<http://schema.org/description>
"Once upon a time, if you saw a short film, you saw the work of someone who wanted to make a short film. Nowadays, that ain&amp;apos;t necessarily so.\nIn 2006, Shane Acker&amp;apos;s 10-minute computer-animated 9 was nominated for a Best Animated Short Oscar - but by that point, Tim Burton was already working with Acker to develop it into a feature. It became the latest in a line of \"calling card\" shorts: works created by inexperienced filmmakers hoping to get a full-length movie out of their efforts. In just such a way, Jared Hess&amp;apos;s short Peluca became Napoleon Dynamite; Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden&amp;apos;s Gowanus, Brooklyn became Half Nelson. Sometimes, the raw material was there for something bigger and richer. Sometimes, it&amp;apos;s not. In its expanded form, 9 remains a dazzlingly innovative vision that showcases Acker&amp;apos;s skill as a director. But in trying to develop the mythology behind his story, Acker loses sight of its appealing mystery.\nThe title refers to the number scrawled on the back of a rag doll (Elijah Wood) who wakes up with no knowledge of the world. Wandering through a crumbling, corpse-strewn city, he soon spots a similar figure marked as 2 (Martin Landau), and learns that a mechanized predator stalks the streets. But how did these sewn-together bits of burlap achieve sentience? What happened to all the humans? What is the significance of a strange dome-shaped artifact 9 carries from the place of his birth?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.bendsource.com/bend/the-long-and-the-short-of-it-extending-shane-ackerandaposs-bleak-animated-9-improves-its-action-but-not-its-story/Content?oid=2134186>