Wolphin

Last fall, I wrote a post about The Believer, a magazine put out by McSweeney's that I enjoy thoroughly. I'm also a devoted fan to another McSweeney's product, Wolphin, which is essentially a quarterly DVD magazine. The good people at Wolphin poke around the world to compile short films that normally wouldn't see the light of day. "Short films" is a very generic term for what you actually see, however. These shorts consist of live action fictional pieces, short animated films (some of my personal favorites), short documentaries, and occasionally a bizarre foreign sitcom with subtitles written by American writers/comedians.

I really can't stress enough how cool these compilations are. I won't say every single item is cool, but...no, never mind. I think everything I've watched on the Wolphin DVDs has been cool. These shorts are often visually stunning, cleverly written, incredibly informative, or thoroughly thought-proving. Often they are all of these things at once.

I happen to be posting on this tonight because I watched a video in an entertaining Onion A.V. Club post (see video below) that I originally saw in the second issue of Wolphin. This Oscar-nominated animated short, called "More," is a fine example of what you'll find on these compilations. But really, there's something for everyone on these DVDs, particularly if you're a film buff.

I subscribe to the DVD, and I'm working on watching Issue #5 right now. Issue #6 was just delivered, so I've got some catching up to do. If you've never seen any of these, you've got even more catching up to do. The web site recently starting selling the issues individually, and you can get the first four issues as a pack at a heavily discounted price. I suggest checking them out.