Read more to see what I thought about last night's fare.

The 5@5 shows are designed to present five short movies (5-30 minutes) at 5pm. Fortunately, they are also half-priced, at $5. These movies have been selected from over 1000 submitted to the festival. There are 6 5@5 showings beginning last night and continuing each weekday until next Friday. We have tickets to 5 of them, although we will probably only be able to see 4, since one will conflict with another film on our itinerary.

At this year's festival, all of the 5@5s are themed around Ray Charles' songs. This thematic grouping is not literal, and at times it must stretch a little bit, but there is some kind of basic concept that you can identify in each film. The thematic bind for last night's series was the song, "Take These Chains From My Heart." A look at the human condition, from our successes to our failures, our dreams to our nightmares, characterizes this group of movies.

First up was, "Burning Ambition" a movie about a woman's desire to become famous. It was, perhaps, one of the most beautifully shot short movies I have ever seen. The Sydney setting was beautifully framed by a competent cinematographer. The colors were rich and some of the sights were mesmerizing. Unfortunately, while it was somewhat entertaining, the beautiful photography was clearly the primary reason to watch this movie.

The Basic Idea: A woman dreams about the life she wants to lead. That life is summed up by the fact that she wants everyone to know her name. This, as you might imagine, doesn't always come in the form that you wish.

What was good? The cinematography, the humor, and the special effects (considering that it was a short movie) were all solid.

On the other hand, the attempt to model a dream-like state is off-putting at first and really draws the viewer out of the story. It becomes a mystery that you want to solve while you are unsure if it is someone's dream or some other state of altered reality. The payoff at the end was entirely predictable, which leaves you saddened that the story couldn't have been a little more innovative, or interesting.

Finally, I felt like the movie was supposed to be more profound than it was. It strove to be a parable of modern times and the desire for infamy. Where it succeeded in its photography, it failed in its central theme. More eye candy than anything else, the impact of its central message is ultimately dampened by the irony that it fails because of the very thing it tries to profess. Perhaps this movie tries to make a name for itself, to become famous for its profound statements, and is ultimately undone by its failure to do so.

Next up was "Crawlspace". The first of two computer animated shorts, it was an esoteric, abstract message about the folly of ignoring the environment. A humanoid-type creature wakes up in some kind of prison as water drips onto him. His breaks out of this prison and searches for some kind of rejuvenation. He follows a strange, aquatic-type guide to various sources of sustenance, devouring each as he finds it. It is a parable of environmentalism, reminding us of the delicate balance between what the world can offer us and what we want to use.

I enjoyed "Crawlspace", but wasn't overwhelmed by it. It had a strange sensibility to it that I only partially identified with. I like odd journeys, but when this movie was over I simply liked the movie, didn't love it. If you get a chance to see it, perhaps on IFC, you will surely appreciate the animation but do not feel cheated if you can't catch this one.

"Birthday Boy" was up next. It was a powerful anti-war movie that nailed, for me, exactly what a short movie should do. Another computer animated short film, it followed a very young boy around his deserted North Korean village during the Korean War. He found ways to keep himself occupied, first by playing with the environment around him, then after seeing a convoy of tanks heading south, by creating his own war toys and battling the invisible enemies of his imagination.

The animation was fantastic. Perhaps the best aspect of the animation was the fact that you stopped noticing or caring that it was computer generated after a couple of minutes. The story itself, and the way that everything was depicted, completely overwhelmed any need to analyze this from a technical standpoint. As any good computer animation should do, it let the viewer enjoy the movie without being distracted by the media.

Next up was "Your Time Is Up", a good film hampered by a poor technical showing. Because of the variety of formats that these films are presented in (video vs. film, varying aspect ratios), the projectionist had a hard time setting up for this movie. It took nearly fifteen minutes, which was made more agonizing by the fact that the director of the movie was in the audience. Everyone was patient, though, and when the movie successfully began (minus a secondary audio track, forcing the director to recite the couple of lines needed into a microphone), it was an entertaining look at our need to be told the truth.

Kevin Pollack played a psychologist who barely listened to his patients, patronizing them and encouraging them to embrace their neuroses so that they would continue to come back each and every week. When he is given the news that he has only a few weeks to live, he stops caring about his patients and is about as blunt as anyone can be. All of these patients react negatively, until his advice begins to help them.

"Your Time Is Up" is a funny, touching story that is elevated way above where it might otherwise have been by an incredible performance by Kevin Pollack. His line delivery, facial expression, demeanor and general presence is entertaining and engaging. It is worth the effort to seek out this short movie and watch it just for his performance.

Finally, we saw "Vern". This was the longest short at 30 minutes, and I just couldn't care less about it. Essentially about the process of creating a controversial painting on display at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, it seemed over self-important. Vern was an artist who recently passed away and we are given a fairly simplistic overview of his life. More important, though, is what happened in death. His wife authorized a local artist (Mill Valley-based, actually), to use his cremated remains in the creation of a piece of art. The movie focuses briefly on some of the controversy, but tends toward a cumbersome explanation of the reasons behind the painting.

Honestly, I don't care about whether this piece is controversial or not. The result that I saw in the movie was fairly boring and uninteresting as a piece of art. What I was most upset by was that this artist felt that it was necessary to document this process and subject people to 30 minutes of poorly-edited, poorly-shot digital video. The art piece itself was a mockery of the artist whose remains compose it, but I don't mind disagreeing with a concept like this as long as there is a compelling telling of the story. I will probably end up seeing this piece on day on a trip to the museum, and I will do my best to forget the movie that tried to explain its existence.