Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life...and Other Strange Tales

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into a gigantic...WHAT?" moans Franz Kafka (Richard E. Grant) as he struggles to complete the opening sentence of his short story "The Metamorphosis." Writer/director Peter Capaldi's 1995 Oscar-winning short Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, the opener in this quartet of short live-action films, finds poor Mr. K laboring in his dingy garret on a rather cold and noisome Christmas Eve (a neighbor downstairs plays piano while her daughters sing carols, routinely interrupting Kafka's groping for the precise word to end his opening sentence). How Kafka eventually discards "banana," among other options, before finally settling on "insect" makes for a most enjoyable half-hour. Unfortunately, the second short, Seven Gates, about brothers traveling home for Christmas loses steam halfway through its 20 minutes and merely coasts to a conclusion. The third entry, The Deal, a fictional encounter between two absurdly macho (we're talking gold-plated scrotums and surgically-enhanced testicles here) businessmen is enjoyable for its outrageous word play in a steadily escalating ritual of male one-upmanship. The final short, Mr. McAllister's Cigarette Holder, a period piece set in Georgia during the 1960s, is more notable for its nice production values than any lasting narrative impression. Still, two out of four ain't bad for $29.95. Recommended. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)