The examined life

It's Such a Beautiful Day

(2012)

So this arrived in the mail today to depress me. This barely-a-feature by the brilliantly warped animator Don Hertzfeldt, bearing the title of the last of three shorts (the others: Everything Will Be OK and I Am So Proud of You) released between 2006 and 2011 and then synthesized into a disturbing whole, didn't come to New Haven and played in Manhattan for only a week, so, with full confidence in the man who brought us Billy's Balloon and Rejected, I plunked down about three IFC admissions for this plus an earlier collection of shorts.

Good call: the life and lingering death of a woefully ordinary man: beautiful, brutal, sadly funny, and--did I mention?--profoundly depressing. In a good way, I guess.