The Short Films of the Daniels to Watch If You Loved Everything Everywhere All at Once

There’s a moment near the end of Everything Everywhere All at Once, as the film reaches its ultimate climax, as the fate of so much hangs in the balance, where James Hong, in the role of Gong Gong, while peeling a googly eye from his own eyelid, perfectly sums up the situation with just two words: “So stupid.” Such is the great simultaneity of the Daniels’ style: The very serious and the very stupid. Intense violence paired with severe silliness. Post-ironic flourishes coupled with gushing sincerity. An uncanny ability to blend over-the-top visual effects with moments of intimate humanity. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert have collaborated for more than a decade, since meeting at Emerson College in the early 2000s. Together, as the Daniels, they have also made the 2016 feature, Swiss Army Man, and directed music videos, television episodes and numerous short films. While the short films of many directors remain unavailable, or restricted only to festival screenings and the occasional DVD extra, many of those by the Daniels are readily accessible via platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. The digital ubiquity of the Daniels’ early films feels fitting. So much of their work contains traces of that very specific
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