As a campus-based response to the recent Oscar ceremonies, the eighth-annual University of Toronto Film Festival is holding the famed Shitty Film Contest on March 13. The competition between the student-made short films in the running for the coveted “Shitty” promises to be intense, as all are remarkably strong contenders. The best of the worst is Rocky 2009, a parody trailer of the classic Sylvester Stallone franchise. It features the puppet Rabbi Rockowitz “shvitzing” across the desert, training for his showdown against “that shiksa” Sister Maria Guido. With the way it builds anticipation for a puppet showdown, Rocky 2009 is the only film that manages to elicit a few genuine, not in any way bemused, laughs.
The humour of Something Wicket this Way Comes and Lampreydator is largely derived from their complete absurdity and amusingly poor quality. Something Wicket This Way Comes depicts a wrathful video game Wicket seeking vengeance on an unappreciative gamer, although the film never actually troubles itself with showing the Ewok advancing upon his victim. Instead, it cuts from an image of the digital Ewok to a rather frightened looking guy looking over his shoulder, presumably signifying the imminent attack. In Lampreydator, a blood-sucking fish, which bears more resemblance to a sock monkey than any aquatic animal, threatens to devour the planet and can only be stopped by a group of scientists and (naturally) fishermen.
The black and white Mother(bird), whose entire plot consists of two pears stewing in a pot, is extremely funny, although admittedly only after reading the press release, which describes it as a “non-narrative film that focuses on the power of the mind and memory under the influence of fruit.”
For the most part, the films manage to save themselves from becoming totally insufferable by being completely aware of their own lacklustre quality, although one does become painfully conscious of time passing during the 60-second Suggested Opening for $20,000 Pyramid, which literally involves lights on a pyramid getting increasingly brighter.
At any rate, there’s something decidedly refreshing about watching films so utterly devoid of any pretension and so willing to laugh at themselves. They’re shitty, but at least they know it.
The U of T Film Festival runs March 9-14 at Innis Town Hall, and features a wide variety of student-made films. Tickets are $5 for students. For screening information, visit uoftfilmfest.ca.
