We suppose it was inevitable in the wake of people being encouraged to write a novel in a month, record an album in twenty-nine days, make a movie in a weekend, and create a comic in a day: the latest in America's love affair with creative celerity over quality is the Undergroundfilmmakerfestival, in which auteur wannabes are required to complete an entire short film in four weeks' time. Like the beloved Iron Chef show, contestants are given a theme just before the commencement of the countdown, and will be subjected to a jury who will determine the winner of a fabulous! cash! prize!
According to an article on the festival in Wired, the theme was "the state of the counterculture", well illustrated (according to organizer Daniel Watts) by the guy who went around asking probing questions of Elvis impersonators in a short called What Would Elvis Say?. We're not sure exactly what kind of counterculture is represented by Elvis impersonators and WWJD? jokes, but we're pretty certain that it hasn't been state-of-the art for a good decade and a half.
Far be it from us here at the Screengrab to editorialize, and if some talented young filmmaker nets himself five grand off this project, we won't kick. But would it be totally crazy to suggest that this sort of quantity-over-quality craze isn't any more becoming in the arts than it is in cuisine? Nobody thinks the billions served and the two-minute wait pioneered by burger chains is a big leap forward for our culture, so why this obsession for writing books, making movies, and recording music in some absurdly short amount of time just to prove you can? Chinese Democracy excepted, we can barely think of any movie, book, record, or piece of art that wouldn't have been better if the creators had all the time they wanted to get it perfect — so why rush to make a movie in a month? It's not like we're running out of the things.