You know, I've always gotten an irrational thrill from watching good old fashioned physical destruction -- rock stars trashing hotel rooms, Gallagher sledge-hammering watermelons, you name it. Sure, it's a little immature of me, but I place the blame on my 'inner child', who's been known to be a little destructive now and again. So, personal idiosyncrasies aside, I have to ask: is there anyone who wouldn't enjoy watching lovable stoner James Franco wield a staple gun?

The Room Before and After is a 32-minute short film that appears in the latest issue of Wholpin (McSweeney's DVD magazine), and was directed by McSweeney's founder, Dave Eggers. There are other films included in the issue for the Room series starring Creed Bratton from The Office and comedian Maria Bamford, but I don't know if they contain quite the same level of mayhem as Franco's installment. The clip is the perfect combination of McSweeney's (and presumably Franco's) style of high-art mixed with abstract silliness, and it's a great of example of how Franco has slowly become one of the most interesting actors working today. He has the same great sense for silly comedy that he does for dramatic work -- and without the usual hang-ups of so many 'serious' actors. Not to mention, you have to love a guy that can go from likable weirdo to just plain weird in 51 seconds flat.

After the jump: Franco lays waste to a studio apartment and another of his famous 'freakouts'...

So you're nowhere near New York City right now, but you'd still like to taste a little of what the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival is serving up this year, am I right? Good news for you is the YouTube Screening Room is currently hosting four different short films screening at Tribeca this week, and you can watch them for free, in their entirety, right ... now.

We've posted one of the short films below; it's called Cutlass and it was directed by actress Kate Hudson as part of that ongoing series from Glamour. Starring Virginia Madsen, Kurt Russell, Kristen Stewart, Chevy Chase and Sarah Roemer, Cutlass follows a woman (Madsen) who, after getting into an argument with her daughter (Fanning), takes a trip down memory lane back to when she was a teenager who desperately wanted a hot new 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Loving Kurt Russell, and Stewart, as the younger version of Madsen, shows a lot of emotion (which is something we rarely see out of her). Not sure I understand the overall message here, but it's not too bad; Hudson keeps it fairly simple, cute and nostalgic for her directorial debut. Check it out below and let us know what you think.



The three other shorts -- Section 44, Wu and The Confession -- can be watched over at the YouTube Screening Room. The Tribeca Film Festival runs through May 3; check out more of our coverage over here.

"Nature is scandalous." Isabella Rossellini

I don't know how I missed this, but the wonderful, strange, and brilliant world of Green Porno isn't over. (You know, the short film series cooked up by Isabella Rossellini where she dons costumes and acts out the sexual techniques of the wild kingdom?) In fact, we've got two more helpings on the way! And here I thought the brilliance of insect mating was all we'd get.

The second season of Green Porno focuses on marine life, and it is already available for our viewing pleasure over at SundanceChannel.com. This time, Isabella starts off by musing about the many penises that exist on our wonderful Earth (many brilliantly recreated with paper), and then dips into the sexual appetites and practices of whales, starfish, limpets, anglerfish, and barnacles. Better yet, that's not all. In a funky interview with Bust (which you can watch here), Rossellini also said a third season will come out way this fall, focusing on the animals we eat. (Cows, pigs, and chickens, oh my!)

Unfortunately, these aren't embeddable movies. However, they are available through the Sundance link above, and they're not even location-locked this time around!

The bloody turkeys are coming! Okay ... this isn't the big news, but it's what I'm going to go with first, because I think we've all been waiting long enough to hear about a longer, more bloody Thanksgiving. Eli Roth may have said: "Thanksgiving was the most fun I've ever had shooting anything, and the response to it was the best response to anything I've ever done in my career," back in 2007, but that's all we heard -- the faint glimmer of hope thrown at the fans, just like Machete. But the idea isn't dead.

In a discussion with MTV, Roth revealed that he still wants to make that Grindhouse trailer into a full-length feature. "I want to make the highest body count slasher film I can," Roth said, while explaining that he hopes he can tack $5 mil and a few weeks onto another, bigger film to finally make Thanksgiving a reality.

This bigger film doesn't have a name yet, but Roth says he's almost done with the script and plans to start production this fall. "I don't want to give away the title yet, because I have to make sure I own it 100%, but it's going to be something that is really fun with lots of mass destruction. I wanted to do something along the lines of Transformers or Cloverfield that was a little more science fiction-based, and with lots of chaos and mass destruction."

He says it's not aliens, or robots, or a virus, so what could it be? All he'll say is: "when people hear it they are going to be like 'That is going to be insane!'" But first he's got to shop it around to studios who can pay his proposed $85 million price tag -- $80 for the scifi feature, and $5 for Thanksgiving. If only the latter could gobble its way to screens in time for the holiday...

When twenty directors come together to celebrate a city on film, like in Paris je T'aime, it is easy to gain a palpable sense of the place, as if each scene is a brief peek into Parisian life. Best of all -- good or bad, another scene is only moments away; there are a myriad of scenes, styles, and experiences. With three, however, the stakes are raised. Each piece is important and cannot fade into a sea of many.

