Very Nice, Very Nice (1961) User Reviews

Precise chaos.

[st-shot · 8/10 · 20 October 2020]

Arthur Lipsett's Very Nice, Very Nice is 7 minutes of visual and audio intensity tightly wrapped in violent editing . It commands your attention, demands you experience it, not interpret it, is over in no time and leaves your head spinning. It is a dark and disturbing world of indifference and nuclear threat, crass advertizing and choking environment Lipsett presents accompanied by an abstract soundtrack of non-sequitor and urban everyday that jolts and jars along the way to its desultory sign off by a voice over a cachaphonus crowd and some hot jazz optimistically prophesizing "warmth and brightness will return and the renewal of hopes of men."

A powerhouse experimental short in its day displaying nearly the same anxieties we face today. The form is seamless and its influence on filmmakers evident since its release. A gracefully harsh work by one man band Arthur Lipsett.

Fascinating, but rather odd, little short

[llltdesq · 7/10 · 10 November 2015]

This short was nominated for the Academy Award for Short Subject, Live Action, losing to Seawards the Great Ships. There will be mild spoilers ahead:

I've watched this a couple of times and I'm not really sure what to make of it, to be frank. The technical aspects are interesting, particularly given that it was made in 1961. But it's a bit hard to figure out what point, if any, there is behind this.

The short is seven minutes long and is composed of a series of mostly still photography with a few film clips mixed in. They are accompanied by music and narration. The narration is seemingly random, although there occasionally seems to be a narrative thread developing. Some of the photos are rather noted and there are photos of prominent figures of the time. There's a shot of the "Rat Pack", for instance. There's also a rapid series of transitions of photos of Kruschev and Eisenhower, until they change so rapidly from one to the other that the two become a blur and almost indistinguishable (which may well be the point).

Sometimes the accompanying narration is comical, compared to what's seen on the screen, as when one man says he prefers watching football over other sports.

I suspect that the novelty of this technically impressed the jury enough that this was nominated for the Academy Award. It lost to a short with a more conventional approach and a straightforward and discernible narrative, Seawards the Great Ships. This can be seen online and is worth watching as well.

Very Nice, Very Nice was produced by the NFBC and can be seen online. Worth watching, particularly if you like shorts out of left field.

Very Nice, Very Nice

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 28 April 2024]

This is quite a feat of editing as it pulls together a fairly quick-fired montage of still images of faces and places coupled with some very short snippets of video tape to illustrate an urban landscape that consists of all forms of humanity. Happy, sad, young, old, joyous and loads and loads of yawning. It's peppered with seemingly random sound bites but by the end you might get a sense of it's purpose? Are we all now just pre-occupied with convenience and our own small world? Like a society of ants only not remotely collaborative? It's not really a film, more a photographic exhibition with a point - but it's still worth a watch.

life in civilization

[lee_eisenberg · 5/10 · 11 December 2016]

Arthur Lipsett's "Very Nice, Very Nice" is a litany of random narration and images. Watching it, I saw it as a sort of precursor to "Koyaanisqatsi", as the various photos show the modern world, posing the question of what it means to live in this modern world. It was easy to think that all the modern conveniences made life better than it had ever been, but what did the status quo mean beyond that? "Very Nice, Very Nice" received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Live Action Short Film, and also received praise from Stanley Kubrick. It's not a great movie, but an interesting use of artistry. It's worth seeing, if only once.

Available on the National Film Board of Canada's website.

It's hard to imagine this one was nominated for the Oscar.

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 17 April 2014]

This film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short. It's a rather strange choice, as the film is much more an odd avant garde sort of thing than a film you'd think would get nominated for such a prestigious award. Perhaps it was just a very, very, very slow year.

The film consists of tons and tons and tons of black & white photos that are flashed on the screen--accompanied by music (often martial music) and dialog from a variety of sources. It all seems amazingly random-- and sometimes the pictures and narration seem to have little to do with each other.

The bottom line is that this film has practically no commercial appeal whatsoever. Folks sitting in coffee houses in the early 1960s might have enjoyed it, but I just cannot see it having appeal to 99.9% of the viewers today. Tedious and difficult to enjoy--even for an art film.

Not a very nice watch

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 28 July 2016]

"Very Nice, Very Nice" is a 7-minute black-and-white short film from 1961, so this one is already 55 years old. It was written and directed by Arthur Lipsett and if you look at the man's origins, you should not be surprised that the National Film Board of Canada produced this short film. They have a great history with the Oscars and this one here also scored an Academy Award nomination, which made it Lipsett's biggest success. I myself did not really enjoy the watch though. It was pretty relevant back then I am sure with all the things and people it depicts, but the voices we hear seem very random and I felt that this movie lacked order and structure. And even if this was probably Lipsett's intention even, it hurt the viewing experience for me personally. I cannot agree with the Oscar nomination and a win would have been way too much. Not recommended.