What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? (2005) - Paul Kelly

Paul Kelly’s second foray into the world of film making is this wonderful short (45 minutes) film about the Lower Lea Valley in London’s East End. The announcement on 6th July 2005 that this long neglected area was soon to become the center of the worlds attention (due to it being transformed beyond all recognition into the Olympic Park for the 2012 London Olympics), was met with a smattering of applause and a healthy dose of scepticism from the local population. Luckily Paul Kelly was on hand along with long time friends and collaborators Saint Etienne to capture the area on film before it disappeared forever.

We follow a paperboy as he cycles through the various places that make up his route. It’s a simple narrative that allows Kelly to focus on a number of seemingly unconnected images and places that appear to have been forgotten by all but those that live there. Mervyn Day (the paperboy) meanders around the downtrodden area exploring derelict buildings, cricket grounds and canals. On top of this we get various audio bursts from the locals, waxing lyrical about everything from a crocodile that lives in the canal, Dick Turpin and a kidnapper on the loose. There's also wonderful gravelly narration from David Essex and Linda Robson as Mervyn's grandfather and mother respectively.

What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? works in the same way as The London Nobody Knows or even The Long Good Friday in that it records a whole swathe of London that has now gone for good. A time capsule for a future generation if you will. There's references to The Smiths, Eastenders (signs for both The Dagmar and The Queen Victoria turn up), stories about great leaps in industry (plastic being invented here) and how nicking toy cars from the Matchbox factory wasn’t really thought of as stealing. More than anything there is a strong feeling of nostalgia running through the film. This comes across not only in the audio interviews, but also in Saint Etienne's score.

Peppered throughout What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? are snippets of radio news about Britain winning the Olympic bid and of the bombings that knocked London for six the day after that announcement. Which cleverly manages to convey both the mixed feelings (excitement & gloom) that was in the air at the time. It also firmly anchors the film in a particular moment in time. It might not mean much now, but in 50 years…

Coming from a photography background Kelly has a keen eye for where to place his camera and manages to find beauty in things that most people would normally look away from. An old Coke can and half deflated football sitting atop a puddle of scum on a waterway, rows of long abandoned industrial premises, old street signs and heavily graffitied walls. All look interesting and invoke a nostalgia for ‘the old days’. I found a shot of an old bin with wooden slats particularly moving. Maybe you had to be there.

Just as with their previous collaberation with Paul Kelly, 2003's Finisterre, the Saint Etienne soundtrack works a treat. The music itself is almost an updated version of John Cameron’s aces score for Kes. Very pastural yet modern at the same time, very Saint Etienne in other words. It's all flutes and beats, the sound of the past and the present clashing with great success. They performed it live at the film's premiere at London’s Barbican Centre.

By the film's end our paperboy is down at the Thames staring across the water at that other huge London redevelopment project of the recent past - The Millennium Dome. It leaves the viewer questioning what will happen to the communities around the Lower Lea Valley in the aftermath of the Olympics? Will they be pushed further afield and not get to enjoy the rejuvenation of their own area? After all, that has been happening for donkey's years now with the gradual 'gentrification' of London. Time alone will tell. Once the lovely animated credits for What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? start to role though you’ll find yourself wanting to go for a stroll along the waterways, or maybe pop into one of the local caffs for a mug of tea. It’s too late though since it’s all gone now. That’s why this film is so important. A total triumph.

Waterpark (2012) - Evan Prosofsky

I have a lot of time for documentaries, well actually that's an understatement - I adore documentaries. I also have a lot of time for people that make that all important leap from talking about doing something to actually going out and actually creating something.

Waterpark is Evan Prosofsky's first shot at making a documentary, his day job finds him working as a cinematographer, mainly for music videos. This doc first came to my attention when when I received a frantic phone call form my wife informing me that Dirty Beaches (a Canadian musician whom I'm head over heels about), was playing in our town. He's played here a few times in the past but for various reasons I haven't managed to catch his shows. It turns out that this time he'd be playing live accompaniment to a Canadian documentary about a huge shopping mall, a shopping mall that's so big it also houses a waterpark. Crazy, huh?

So that's how I came to be sitting in an art gallery last Friday watching this. Evan was there to introduce his film, and he explained that Edmonton, Canada (where he is from) is home to this bizarre shopping mall, we were informed that the winters there were incredibly harsh, yet people would spend their time at the mall, swimming, hanging out and generally enjoying a break from the harsh reality that was happening outside.

So not only do you have the juxtaposition of arctic winter conditions and tropical beach locale, but also shopping rubbing up against leisure. More than enough there for a decent documentary I thought. Mr Dirty Beaches (or Alex Zhang Hungtai to you and me) was ready behind his analogue Korg synth, the lights dimmed and we were off.

