The Official Selections: Featuring the Best Short Films from the Sundance Film Festival [DVD]

Wanted to show my students while gone to a funeral but the films didn't arrive in time so I watched them once and they'll probably end up on a shelf somewhere and collect dust. No, wait. I'll toss them in my pile to Good Will.

The shorts included in this collection I would not say are the best out there.... certainly no where near the caliber of the shorts included in the 2006 Oscar-nominated collection, which I love.

As with any short-story collection, you're going to have your stars and you'll have your flops. Even the best authors aren't immune to this truth. Think back to the days before Napster, and we were all forced to buy 10 or so crappy-to-mediocre songs from our favorite bands to get the two or three radio songs we actually wanted to hear. Sure, some of those non-single songs surprised us, but most of them sucked to everyone but the performers and their moms.Even anthologies of short stories and "Best Of" albums from the biggest bands with a long history behind them suffer this truth.Whoever the "Official(s)" in charge of bringing these "selections" to the consumer are, just like the artist who actually made the works themselves, they are bringing these things to a very diverse culture full of individual tastes and desires. There is no one size fits all. There is no possible way to make a collection of anything that will keep everyone's attention from start to end.So here is "The Official Selections".It's been about 2 or 3 years since I've watched it. Honestly, I don't remember much about most of the individual stories now. What I do remember is an overall feeling of disappointment with many of the selections. I'm in no way a "Sundance" snob. I have barely ever seen any short films in my life. I'm not a film student.The reason I bought this DVD is because it had one single short on it by Mike Healy called "Mullitt". Had I never accidentally flipped the channel to it several minutes through, I would never even know Mr. Healy's name. For years, actually, I thought that I had just witnessed the last 10-12 minutes of a full-length movie.I had looked on YouTube for years for this video and could never find it. The most I could find was a small blurb on Wikipedia about it. I finally found this DVD and was able to see what was only about 2-3 minutes I'd missed before.There's really no explaining it. Personally, I'd never seen anything like it at the time. It's just funny-weird and seems to be just the funny I'm looking for. I've shown it to other people since I bought it and I get just about the same reaction from it that I do when I show old Monty Python movies to people. Some people love it, some people hate it.The people that love it though.... I have hardly ever see them laugh that hard. Makes me feel good that I was able to show them this short-story gem that they likely would have lived their whole lives through without ever having witnessed.5 stars alone for me to be able to see the whole thing 10 years after I originally caught most of it. Being able to share it with the other people that loved it makes me wish you could give it 5+.

Finally the short films are getting their props. Very entertaining!!

Both I and the students in my film appreciation class really loved most of the shorts on this DVD. Plus, it is not very often that people get to see the movie shorts that show at film festivals, so it's a unique experience and a pleasurable one as well.

Sundance short films program is famous for discovering (and acknowledging) new talent. This is a great selection of shorts from 2003 edition, with one of the funniest shorts ever - Fits & Starts.

I can only speak from experience for one of the many short films showcased on this disc; but I will anyway, because Pat Healy's "Mullitt" may just prove to be the funniest, most unforgettable 15 minutes of your life.