Eagle's Nest (1908), dir. J. Searle Dawley

And he will lift you up, on eagle's wings...

The Curtain Pole (1909), dir. D.W. Griffith

The comic mob mobilizes & star Mack Sennett learns his future style

The Lonely Villa (1909), dir. D.W. Griffith

One of the less delicate methods of home invasion

The Night Before Christmas (1913), dir. Wladislaw Starewicz

The devil gets a piggyback ride

One Week (1920), dir. Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline

Perfect punchline to Buster's home improvement project

Show Kids (1935), dir. Ralph Staub

Sparkle Motion, avant la lettre

Watch the Birdie (1935), dir. Lloyd French

Comedy too busy amusing itself to amuse us

Sheik to Sheik (1936), dir. Roy Mack

We can wire cars for radio, so why not camels?

Hotel a la Swing (1937), dir. Roy Mack

Maybe if they're real quiet, no one will notice they've gone

A momentary fissure amidst the frozen grandeur

La Jetee (1963), dir. Chris Marker

The Junk Shop (1965), dir. Juraj Herz

Represents Czechoslovakian penchant for fantastical surrealism

Patriotism (1966), dir. Yukio Mishima

The awful, beautiful purity of bloodshed

Paddle to the Sea (1966), dir. Bill Mason
"Someone might find you someday in a cold fjord in Norway, or a warm beach in Africa"

 Amblin' (1968), dir. Steven Spielberg

Long before the sharks, aliens, and dinosaurs, 2 kids smoked grass & guarded a guitar case

 Away From It All (1979), dir. John Cleese, Clare Taylor

"Here certainly we have peace, and tranquility, and also, more of those fucking gondolas"

 All Summer in a Day (1982), dir. Ed Kaplan

Remembering the green amongst the gray

 The Children's Story (1982), dir. James Clavell

Anti-brainwashing message movie that feels oddly like it's trying to brainwash you

An Exercise in Discipline: Peel (1982), dir. Jane Campion

Abrasive yet meditative study of the usual family road-trip misery

The Haircut (1982), dir. Tamar Simon Hoffs

The longest 15-minute haircut in history

A Girl's Own Story (1984), dir. Jane Campion

"I feel the cold/I feel the cold is here to stay/I feel the cold/I want to melt away

12:01 PM (1990), dir. Jonathan Heap

Cover of the early edition. And the late edition...& the one after that & after that...

The Awakening (1990), dir. Ignacio Cerda

The eye on the pyramid sees all

Lick the Star (1998), dir. Sofia Coppola

The auteur emerges fully-formed, smirking at her haters

The Accountant (2001), dir. Ray McKinnon

An anachronism and proud of it

Ambush (2001), dir. John Frankenheimer

What happens when you cut off certain vehicles

Chosen (2001), dir. Ang Lee

Unusual cargo, from the Far East

The Follow (2001), dir. Wong Kar Wai

"Don't get too close...never meet their eyes"

Copy Shop (2001), dir. Virgil Widrith

Hiding on top of the world

Star (2001), dir. Guy Ritchie

Not exactly a love letter to his wife

Sounds from a Town I Love (2001), dir. Woody Allen

"Then he did Donald Trump's hair too...yeah, but then they caught him & put him back in jail"

Ticker (2002), dir. Joe Carnahan

Running like Roger Thornhill, firing back like General Patton

Wasp (2003), dir. Andrea Arnold

The flimsy prize still entices

7:35 in the Morning (2003), dir. Nacho Vigalondo

Choreography under duress

Two Cars, One Night (2004), dir. Taika Waititi

Road rage from a parked car, with a smile

Tetra Vaal (2004), dir. Neill Blomkamp

RoBoerCop

Finding Kate (2004), dir. Katherine Brooks

Daydreaming on the chilly seashore

Black Button (2007), dir. Lucas Crandles

Could have been more disturbing without the twist, actually

Inseperable (2007), dir. Nick White

As with many shorts, I wish there was more time to explore the ramifications of the hook

Spider (2007), dir. Nash Edgerton

Fake spiders can be just as dangerous as real ones

Dennis (2007), dir. Mads Matthieson

Gimmick (big man with little ego) earns pathos as it goes

Hotel Chevalier (2007), dir. Wes Anderson

L'Amour Mélancolique

The Key to Reserva (2007), dir. Martin Scorsese

Has the MacGuffin becomes the sine qua non?

Mama (2008), dir. Andrés Muschietti

An effective exercise in terrifying movement

Panic Attack! (2009), dir. Fede Alvarez

An unusual roadblock

 The Sun Thief (2013), dir. Jason Giampietro

Oboes and surfboards mock Brooklyn lovers at Rockaway Beach

Check (2013), dir. Salim Garami

Puts a whole new emphasis on the word "Checkmate"

Documentary/Nonfiction

L'arrivee d'un train en gare de la Ciotat (1896), dir. Louis & Auguste Lumiere

A 19th-century train pulls in to my phone - where will it go next?

