SCREENINGS AT PASADENA ART CENTER : TV ADS DOMINATE STUDENT FILMS

“Pasadena, Mr. Maine; leave it alone.” Thus was James Mason’s immortal but soused matinee idol memorably counseled in 1954’s “A Star Is Born.”

Sage, if jaded, advice. But it shouldn’t apply to this evening’s student film showings at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design--at 8 p.m. in Ahmanson Auditorium (seating limited, reservations required: call (818) 584-5124). On the program are 25 short films--featurettes, documentaries, rock videos and a plethora of TV ads--all made by students at the college’s film department.

It’s a mixed lot. The school’s film program, run by Jim Jordan, seems geared toward placements in the advertising world. All but a handful of the films are TV ads, made to that familiar sleek, tongue-in-cheek, slightly burlesqued standard. You know the kind: Mist blows up from the floor. Sloe-eyed blondes slink past sports sedans. Models eye each other, smirking. Translucent light pours through perfume bottles. And the guys at the bar whoop it up with wisecracks and rock. America!

The short ads (all huckstering real-life products like Scope, Givenchy, the Lockheed Credit Union and the Red Cross) seem almost absurdly professional--there’s not a grainy shot, not a pimple in the show. The college boasts a 90% success ratio in placing its students in professional jobs. It’s hard to see why it’s not 100%. (The best, to these eyes, are Todd Banks’ spoofy “Sun Tiger” spot, Howard Katz’s hell-for-leather Porsche ad and one other we’ll describe later.)

The longer pieces disappoint you, precisely because they’re also shot like TV ads (to be fair, so are many current movies). They’re coherent, shiny, a little vapid. Neil Abramson’s “Rat Trap” is an ironic Hollywood thriller, glitzily shot. Mark Stross’ “Rat Race” is a socially conscious psychological thriller, glitzily shot. Both films have a knee-jerk approach toward character; they hold your attention but don’t necessarily reward it. Sylvie Jacquemin’s more consciously rough film-in-progress “The Audition” is more amusing, if only because it seems to be trying less hard.

Abramson’s award-winning documentary “The Horn of Plenty” has lots of mouth-wateringly beautiful shots of fruit, vegetables, sunny farm fields and produce centers, and the kind of numbingly flat narration you used to hear in the sixth grade accompanying filmstrips on zinc mining and salmon spawning. (Another documentary, Phil Stellings’ “Antonio,” was unavailable for screening.)

There’s also a rock video: Donald Ord’s “Elsinore,” which mismatches Maya Deren-ish images of the Huntington Library with a gritty Robert Palmer tune. And a good piece of animation from the computer graphics program, “Speeder,” which suggests a video game “Road Warrior” crossed with “The Road Runner.”

If most of the students show talent, there’s one brief film--another TV ad, inevitably--that is almost superb. This gem is a two-minute monochrome spot for Speedo swimsuits that lightly parodies Leni Riefenstahl’s “Olympia,” matching chic images with jarring sounds. It’s so sophisticated that it’s labeled “European ad” in the program, perhaps to reassure any corporate scouts.

But ironically, though some of the class hails from France, Korea, Australia, South Africa and England, “Speedo’s” director, Carlton Chase, is from Monte Sereno. Let’s hope he doesn’t have to emigrate to Europe to demonstrate more of this kind of ad-making style and skill.