Waterpark kicks off with an infomercial about said waterpark and then for the next fifteen minutes or so consists off people swimming, walking around, bungee jumping, swimming some more and erm, that's your lot really. Empty is the word that kept coming to mind as I watched it. Vacuous. What is the point, I kept thinking. I looked over at my wife (who I'd dragged along) about five minutes in, and saw she was thinking the same thing as me. After fifteen minutes it was all over, and of course being a special screening with the director present, the crowd applauded long and loud.

Evan Prosofsky fielded questions from the audience afterwards, but they dried up quickly simply because there was nothing of substance to ask any questions about. I had to fight the urge to ask him why he'd bothered to make Waterpark in the first place, since Evan looked so happy. I just couldn't be the one to rain on his parade. We left as soon as it was politely possible to do so, and talked about nothing else all the way home. We came to the conclusion that if this was on YouTube no one would be able to sit through it without skimming through to the end after a few minutes. On the plus side I did get to see Dirty Beaches though.

The Dentist (1932) - Leslie Pearce

So so W.C. Fields short, that works in some places and fails in others. Fields plays the titular dentist, whose daughter is in love with the guy that delivers the ice. Of course old W.C. doesn't like this situation and forbids her from seeing him. Other than that we get a quick round of golf before Fields deals with some patients. That's it plot wise, but let's face it no one watches a W.C. Fields for the plot do they?

The high points are many, the golf segment is a gem, Fields is on fire as possibly the rudest person on screen during the early talkie years. The frustration of not being able to hit a ball over a lake builds and builds until not only do his clubs end up in the water, but the caddy too. Fields is equally mean to his patients, best of the bunch being a society lady who Fields drags around the room whilst trying to extract a tooth. It's painful to watch but at the same time immensely funny. Kind of like a forerunner to that whole Jackass brand of humour. Kind of. Best moment of the film though is old W.C. trying to put some ice into the freezer, it's moments like this that make his place amongst the early comedy greats seem well deserved.

Although having said all of that this isn't one of his greatest films. It's watchable and at a mere twenty minutes it skips along and is over before you know it. It just didn't feel very focused, golf + dentistry + the daughter story = one story line too many for a slapstick short. Pearce is no great shakes as a director either, he knows enough to set the camera back and follow Fields' lead, but beyond that it could have been any monkey directing. However if you like Fields and enjoy visual humour I'd say take a punt on this, you could do worse.

Tony (2005) - Gerard Johnson

This is the short film that writer/director Johnson would turn into his memorable debut feature four years later. It's like a ten minute calling card, or maybe more accurately a demo for a song. Pretty much everything in the film such as actors, music and plot would end up in said feature. Like all of Johnson's films the music is by big brother Matt Johnson of The The fame, and sounds very nice thank you very much. It's hard for me to judge this having seen and loved the full length version, in that the characters and locations look more dirty, and everything has a creepier feel to it. So with that in mind I'd say that this is only really worth watching as a curio if you've already seen the feature length version of Tony.

Mug (2004) - Gerard Johnson

Fairly ordinary debut short about a London nasty who mugs two people during the ten minute running time. Nicely framed and well shot and edited to a lovely score by The The, but ultimately a hollow effort. The fact that Gerard Johnson would go on to direct one of the better British films of 2009 (Tony), isn't really evident here. Not something I can imagine myself watching again.

Dog (2001) - Andrea Arnold

Thematically linked in a few ways to Arnold's later Fish Tank, this short is her finding her artistic feet and paving the way for what would become her Oscar winning short Wasp. Leah is a council estate teen, her mum screams abuse at her when she leaves the flat instead of waving tutty bye. You've all seen Ken Loach and Mike Leigh films even if you haven't ventured into the wilds of East London, so you know the type of people I mean. She meets up with her boyfriend John, and they go and buy some gear. Romance not being dead he leads her off onto some waste ground and starts to get frisky. A stray dog eats his dope, so John kicks the dog to death. Leah sees him for the idiot he is and goes home to a receive a beating from her mum. Who is the dog of the title? Well it's not as subtle as one would hope, but when Leah starts barking at her mum, all becomes obvious. There are far worse ways to spend nine minutes of your life than watching this. It looks lovely and is stylistically obviously Arnold, Joanne Hill is great as Leah, shame she hasn't been in anything since.