The Battle of Midway (1942), dir. John Ford

"Yes, this really happened."

Torpedo Squadron 8 (1942), dir. John Ford

Shapes in the sky echo shapes in the sea

December 7th (1943), dir. John Ford

Family of the fallen in Castalia, Iowa

The House is Black (1963), dir. Forough Farrokhzad

Pausing at the moment of expression

Liquid Crystals (1978), dir. Jean Painleve

Crystallization as hallucination

A Weekend at the Beach with Jean-Luc Godard (1979), dir. Ira Schneider

Wim Wenders, dressed for the beach

 The Solar Film (1980), dir. Elaine & Saul Bass

Despite title, more about industrialization & subsequent malaise than making case for solar

 Act of God (1980), dir. Peter Greenaway

Greenaway does a for-real doc (I think). Btw, I too was (almost?) struck by lightning

Larisa (1980), dir. Elem Klimov

Moving tribute from one filmmaker to another, but also from a husband to his wife

New England Time Capsule (1987), dir. unknown

Love that dirty water

The Making of "Gorillas in the Mist" (1988), dir. Robert Nixon

The real Fossey, briefly observed amidst movie promotion

Isle of Flowers (1989), dir. Jorge Furtado

What's worth more: a chicken or a whale, a person or a pig?

I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale (2009), dir. Richard Shepard

Seventies cinema's lonely man

On the Cusp (2009), prod. Issa Clubb

Pushing himself over the edge

A Cautionary Tale of Campus Revolution and Sexual Freedom (2009), prod. Criterion Collection

Jack Nicholson recollects Keith Richards' child disrupting the Cannes screening

Henry Jaglom Finds A Safe Place (2009), prod. Criterion Collection

Explaining how Anais Nin provided free publicity for his movie

Antonio Campos and the Case of the Conscious Camera (A Mystery) (2013), inter. Zach Wigon

The subject begins directing the interview

San Francisco (2013), dir. Jason Bellamy

Video postcard from the city of odd angles

Experimental

Emak-Bakia (1926), dir. Man Ray

Time isn't real

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), dir. Maya Deren

What does the key open?

Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), dir. Kenneth Anger

Sleek, soft, sumptuous, and slightly sinister

Emotion (1966), dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi

Fuses A Hard Day's Night w/ Dracula, climaxes like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Big Shave (1967), dir. Martin Scorsese

Advertising aesthetic stained by forthcoming violence of '68 & scored by haunted swing of '39

Carrots & Peas (1969), dir. Hollis Frampton

The vegetables are beautiful, the voice is annoying

The Discipline of DE (1982), dir. Gus Van Sant

Van Sant & Burroughs don't cry over spilt milk

Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1990), dir. Tracey Moffatt

An eerily beautiful landscape, with an interior outhouse

 Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998), dir. Martin Arnold

Only unique shot identifiable by screen-cap. The experiment is folded/hidden in the original.

De l'origine du XXIe siecle (2000), dir. Jean-Luc Godard

"The Garden of Eden is the garden of earthly delights"

Darkened Room (2002), dir. David Lynch

I don't know what it is or how he does it, but it's always so incredibly effective

Now (2003), dir. Simon Staho

We are being watched

Submission (2004), dir. Theo van Gogh

Someone to watch over her

La Morte Rouge (2006), dir. Victor Erice

The malevolent master of disguise, lurking in the light

And We All Shine On (2006), dir. Michael Robinson

A lonely video game landscape, haunted by shadowy memories of a civilization which created it

Boat (2007), dir. David Lynch

"We're gonna try to go fast enough to go into the night!" The home movie as surreal dream trip

Eurydice...She, So Beloved (2007), dir. Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay

Enveloped in death's comforting embrace

A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (2009), dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Peace and quiet in a village knowing neither

 Prom Night (2011), dir. Celia Rowlson-Hall

The ultimate, ironic selfie

These Hammers Don't Hurt Us (2011), dir. Michael Robinson

Rabbit ears on a pyramid, picking up signals from the other side of sanity

The Ghost of Love (2011), dir. John Levy

Tendrils of melancholy memory in the evening atmosphere

Swimmer (2012), dir. Lynne Ramsay

Swimming through the sights & sounds of British cinema

I Had a Heart Once (2013), dir. Josh Lewis

The man whose soul slid down behind the sofa seat cushion

Memoires (2014), dir. Bruno Noaro

"Now I'm going to close my diary, with tons of feeling...I will just follow the natural flow of life."

Follow me on Twitter