Fifteen German Animated Shorts on The Wall, Fifteen German Animated Shorts...

I attended a screening of German animated short films w/ Lola at the Adamson Building in Makati (thank god parking was easy and free). It reminded me of the first time I attended a screening of the Japanese filmfest, since the animated shorts were shown in a relatively small room with only 3 rows of seats. Today was also the last day of screening, so it quickly became an SRO event. Before the screening began I mentioned to Lola that there seemed to be common look among the female attendees: long, past-shoulder-length hair wrapped with a single band, dull-colored casual dress w/ a light sweater, and glasses. It almost looked like a female Clark Kent convention.

Afterwards we had dinner had Italiannis at GB2, where our waitress turned out to be my 2nd cousin Ivy (Michelle's little sister and Philip's 1st cousin). who's on paid OJT. From the moment she introduced herself as our waitress for the evening to when she was clearing up our plates my penchant for remembering faces but not names was proving to be a bother. What made it more embarrassing was that she was practically family! It was only when I finally mentioned that she looked familiar that she mentioned our connection. And as a nice ending to this tale she gave us a 20% dicount on dinner! Left her a big tip, despite her protests.

Anyhoo, my short thoughts on the 15 short flicks:

• Gil Alkabetz, Rubicon - Reminded me of Bill Plympton's work, w/c wasn't a bad thing
  
• Jochen Ehmann, HOBO - Whuh???
  
• Lars Henkel, The Patchwork Queen - Whuh???
  
• Daniel Höpfner, Cherchez la Femme - Whuh??? Oh, and WHUH???
  
• Andy Kaiser, Harara - Confusing. Pruny.
  
• Tine Kluth, Ghost Train - A little sad, with Boxing Helena homage
  
• Raimund Krumme, The Message - Fido Dido w/ indie flavor
  
• Jochen Kuhn, Recently 2 - Didn't watch Recently 1. Should have.
  
• Daniel Nocke, The Modern Cyclops - Wish it had better animation to go with quirky story
  
• Hannes Rall, The Raven - The Simpsons version was better
  
• Chris Stenner, Heidi Wittlinger, Rocks - Watching life pass by in "rock time" was cool.
  
• Jan Thüring, Terminal: Paradise - (See thoughts on The Modern Cyclops)
• Thomas Voigt, The Moment - Trippy Animal Planet moment
  
• Johannes Weiland, "Hessi James" - A Bug's Life meets Woody Allen
  
• Kirsten Winter, Escape - They shoulda closed with Hessi James.