By the way, this new, thicker vinyl screen is a significant upgrade from last year. Last year we added a new projector and FM transmitter, which worked great! The sound and picture are as clear as Crystal Gravy. Check out last year’s blog entry for details.

Aaaand, I added descriptions of all the movies, so now you can (kind of) understand what you’re getting into!

Animation is a perfect medium for allegory, fables, and metaphors. Animation makes it a lot easier to portray animals and inanimate objects doing human things, or other really far-out ideas, than live action. Five Minutes Each, screening September 9th, is a classic allegorical tale. The plight of the artist, as some of Brainwash’s moviemakers are well aware, is a constant struggle to achieve even five minutes in the sun for their unique and individual ideas. Fascinatingly, Five Minutes Each uses the pattern of planned obsolescence of technology as a metaphor for the creative process. Here’s a “Making of” video:

More animated shorts are featured after the jump:

Of Frogs and Gods is another allegorical piece; this one is set in a frog pond. The unexpected arrival of objects from the sky ends up creating societal divisions that have perhaps predictable consequences. It’s fun and serious at the same time. Check out the movie’s Facebook page here.

We are proud to present Clean is Good, an experimental non-narrative short film out of Mexico. It’s an amazingly intricate animated short, with many creative combinations of drawing and live-action shots. It’s hard to describe — just watch the trailer here:

Finally, we are screening Spirit of the Bluebird, another innovative animated short, which uses stop-action footage of paintings on a fence and garage. Artist Jesse Gouchey paints a large scale animation of a bluebird in flight as a remembrance for Aboriginal mother and grandmother Gloria Black Plume, a 1999 murder victim. The beauty and freedom of the bluebird’s motion is contrasted with remembrances of Gloria’s surviving family members, who give an emotional glimpse of a woman lost to violence and the injustice of the legal system. Here’s the trailer:

Check out our program to find out which nights these great shorts are screening. If you’re an animation fan, buy tickets today!

There are, however, many differences. How to Make it in Filmmaking (check out the movie site here) is a 59-minute documentary by Shanna Maurizi about a real movie director, while Gideon Verite is a fanciful 19-minute short about a guy who plays a guy who plays a movie director.

The subject of How to Make it in Filmmaking, director Ari Taub, spent ten years making a period-accurate war movie in three languages, on a shoestring budget (or less), in order to get noticed by Hollywood. Shanna’s presentation of Ari’s guerrilla filmmaking style really resonated with us, since we are a kind of guerrilla film festival ourselves. We’re showing Shanna’s movie this Saturday night, 9/3, on the opening night of the festival.

Here’s a trailer:

Speaking of guerrilla filmmaking, prior to that, we are showing the pilot episode of “Big Weird Time,” a show about a certain drive-in bike-in walk-in movie festival and the short films that are featured in it. It is a curiosity that arguably should never have seen the light of day. (Luckily, we filmed it and are showing it at night, so no problem there.) It is also an extremely good excuse to show a couple of our favorites from the 2010 festival, Goodnight Harvey (3rd prize in 2010) and The Horror of Our Love (4th prize). Don’t miss it – buy tickets today!

Share and enjoy!

We’re screening a full-length feature called “Dynamite Swine” (facebook) by Mark Poisella, a rollicking action movie/buddy flick/poker movie that defies description but just works. This is the second year in a row we’ve opened with a feature film, and you seriously won’t see anything like this anywhere else.

We are preceding it with one of the best shorts I’ve ever seen (and I don’t say that lightly), “With Anchovies… Without Mamma” (facebook, trailer, website) an amazing mockumentary (by Brooklyn’s Thomas Justino) about pizza and revenge.

The moviemakers describe it as “an investigative look at love, loss, pizza and the depth of circumstance.” Whatever that means, it is incredibly tight — the acting and script are terrific, it’s hilariously funny, and it keeps you entertained until the only thing left in the box is a grease stain and that little plastic table. Want mustaches? It’s got mustaches, and people who sound like they’re from Jersey.

Anyway, I’m just babbling now, but you’ll really enjoy opening night TONIGHT, Saturday, August 7th. Don’t forget, it’s the Brainwash *Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in* Movie Festival, so you can come in on two wheels or four — or, just use the very convenient West Oakland BART station (less than a block away).

Buy tickets at TicketWeb and RSVP on Facebook.

A few random things as we approach festival time:

• We’ve updated the program page with short descriptions of the movies and where the moviemakers are from.
• We got a nice little blurb on KCBS’ website and another very good writeup in the East Bay Express.
• If you want a t-shirt to commemorate this year’s festival, you can buy one here via CafePress.

MXD MSG: Watch the trailer for MXD MSG on the Breadtruck Films website

Gypsy Crepes: Watch the trailer for Gypsy Crepes on Facebook

We liked these movies a lot! Watch for more links to some of the movies from this year’s upcoming festival.