DVD Review: Cut Shorts - A Collection of Short Films and Music Videos by David Markey from 1974-2004

David Markey is not a film director. He is the kid down the street who is always trashing the neighborhood and chasing his clown-masked friends with a Super 8 video camera. He is the Southern California boy who was surrounded by moviemaking as a child, and who couldn't think of any other way to have fun during the long, balmy summers. Cut Shorts, a compilation of Markey's work, reeks of amateurism and mindlessness; but despite this (or because of it), it still captures the director's narrow area of expertise and does it well.

Though the DVD is billed as a collection of "short films and music videos," and Markey's underground rock cred is well established (think 1991: The Year Punk Broke), Cut Shorts is comprised primarily of his short films - so if it's music videos you're looking for, expect to be disappointed. Not that a collection of shorts by any third- or fourth-tier director is necessarily uninteresting; it's just that Markey's tend to be sluggishly so.

There are certain recurring themes: shaky, handheld Super 8 footage; cheap and hastily-assembled cyan titles; popcorn; California hippies; endless irony pertaining to the degradation of youth through marijuana consumption or recklessness; masturbating clowns; men in rabbit masks; carnivals and circuses; Markey's friends playing the primary roles; unlicensed music; uncomfortably shallow dialogue. The list could go on. This may sound exciting and fascinatingly eccentric today, especially with Adult Swim and Wolphin and other such outlets releasing low-key, mindless short films and cartoons.

But Markey's films are certainly not exciting. They're hardly even eccentric. Each film loses its rigor within the first twenty seconds, and the next four minutes tend to be frustratingly ugly.

Take, for example, "Lou Believers," a short film during which Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth slaps a magazine cover featuring Lou Reed on his face and taunts various Los Angelenos. This sounds funny and all, and probably would be if my friends and I did it today. Markey's film, however, is amateurish and monotonous. His friends and those who were present during the joke would probably find it hilarious, a work of real genius. But I don't care about it. And it's not just because the film is amateurish - there is a fine line between amateurism and genius, after all. But Markey falls way below that line. His film is, simply put, annoying.

Article Author: Modern Pea Pod

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