As Joaquín Reyes said in ‘Overdose of love’, the great meta-soap opera episode of the second season of ‘Chapter 0’, “we only have one life.” Those minutes must be taken advantage of, so better with a short movie. Let’s see what the different platforms that we have at our disposal offer us.
The good, if brief, double program
Why are we going to put on a four-hour movie if in that time we can perhaps pay off debts shorter and possibly more interesting than a feature film that requires a day of dedication? Diving between some of our platforms we have found a good handful of very attractive titles.
Classics of all kinds, gender and condition They await us in these strange Christmas days in which with a little luck you have a little more time. And already put, what better than to take advantage of it seeing the more, the better.
The movie
The Spanish platform par excellence even has the label of “short films” to facilitate the search, but I am here to offer you a small selection full of the good taste that always characterizes me.
The Queen of the Lizards (63 minutes)
The kaiju as a template for an unimaginable romantic comedy through the lowest possible fidelity.
Full of successes, mistakes and a lot of value, logically, it will not be to everyone’s liking. And try my gazpacho, which I just made and it came out delicious. Of course: until the 11th it will not be available. If that is what your body asks you, the one you do have is ‘I have boats’, by Juan Cavestany, which lasts 67 minutes, which are not minutes or anything.
Guardians of the Future (73 minutes)
The ‘Terminator’ in B is a mind-blowing sci-fi epic that replaces visual wits with a delusional script that makes waters everywhere but that at the same time is charmingly irresistible. The science fiction that hit him in the eighties summarized in 73 minutes of “is that I sweat everything”
Negotiator (79 minutes)
As soon as you pull the newspaper library (AKA Wikipedia), you will see the blood in your veins frozen before the radiography, spectacular and cynical, that Cobeaga pulls out of his sleeve with ‘Negotiator’.
As is customary for the Basque filmmaker, the secret of the film is to put the feet of the characters on our own floor and then put some slippers on them. Although this time the laughter goes through neighborhoods. The fear too. There was too much talk about ‘Foxcatcher’ and too little about ‘Negotiator’, Borja Cobeaga’s best film.
Vampyr (70 minutes)
The 70 minutes that Hitch___ got excited. One of the best and most popular Carl Theodor Dreyer movies. A disturbing film with a portentous staging that was a major failure in the filmmaker’s career, who came from succeeding with ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ and this misstep (hence its importance must be repeated) caused a stop a decade in the career of the Danish filmmaker.
Netflix
The world’s favorite platform is not far behind when it comes to offering not-so-long feature films. Between (more or less) classic comedies and some important acquisition, the offers are quite acceptable.
Not Another Stupid American Movie (89 minutes)
You may remember it as very funny, but it is also very, very good. In fact, it’s a spoof on the level of ‘Land as you can’ itself. One in a million.
Macarra, sow, hilarious and with a love and a respect for the starting point that thrills. Three words: Harry Dean Stadium.
Creep (77 minutes)
Sometimes it is very difficult to differentiate a great black comedy from an ordinary horror film. Duplass steals the film, as always, and the point of view – and starting – cleverly dodges the overdose of identical proposals. It’s barely past an hour and a quarter and that already deserves all your attention. You will end up watching the sequel, because it is also a better movie.
Perfection (90 minutes)
You trade the insane, depraved and degenerate of anything Brian De Palma can do for shameless, wild and unbalanced and you have a horror thriller from the director of ‘Matador’. An impressive recital live pure genre and straight to the chin. H***y.
Coffee & Kareem
‘Coffee & Kareem’ makes us forget everything for less than ninety minutes with a comedy with everyone the jokes and characters on your site. From Captain Walter Hill to my dear David Alan Grier to the old Taylor Swift of coca that Betty Gilpin embroiders, passing through tooooooooda that gang of henchmen, the director of ‘Stuber Express’ relies on Shane Mack’s hilarious first script to offer a hilarious buddy movie with a retro air.
HBO
The house of the most reputable series also has a space in its warehouse where movies rest to watch in a moment. Let’s see what the ‘Game of Thrones’ platform offers.
Teen Titans Go! The movie (80 minutes)
While waiting for the arrival of James Gunn to the house, perhaps we are facing the best movie in the DC Universe. And if it isn’t, at least it’s the most fun. There is no room for one more superhero in this wonderful meta-proposal that hits the nail on the head by putting its finger on the sore of the company’s film division. In fact, it seems that no one at Warner has seen the movie, because the attention sparks are paraded one after another.
Jonah Hex (78 minutes)
This badass from the authors of the two splendid ‘Crank’ films came out much more round than their attempt to resurrect the Ghost Rider. Brief, with Mastodon music and a cast that lets go, ‘Jonah Hex’ is that DC movie that has suffered, like ‘Green Lantern’, an immovable automatic crush. So much so that even the protagonist of that one has to deny it every time he can so that the children continue to think that they are right.
Duplex 85 mins
More than fifteen years later, ‘Duplex’ is still the last film directed by Danny DeVito. Short black comedy (it could not be otherwise) straight to the point, without half measures. A constant give and take at the speed of cartoon with tones of ‘Ladykillers’ in the form of a cure of humility for those who still do not know what this comedy is about.
What we do in the shadows (81 minutes)
Resurrected by the extraordinary television series, and as in it, the elegance with which it has been shot is striking, despite the format, and amazing special effects. Although there is something that has fortunately been lost in the series: how deeply sad it is. That is why the series is better.
Amazon
Advancing positions with its acquisitions in recent weeks, the platform has been adding to its fund the odd little gem to discover.
The Dictator (83 minutes)
The film that has most divided Cohen’s followers parked reality to play with a bizarre fiction not exempt from the aftertaste of the usual fish-out-of-water situation in the creator of ‘Borat’ or ‘Bruno’.
Gretel & Hansel (87 minutes)
The best film by a Perkins that needs different formats to demonstrate its interest in ideas. The prologue, beautiful, abuses the voiceover no matter how much they are telling us a story.
From there, he reminds us that Jodorowsky composed a fable (heh) and it will take a while to show personality, but everything arrives on time. Overall, the good outweighs the less good, and surely some of the most beautiful moments the year of terror ahead of us will be here.
The Haze (85 minutes)
Another one of those great reminders of inhuman that characterizes us all in extreme situations. Pure genre with a European scent that is pleased to see partly because of its short duration and ambitions.
The Jane Doe Autopsy (86 minutes)
Everything I ask of a genre movie is here. Pristine atmosphere, dedicated cast, subtle humor and a story that is unfolding little by little although, h**l, it may show its cards ahead of time.
Not much to object when a horror movie makes you feel like you’re in 1985. A constant surprise.
Coherence (89 minutes)
One of those conceptual pirouettes that result in author’s science fiction. Breakthrough, intelligent, ‘Coherence’ is a film that walk through the purest genre until we reach a resolution that will leave us with a crooked a*s. Despite its consistency.