Tokyo! is a triptych that merges the visions of three creative filmmakers – Michel Gondry, who was responsible for the desperate, mind-wiping romance of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Leos Carax, who created the tempestuous Pola X; and Bong Joon-ho, the man who brought us the wickedly fun horror film, The Host. True to their art, each offers fresh and unique creations that twist recognizable themes, but they are not exactly clips that merge into a cohesive look at the Japanese city. Instead, they seem much more like three random films that just happen to take place in Tokyo.

I'm always on the look out for the next great short film. When I'm not writing on Cinematical, sometimes I'm watching boatloads of festival submissions for various friends in the film world, and while it's definitely a tedious task, I always feel it's so worth it when you discover that one gem ... because it's there, hiding under a stack of blah. It always is. This short film, titled Nemesis, arrived via email yesterday from Cinematical reader Leonard S. ... and I just kinda fell in love with it right away. It comes from Norway, and according to the YouTube description, Nemesis was part of a school project; an exam from last semester. It's scary knowing this is just a school project because I guarantee it could play in some of the larger film festivals around the world.

Nemesis follows a guy named Arne who, ever since he was a young boy, has been convinced he has super powers. However, since he hasn't been able to discover his super powers, Arne decides to put an ad out for an archnemesis in the hopes this person will help unveil his secret abilities. The short is embedded below -- and you can watch it there -- but I also recommend watching the larger HD version over on YouTube. Check it out and let us know what you think. FYI: Running time is about 8 minutes.

Now that the fireflies have flown through the garden, Julia Roberts wants more Dennis Lee. More specifically, old Dennis Lee. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the actress is reteaming with Lee to morph his short film Jesus Henry Christ into a feature film.

The short, which won Lee a Student Academy Award, focused on a scholarship student (Henry) in a Catholic school who gets sent to the headmaster's office. The feature, however, will play out a little differently. The new take will follow Henry's search for his father. See, he's "a boy conceived in a petri dish and raised by a loving, left-wing feminist. At the age of 10, he decides his mother's love is not enough and begins to follow a trail of Post-It notes stuck around town hoping it will lead him to his biological father." (Post-Its have broken through the small screen of Rube and Berger!)

Right now, Roberts is only producing the feature and is not planning to star, but I'm hoping that she'll change her mind. Many might love her romcoms and mainstream fair, but I've always thought that Roberts thrives in the less typical halls of cinema. Becoming a left-wing feminist would do her good! Although I bet if she stays behind the camera, all eyes will turn towards Toni Collette.

And if you want to check out the short, it's available over here, for a price.


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Here is a little health lesson that might strike fear into some of the individuals who keep our Megan Fox gallery in the top ten. If you suffer the symptoms portrayed in this preview (especially the medieval cabinet full of lotions), you should call a health professional immediately. Or take a cold shower.

Actually, the real reason you should watch The Trouble With Lou (besides that it was loved at SXSW 2000, and won the Special Jury Prize at Slamdance 2001) is because the team behind it now work for PIXAR. Producer Teddy Newton, actor Lou Romano, and composer Michael Giacchino have been behind or appeared in The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Cars, and Up. Newton also worked with Brad Bird on the lost gem that is The Iron Giant. Somehow, it's not too surprising that the minds behind such childhood wonder are a little raunchy -- boys will be boys, after all.

The full film is available for purchase or rent on itunes.

There was a time, long ago, when a single, solitary television channel was dedicated to the world of music. On said channel, before the citizenswent wild for "reality" and killed all that was right in the world, short films showcased every song that was played. Some were simply grainy concert footage or quick studio performances, while others stretched the boundaries of moviemaking, showcasing whole narrative stories for a simple, short collection of notes.

Unsurprisingly, these same directors then set their sights on the big screen, itching to stretch their talents from short, three-minute intervals to hours of material. They've given us everything, from men who like to destroy pretty things, to the warped creativity of the mind, to a woman who finds her late husband inside a little boy. They've offered mainstream hits, critical successes, and cult films we all love, and they symbolize that time when music meant videos, and the two went hand in hand.

Things have changed so much that we probably won't see a continuing influx of this sort of talent, but we can savor what the '80s and '90s brought us, and how some small screen vision led to big screen success.

Guard Dog

These days, we might get instant satisfaction when it comes to big-screen films, but not shorts. Watching short films is often an exercise in patience and yearning. You see it, you want it, you wait, and if you're lucky, you might see it pop on the 'net in a few years, or on a DVD somewhere.

But when they do hit, oh, the joy!

You can now watch the excellent Bill Plympton's Oscar-nominated Guard Dog in its entirety above. Wonderfully warped and classic Plympton, the short follows an energetic dog wanting to keep his owner safe. Unfortunately, rather than just protecting his dog walker from danger, he protects the guy from everything. Ninja birds. Cruel crickets. Savage squirrels. You name it! Man, if they did what this dog imagines they could do, I don't think any of us would ever leave the house. I promise you, it's great. Watch it! If you don't agree, I'll have to shake some funny into you.

And, as an added bonus: Plympton's follow-up, Guide Dog, is also popping up today.