A morbid distraction: Fallen Art
Shorts have been on my mind lately, given that my day job has me watching a seemingly endless stream of them. But, since most filmmakers wouldn’t appreciate me leaking their festival screeners, I figured I’d share a dark gem that I saw at the Melbourne International Animation Festival back in 2005, a fine festival that also included some pretty great retrospectives on Ub Iwerks and Bill Plympton. Even if Fallen Art’s CGI is looking slightly less cutting edge 6 years later (but still pretty darn good, actually) the short as a whole holds up remarkably well. I won’t give away too much — the ending works best as a surprise — but just know that it’s particularly grim, in an oddly whimsical sort of way. Great character designs, dark humour and an ending that’ll stick with you for years… what more do you need?
Fallen Art:
The Consumption 
That’s pretty dark. You feel guilty smiling. All I can say is, “blah blah blah”