The Best Shorts You’ve Probably Never Seen…and Probably Never Will.

I remember watching Bravo years ago when they were starting up. Because they didn’t have much programming, they needed a lot of filler material, which meant that they showed a lot of obscure stuff. Two of these I was lucky enough to see were Peter Lynch’s Arrowhead and Steven Frears’ Three Men in a Boat.

Now I know some people who are Don McKellar haters, which I’ve never quite understood. I’ve always liked his oddball, laidback, and neurotic screen presence, not to mention he’s kind of a Canadian staple in a way. Maybe that’s why people don’t like him. He’s sticking it out here instead of becoming the typical expat to try and make it big. Who knows? He’s too “Canadian” for you down there anyway.

I still have a wearing VHS copy of Arrowhead, which is nearly a McKellar vehicle – 30 minutes of him on the screen acting out Ray Bud’s wacky tale of finding a near complete set of mastodon bones in some Toronto swamp located in the midst of urban sprawl. It’s a brilliant mock-doc, which seems at times to be total improv as Mckellar frantically spouts off hilarious over-the-top stories about nearly everything but the bones. Everything in the surrounding area of the swamp is fertile for some strange observation or recollection by Ray Bud. There’s this pathetic sense that this guy has never grown up and is surviving off of the memories that are still vivid and alive for him, which makes it easy to be moved by these stories as well.

As much as this film is a constant comedic flow, Arrowhead has a kind of undercurrent about change, which also makes it quite touching. It really has the feel of growing out of childhood - the awe and drama of that experience - and the melancholy of moving away from its simplicity. This also goes deeper into a sense of wonder about the natural world and the tendency of time to render the past a mere relic. Amazingly I found a clip on YouTube. Not the best but gives a little insight into what I’m talking about.

The second short is more obscure than Arrowhead and luckily I have this gem on the same old VHS. Three Men in a Boat is an early Frears (High Fidelity, The Queen) I imagine made for BBC TV in 1975. It’s a brilliant little film. One of my all time favorites. It’s based on the hilarious novel of the same name by Jerome K. Jerome.

This late Victorian period piece follows three wealthy and pampered friends (Tim Curry), Harris (Michael Palin), and George (Stephen Moore), who have too much time on their hands. After discussing with one another their current ailments, each trying to one up the other as to how hard done by they are, they all concur that they need a ‘rest’ and decide to go on a boating trip down the river Thames.

Curry’s wry narration is spot on throughout this little film, as are the situations that keep you laughing throughout (the romp that ensues when they realize they’d forgot a can opener to open their canned peaches is particularly side-splitting.) It’s a film steeped in irony and in history as Jerome often breaks off into reveries of events long past, which shaped the continent surrounding the famous river Thames. As with Arrowhead, it is both highly entertaining and thoughtful, which is a tough combination to find nowadays, and unfortunately these two are probably collecting dust in some basement archive.