Milk (1998) - Andrea Arnold

   What a confident debut this is, taking in as it does several different locations, car interiors and even night shoots. It's not instantly identifiable as being by Arnold until the darkness of the film comes to the fore. Short films are so gratifying to watch when they are good, and it's a good film discipline to have under your belt before moving onto features. Having to convey a whole story within the space of ten minutes, leaves little or no time to tell back stories or any of that other stuff that often pushes modern films running times up and over the two hour mark. Instead the director has to use every image to tell the audience everything, so things like set dressing and costumes become extremely important.
   Here we have a couple that conceive and then lose a child within the first few minutes of the film. So while the dad (Stephen McGann) attends the funeral of his stillborn child, the mother (Lynda Steadman) goes off with a substitute child in the form of a joyriding teen (Lee Oakes) who she meets in the high street. Not a lot happens after the initial set up but it does show that people deal with grief in their own way, and leads to a bizarre unexpected ending. On the whole this was a decent little film, that hints at the greatness to come in future films by Arnold.

Making a Living (1914) - Henry Lehrman

There's only one real reason for anyone to watch this little scratchy 12 minute Keystone knockabout short. That reason being that this is the film debut of Charles Spencer Chaplin, other than that this film has very little going for it. As with all Keystone comedies from this era there is no real story to speak of, Chaplin plays a dodgy type who keeps running into his rival Henry Lehrman. Both end up going for a reporters job, and from then on it feels like just a question of time before some sort of chase ensues. Which of course it does, Lehrman witnesses a car crash only to have Chaplin half inch his camera and beat him to the story. Cue a rather tepid chase involving a couple of Keystone cops, a woman in bed and an angry husband (don't ask). At one point it looks like Chaplin stabs a policeman with a knife, surely that can't be right. To be honest everything happens so fast once the chase section is off and running that it's hard to tell just what is going on.

Chaplin isn't quite the Chaplin of legend in this, although it is great to have these early films available to see just how he developed. After all he made 35 films for Keystone in 1914, during which time he created and refined the character of The Little Tramp. His best moments in Making a Living involve him falling and slipping over, hardly the sort of thing you'd say to recommend a film to someone is it? Still there you go, the best was yet to come. From tiny acorns and all that.

An Eastern Westerner (1920) - Hal Roach

Fairly forgettable Harold Lloyd short. As per usual he plays 'The Boy', this time a rich New York preppy type who is packed off to the Wild West to stay with his uncle. Predictably Lloyd falls for a girl, rescues her and her father from the clutches of the towns local menace, has run ins with the locals, plays poker, falls over a lot and generally gurns for the camera in that way that he does. It's all a bit dull though, New York is obviously whichever L.A. suburb was right outside the studio gates, and the film never really gets going until the last five minutes. It's this end section that is the best bit of the film
as Lloyd outwits a bunch of wannabe Klansmen. Does he get the girl, does it all end happily ever after? Do you care? By the time it ended I didn't. His uncle doesn't even turn up. File under not to be watched again.

The Rink (1916) - Charles Chaplin

A full twenty years before Chaplin would wow audiences with his roller skating skills in that audacious scene in Modern Times, Chaplin wrote, directed and stared in this little gem. This two-reeler (or short film around the twenty minute mark to you and me), finds Chaplin working as a waiter who nips off to the roller rink during his lunch breaks. Like all these great comedy shorts the story is merely an excuse for the physical comedy. Chaplin causes chaos both in the dining area and kitchen of the restaurant, people being covered in food and all the typical things you'd expect. Highlight of this section of the film is Chaplin making a cocktail. The way he shakes his body instead of the cocktail shaker is the sort of gag you come to expect from him.

The main draw with this film though is seeing Chaplin up on his skates. He's a phenomenal skater but is even funnier at falling over. Watch him almost going arse over tit and tell me it didn't make you laugh. It had me in fits. The scene where he keeps bouncing off the out for the count fat woman, would be the best bit of the film if it wasn't for the end scene, which sees Chaplin skate out of the door of the rink and onto the streets of L.A., closely followed by a rollerskating mob. The best shot in The Rink is it's very last, Chaplin hanging onto the back of a car by his cane, tipping his hat to the audience and smiling like a man who knows he's just made another great film.

Boo (1932) - Albert DeMond

Oh dear, some of the rubbish I watch does amaze me sometimes. Other times I feel like hanging my head in shame. In this instance I guess it falls somewhere in between. Boo is cobbled together using footage from Nosferatu, The Cat Creeps and Frankenstein. Over this DeMond has seen fit to add what he obviously thinks are witty remarks, which are narrated by one Morton Lowry (his only claim to fame as far as moving pictures go). It's like an early version of What's Up, Tiger Lily?, but without the laughs. Not big, not clever, not good. Even at 9 minutes long it's best avoided.