The Best of Wholphin Vol. 1

Edited by Brent Hoff

Since I've been getting so much enjoyment out of McSweeney's lately, it only seemed right to give their DVD magazine a chance too.  I'd always wanted to try it, but I'd never gotten around to picking up an issue.  When McSweeney's had a recent fire sale (so far as I know, there was no actual fire) and sold a bunch of these DVDs off for only $1 an issue, I knew it was time to get caught up.

The whole purpose of Wholphin is to create a larger audience for short films, cartoons, and documentaries that otherwise do not reach very many people.  Because I like to be chronological in all things, I started with this collection of the 'best of' the first five issues.

There is a lot to like on this DVD.  The disc starts with 'Two Cars, One Night', a twelve-minute short set in New Zealand and featuring three Maori children who are left outside a bar in their parents' cars.  The one boy, Romeo, begins a flirtatious interchange with the girl in the other car.  It's sweet watching him prance and preen for her.

Two documentaries collected here really stood out.  The first is a half-hour excerpt from the film American Outrage, which shares the story of Carrie and Mary Dann, two elderly Shoshone women who have been the targets of the American government's efforts to steal valuable land in Nevada for the gold within it.  This is a powerful film, which documents the aggressive and unjustifiable actions of government agencies that have kidnapped and killed their livestock.  It's amazing that the UN has ruled on the side of the Dann's, yet nothing has been done.

The other powerful documentary is 'A Stranger In Her Own City', a profile of Najmia, a young girl living in Sanaa, Yemen, who refuses to wear the veil, and who spends her days playing soccer with boys or riding her bicycle.  She is a symbol of defiance in a deeply conservative part of the world, and her spirit and strength are infectious.

I also enjoyed the lighter side of this DVD, such as 'The Pity Card', a pilot for a comedy sitcom that makes light of a young woman's ignorance of the Holocaust, and 'The Delicious', a strange comedic short about an obsession that involves polyester pants suits, scissors, and dancing.  'Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?' is a sweet short by Miranda July.

'Walleyball' is a three-minute chronicle of a volleyball game played over the wall that makes up the Mexican/US border.  'Chonto' is a slightly creepy animated film about a rock star's love for his monkey, and 'Heavy Metal Jr.' is a hilariously serious documentary about a Scottish heavy metal band made up of twelve year olds who sing about Satan at a county fair.  'More' is a very cool little cartoon about greed and technology that reminded me of Metropolis, even without the soundtrack by New Order.

I'm very happy that I have three more issues of this quarterly to plow through, as I really enjoyed the diversity of the films on offer here.