The Best of the Best

Tonight I went to both sessions of the Best of the 48 Hour Film Project DC 2009. 24 short films were shown in all, out of 94 (?) total on-time submissions. There was some great work shown tonight, with the second session in particular just blowing me away.
The winners were:

1. Gwendolyn Dangerous
2. Rakirovka
3. Ivan Pagoda: A Feel Good Story

I've gone around trying to find high-quality online versions of everything I really liked, and here's what I've come up with. Here they are, listed in the order of my favorite movies:

Rakirovka: Ersatz "foreign film," in Russian, about an intense chess match. Still my favorite overall, came in 2nd place according to the judges. Brilliant combination of drama and humor. Minimalist yet incredibly imaginative. Genius at work, in my mind.

Janice and Jonas: Silent romantic film about the missed connection between a hairdresser and her client. Beautiful cinematography and expressive acting. The main prop is an iPhone which is used to brilliant effect. I can only conclude that Apple should pick this up as an iPhone ad, since — despite the fact that I am the world's biggest Apple-hater — this movie managed to melt my stone-cold heart.  

Ivan Pagoda: A Feel Good Story: comedy about a failed sports coach who takes up a slightly different job. Great acting.

Gwendolyn Dangerous: Film de femme (aka chick film) combined with sci-fi. Hilarious over-the top pseudo-feminist chick flick set on interplanetary spaceship. Amazing, amazing special effects. The winner of the DC competition!

Please Forward: mockumentary/comedy about a company that produces chain mail and spam. All around funny, great writing and story.

Stonking: Mockumentary about a small-time politician running for a Ward 6 seat in DC, and his team of idiotic staffers and the morons filming them. Wonderful cinematography and pitch-perfect acting. Maybe the best laugh-out-loud movie I saw.

American Institution: mockumentary about gay marriage. Funny, ironic, spontaneous.

He Drove: Comedy about the aftermath of a one-night stand, with the guy's and girl's quirky traits personified.  

Nowhere Man: "Historical" comedy about a slacker who decides to go to Woodstock. Very creative cinematography and script. Good acting. This one is of particular interest to me, because it was shot using the movie mode of a Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital single-lens reflex camera... cool!!

'Za: Stoner flick about a pizza delivery guy who has a funny but rough night on the job. Great cinematography and funny low-budget feel.

Life Is Super: Superhero movie. This was uncannily similar to what we tried to do with Paradigm Smash: they had a superhero life coach and a cast of small-time superheroes, including an invisible guy. They also used the spinning-newspaper-news-flash trick like we did. I thought we had a better story, but they were technically way better. (Can anyone find it online?) 

Cry Guy: Comedy about a guy who can't ever cry, and goes to a coach to try and fix his problem. Great acting, great story, and hilarious ending.

Happy Hour: Comedy (?) with an unexpected ending. Clever twist, but not one of the best of the best.

The Imperial: Drama about an FBI (?) agent chasing a couple of criminals to a DC hotel. I'm gonna be a curmudgeon and say this movie fell flat for me. It was technically amazing with props and cinematography and sound that would be good enough for a Hollywood action movie. But the acting was wooden and lifeless and the story was a confusingly curtailed shambles.

A whopping five of these top movies were from the screening group that Paradigm Smash was in. Here's a great blog entry on the top DC entries from a more experienced reviewer! There's also a blog with entries from some of the project's other participants in DC.

Update: Here's another blog post from Tohubohu, the group that made Please Forward, with a list of all the finalists in the DC competition.

Update: Here's the 48 Hour Film Project's official DC 2009 page, showing the award winners.  Ivan Pagoda: A Feel Good Story won the award for Best Acting... very well-deserved, in my opinion!