Comedy Favorites

Running time: N/A

This year's comedy short series is an eclectic mix of films sure to bring a smile to your face. Joshua Porter's The Ride features a conflict between an affluent white man and an Afro-Caribbean woman on a New York subway which yields a deceptive outcome. With the use of "flashback fantasies," filmmakers Ginger Rinkenberger and Kathryn Pickford have created a deliriously paced comedy. What became known as ...THE ELEANOR AFFAIR ( Best Student Film at The Hamptons International Film Festival, New York 1996) explores the insidious delight of small-town gossip. Francine Mc Dougall's two-minute short Pig shows that big comedy can come in small packages when two people meet on the road. Jonathan O'Beirne's hilarious faux documentary Bananas in Bedlam follows once-famous children's book characters whose careers have fallen by the wayside. En Garde Monsieur, by Didier Fontan, is a swashbuckling comedy where a fender-bender escalates into a duel to the death. Nominated for the 1995 Academy Award Best Short, John R. Dilworth's The Chicken from Outer Space is the story of a cowardly dog who must foil the plans of an alien chicken bent on taking over the world. Don M. Gaile's Babyface mixes satire, sophistication, and sweet revenge. An incredible cast of prepubescents give this grand-scale costume comedy a high cute quotient, but the gangster genre gives it enough edge to avoid post-screening insulin shots. - Matthew Aquino