Festivids recs

[bironic]

Okay, right, let's get some festivids recs in before the reveals on Saturday. My personal favorites so far—as measured by strength of emotional response, level of impressed-ness at the editing, and number of times I've rewatched them—are:

ETA: Added vidders now that reveals are up.

Both Donnie Darko vids: Collision Course by Jaidanwolf, which does an astounding job at conveying the tone and confusion/coolness of the movie, and I'm Not Done by cherryice, another beautiful interpretation which manages to make clips even creepier than they already were, especially the shots of dancing and jumping and water running. I really liked the movie and really liked these vids; some guests at Saturday's viewing party hadn't seen the movie but were wowed by the first. (They doubtless would have been as wowed by the second, but they voted to save it for after they'd seen the movie.)

The Donnie Darko vids and the Solaris vid Lotus Flower set to Radiohead all remind me pleasantly of hollywoodgrrl's David Lynch vids, dark, disjointed, repetitive, confusing, unnerving, gorgeous. [Ah, but it was by obsessive24!] Here, even if the plot probably doesn't make sense to someone who's not familiar with the source, there are some really haunting images.

We Lay in Caves by sol_se is a beautiful vid of a movie or TV pilot called Virtuality, which is now at the top of my Netflix queue. Nice music, nice editing, nice build, nice matches of motion and emotion to musical cues, nice symbolism—especially, I thought, the juxtaposition of open and closed spaces, the paradox of open space (vacuum, imagination) that seems to offer freedom and escape but brings danger and death.

May I take this moment to reiterate as in past years that not knowing a source is no reason not to try a Festivid of it? Many are constructed to draw in people unfamiliar with what's going on, or can be appreciated on different levels depending on how much you know; others have summaries to help situate you. And, okay, some just don't make sense or get boring. But always worth a try! Seems to be part of the spirit of a rare-fandom 'fest.

The Spooks/MI-5 vid Running Up That Hill by barkley could have suffered from length issues or from using a song previously used to good effect at Vividcon, but I think it's a good portrayal of Tom, Danny and Zoe's increasing despair as they try and often fail to do good for their country. Alternate title: Tom's life is hard. As a pimping vid, it offers clips of Anthony Stewart Head's, Hugh Laurie's and Alexander Siddig's guest spots.

How about some funny vids after all that depression? I've enjoyed the Beavis and Mythbusthead vid Breaking Stuff by Vesper Regina, the demented-funny Joker vid set to Tiny Tim (Livin' In The Sunlight, Lovin' In The Moonlight) by absolutedestiny, and the Clueless vid Let's Go to the Mall by Dogstar, cleverly set to the song from How I Met Your Mother. (The other Clueless vid was fun, too, but the stepbrother/stepsister thing unexpectedly made me uncomfortable, and it does suffer from astolat's John/Rodney vid owning that song.) We at the par-tay also had good laughs at the shameless Pride & Prejudice vid about Colin Firth as Darcy, What a Man by sisabet, and the swashbuckling Princess Bride vid, He's a Pirate by scribe, which maybe more than anything else made me appreciate all over again an all-in-black Cary Elwes with long hair. And yes, because seemingly everyone in fandom besides me is in love with cats, we screened the Maru the Cat vids (a YouTube series, I'm assuming); and despite myself, I admit that Outside the Box by shati is really well-made.

A feel-good one with really excellent musicality—a term I'm finally learning to grasp this Festivids round—is the How to Train Your Dragon vid I'm Still Here by dragonchic. Catching the beat sometimes, catching just the right off-beat other times, building action as the song builds, choosing motions that suit the instrumentation in unexpected ways that you then can't imagine happening another way. All good.

In the "interesting and successful song choice" category, we have Feeling Good (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) by valika, as well as The King's Speech vid, Fixing a Hole by legoline, set to the Beatles. I haven't seen the movie, but ellen_fremedon recommended the vid and I greatly enjoyed it. One of the best-edited in this year's collection, methinks. Oh, and the Daybreakers vid Me and Lazarus by mithborien had an interesting Iron & Wine choice, but I don't think I went back and finished watching. Maybe I'll do that after this post.

Ugh, so many others. To this canon-unfamiliar viewer, the Babylon 5 vid Binary Orbit by thingswithwings did a good job of portraying an evolving relationship between two characters. Extreme Ways (Dead Like Me) by charmax, a.k.a. Mason's life sucks, was moving and well-made. I imagine those of you who like Doctor Who have already watched Awake My Soul by Nancy Blackett, a Sarah Jane tribute; I don't know the character much, but the emotion comes across extremely well. Very well-edited was the gritty Life vid Children's Work by lithiumdoll, which I gather is about a supporting character.

A lot of people seem blown away by sweetestdrain's Cabaret vid, Hot in Herre. I thought it was good, but it seems to me that what it does is what the movie does, just edited down to a few minutes, and that the length could have been tightened. Commenters point to the elegance of the tone shift; I'll have to watch again and see.

And that's not counting the one made for me, or the ones I made. Unless I'm lying. *shifty eyes* Care to guess?

I've probably forgotten to name some. And there are still a few I haven't gotten to. And it's possible I've missed some good ones because I've clicked out of many, many vids after <30 seconds if they're plodding or sappy or cut super-fast or don't match the music at all or are just boring. Um, I've been told more than once lately that I'm a tough critic. On the other hand, with so many hours of vids to watch, one's patience wears; and there was consensus at the viewing party that the most common problem in this year's collection was vidders not editing down their songs to a more concise and enjoyable length (when appropriate; many were longer and excellent).

For reference, the 2011 masterlist.

So! Have you been browsing? Which ones have you liked?