Errol Morris’ profile of professional eater, El Wingador

Mike Plante, Short Film Programmer

For a blog named short order, it was only a matter of time before I served up some short films about food. I hope you came hungry, because now is that time.  

We’ll start the meal off with Dr Breakfast, a great animated film we screened at the 2012 Festival. It’s both genuniely funny and full of the magic of Saturday morning cartoons. No matter whate decade you grew up in, chances are, you didn’t want to wake up early to go to school, partly because it meant missing out on network TV’s daily marathon of animated series that were alternately twisted and violent or benign and silly.

Cartoons are strange: a parent-approved dose of surrealism, often involving talking animals with magic powers and questionable morals. They made you laugh as children and when you watch again as adults, you see there is a lot more going on in the stories and characters, not to mention fantastic art. Did our parents know??? Dr Breakfast harkens back to those feelings with great writing and animation. And the mesmerizing sound design is the glue that makes it all come together.

Watch Dr Breakfast here: vimeo.com/26942241.

And for dessert, here is a new short by master storyteller Errol Morris, about “champion eaters.” Morris always finds incredible subjects and this is no exception. And I love that he still makes shorts — some tales are shorter than others, so why blow everything up to 90 minutes? In El Wingador he offers a full portrait that burrows below the surface whille always remaining entertaining. And holy crap – that is a lot of food!