Five-Legged Iguana

ON THE LOT
Film Premiere 1

Well, first off, I’d like to correct myself.
I was under the assumption that what we’d see in the 2-hour Premiere show would be the short film submissions of the 18 finalists (which is what I said in my look at Auditions Round 2: see Archive).
What we actually saw were the results of the finalists’ first challenge: shoot a 1-minute comedy short in one week.
Voting by the public begins with this show, and the 3 directors with the lowest number of votes get eliminated in Tuesday’s Box Office results show.

We also discover that Garry Marshall and Carrie Fisher are the regular judges, while the third seat is apparently a rotating one (Yahoo! No more Brett Ratner!).
For this show, the guest judge was D.J. Caruso (The Salton Sea, Taking Lives, and most recently, Disturbia).*

MY FAVORITES
Sam Friedlander’s “Replication Theory”: Like Fisher and Marshall, I‘m not particularly a fan of fart jokes, but Friedlander makes it work, taking us to different places (and times) using a painfully relatable social faux pas as his jump-off point.

Andrew Hunt’s “Spaced Out”: Those aliens were brilliant! And again, not a big fan of onscreen vomiting, but this was just flat out hilarious.

Zach Lipovsky’s “Danger Zone”: Done in one continuous 360 degree take (nearly 50 times till they got it right), effects wiz Lipovsky wisely chooses not to rely on his obvious strength—saving that for the brief glimpse of the runaway killer robot—and wows with technique and a really funny short.

MY UN-FAVORITES
Jessica Brillhart’s “… To Screw in a Light Bulb”: The gag just didn’t work. I think Marshall was right: it’s hard to make a metaphor funny.

Hilary Graham’s “Bus #1”: Yes, needing to take a piss while in a moving vehicle is universal, but as I’ve mentioned above, I’m not really big on toilet humor.

Kenny Luby’s “Wack Alley Cab”: This was just bizarre and not funny at all, like watching a lame “comedy” while on speed.

SPECIAL MENTION
Marty Martin’s “The Big Bad Heist”: This was funny. But it was a trailer, and not a short film with a beginning, middle, and end. Still, it looked great, had a cool Guy Ritchie vibe, and 24 angry little ninjas. How can you not like that?

THE REST OF THE PACK
Will Bigham’s “Lucky Penny”: A man finds the eponymous lucky penny in this Looney Tunes-flavoured tale.

Jason Epperson’s “Getta Rhoom”: A nerd (who unfortunately looks more like a special needs child) gets into a whole lotta trouble for playing monkey-see, monkey-do.

Phil Hawkins’ “Please Hold”: A young woman wakes up to find her apartment being burgled, and makes things worse by calling 911.

Trever James’ “A Golf Story”: A send-up of the alarmingly ubiquitous sports movie, on a mini-golf course.

Shalini Kantayya’s “Love in the Year 2007”: The hazards of the single life in the year 2007.

Mateen Kemet’s “Soft”: You can’t be “soft” if you wanna live in the `hood.

Claudia La Bianca’s “Blind Date”: The hazards of the single life in the year 2007, take 2.

David May’s “File Size”: The rigours of office life in the year 2007.

Carolina de San Martin’s “Deliver Me”: Going into labor in the year 2007.

Shira-Lee Shalit’s “Check Out”: The rigours of post-9/11 security.

Adam Stein’s “Dance Man”: About a man who can only communicate through interpretative dance.

What’s interesting to note in this batch of shorts are, a) that at least 5 of them are very timely, and of-the-moment, yet the shorts I thought were the funniest had concepts that were very timeless and universal (“Replication Theory” handled time, “Spaced Out” handled the universe).
And b) at least 4 turned to bodily functions for humour. Two of these, in turn, had said bodily function as the central idea of their premise: Friedlander brilliantly mines the fart, while Graham, ahem, takes the piss.

One more thing: Did I blink and miss something? Or did the show decide we didn’t need to see the cut that brought the field from the 24 of episode 2, to the 18 of this episode?

* I do find it odd that Caruso isn’t necessarily a comedy director, though I guess that’s already addressed by Marshall.

The 18 finalists:

Adam Stein, 29, freelance film editor, born in Miami, FL, currently living in Los Angeles
Andrew Hunt, 31, promo producer from Minneapolis, MN, raised in Pittsburgh, PA
Carolina de San Martin, 36, commercial director, originally from Santander, Spain, currently living in Los Angeles, CA
Claudia La Bianca, 28, painter and graphic artist, born in Bagheria, Sicily, Italy, currently lives in Miami, FL
David May, 23, admissions counselor living in Santa Ana, CA, but grew up in Aurora, CO
Hilary Graham, 37, stay-at-home wife and mom who lives in Francestown, NH, and raised in Chelmsford, MA
Jason Epperson, 30, owner of film production company, born and raised in Winchester, KY
Jessica Brillhart, 22, computer specialist, grew up in York, PA, currently living in Brooklyn, NY
Kenny Luby, 28, freelance director and painter, born and raised in Owego, NY
Marty Martin, 26, creative director of a multimedia company, born and raised in Seattle, WA
Mateen Kemet, 41, teacher, currently living in Los Angeles, CA, raised in the Bronx, NY
Phil Hawkins, 22, born and raised in Manchester, England, works as a freelance director
Sam Friedlander, 28, web producer, living in Santa Monica, CA, raised in Westchester, NY
Shalini Kantayya, 30, freelance director, raised in Hartford, CT, currently living in Brooklyn, NY
Shira-Lee Shalit, 38, acting teacher, born in Johannesburg, South Africa, now living in New York
Trever James, 24, film editor, currently living in Los Angeles, CA, and raised in Great Falls, MT
Will Bigham, 31, film editor, originally from Canyon, TX, currently living in Glendale, CA
Zach Lipovsky, 23, special effects editor from Vancouver, BC, Canada

Parting shot: Check out all the shorts at thelot.com.

(D.J. Caruso image courtesy of dga.org; contestant images courtesy of thelot.com.)