Posted in: by Sean Axmaker, Contributors, Film Reviews

‘Sundance Shorts 2013’: Eight Little Movies From This Year’s Fest

In The Date, awkwardness that could’ve been played for laughs—the owners of show cats making small talk as the yowls and growls of mating felines alarm an inexperienced chaperone—instead becomes a very human moment of anxiety (then comforted over a smoking break). Whiplash, built around the debut of a member in a school jazz orchestra, elevates the intensity as a teacher terrorizes his players like a drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.

These two films, beginning a collection of eight shorts from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, sneak up on you—not for any surprise ending or high-concept twist, but for the transformation of simple ideas and choice moments into fully realized little stories.

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