short films Archives - Page 2 of 2

Oscar nominated shorts for 2015

“‘Prologue’ seems to exist for no other reason than to show off the drawing talent and enthusiasm for over-the-top gore of its creator.”

Every year, I try to watch at least one set of Oscar-nominated shorts. On Presidents Day, The Wife and I were going to see the live-action movies at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, but the child watcher didn’t pan out. So, my spouse saw the live-action at 1 p.m. and I saw the animated items at 4 p.m. Then, the next day the Wife and the Daughter saw the animated set.

Don’t know if I’ll ever see the live-action shorts, because they’re now showing only at 9:30 p.m., and that’s not my best time of day to go out to the movies.

Animated

SANJAY’S SUPER TEAM
USA
7MINS/2015

Director: Sanjay Patel
Producer: Nicole Paradis Grindle
Synopsis: Patel uses his own experience to tell the story of a young, first-generation Indian-American boy whose love for western pop culture comes into conflict with his father’s traditions. Sanjay is absorbed in the world of cartoons and comics, while his father tries to draw him into the traditions of his Hindu practice.

Tedium and reluctance quickly turn into an awe-inspiring adventure as the boy embarks on a journey he never imagined, returning with a new perspective that they can both embrace.

This is the new short film from Pixar Animation Studios, and it’s fine, not great, but I don’t much enjoy the uneven playing field that Disney holds. In any case, this will almost certainly not win.

WORLD OF TOMORROW
USA
17MINS/2015

Director & Writer: Don Hertzfeldt
Synopsis: A little girl is taken on a mind-bending tour of her distant future.

OK, THAT was a terse description. Here’s a slightly more enlightening take:
This ‘Future Emily’ takes the toddler on a journey through space and time, discussing the nature of memory, consciousness and immortality, and explaining the ways in which the world will change, for better, and for worse.

Many folks think this film will win the Oscar, and I thought it was thought-provoking. My bride said that there was a piece of dialogue that she thought was reminiscent of something from Thorton Wilder’s Our Town. Specifically, it had to do with that Emily noting that people are not appreciating life when we’re living it.

HISTORIA DE UN OSO(BEAR STORY)
CHILE
11MINS/2014

Director:Gabriel Osorio
Producer:Pato Escala
Synopsis: An old, lonesome bear tells the story of his life through a mechanical diorama.

I LOVE this one! It’s the favorite of both my spouse and myself. It works at several levels. Here’s a review:
“The story itself is rather simple. But the sadness in the bear’s life—the empty table he leaves every morning, the pictures of his absent family on the wall, the disheveled home of a man who has no reason to clean anymore—betrays something deeper and darker in the background. The short packs an emotional wallop if you let it.”

WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT COSMOS
RUSSIA
16MINS/2014

Director & Writer: Konstantin Bronzit
Producer: Alexander Boyarsky
Synopsis: Two cosmonauts, two friends, try to do their best in their everyday training life to make their common dream a reality. But this story is not only about the dream.

No dialogue yet conveys the bond beautifully.

Unfortunately, the director says film pirates are “killing” this short.

Now, these animated items are rather short, so they add a few other stories.

From the shortlist of possible nominees:

IF I WAS GOD…
CANADA

Creator: Cordell Barker
Synopsis: What would you do if you were 12 and suddenly found yourself charged with God-like powers? Would you use them for good? For bad? Perhaps a little of both?

Here’s an interview with Barker.

THE SHORT STORY OF A FOX AND A MOUSE
Nicely rendered. The Daughter’s favorite. See this video.

Then a couple of other videos, one involving a bunch of meerkats and a vulture that looked very Disney.

Before the fifth nominated film, there was a warning about nudity and violence, inappropriate for children.

PROLOGUE
UK
6MINS/2015

Director: Richard Williams
Producer: Imogen Sutton

Synopsis: “Prologue” describes an incident in the Spartan-Athenian wars of 2,400 years ago. In it, a small girl bears witness as warriors battle to the death. The dialog-free project utilizes natural sounds to complement the intense animation entirely animated by Richard Williams himself.

OK, I get it. War is hell. But I agree with this assessment:

“‘Prologue’ seems to exist for no other reason than to show off the drawing talent and enthusiasm for over-the-top gore of its creator, and therefore really has no place amongst the ranks of the previous four short films.”

I told my family NOT to stay for this last piece, and they abided by my suggestion.

Live-Action

My wife thought three of them were real downers.
AVE MARIA
PALESTINE/FRANCE/GERMANY
15MINS/2015

Director:Basil Khalil
Producers: Eric Dupont, Eric Fantone
Synopsis:The silent routine of 5 Palestinian nuns living in the West Bank wilderness is disturbed when an Israeli settler family breaks down right outside the convent just as the Sabbath comes into effect.

This was apparently a quite charming comedy.

DAY ONE
USA
25MINS/2014

Director: Henry Hughes
Producer: Michael Steiner
Synopsis: Inspired by a true story, DAY ONE depicts a new translator’s first day accompanying a US Army unit as it searches for a local terrorist. As she quickly discovers, her job will bring up brutal complexities as gender and religious barriers emerge with lives hanging in the balance.

This was tough to watch, reportedly.

ALLES WIRD GUT(EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY)
GERMANY/AUSTRIA
30MINS/2015

Director, Writer & Producer: Patrick Vollrath Synopsis: A divorced father picks up his eight-year-old daughter Lea. It seems pretty much like every second weekend, but after a while, Lea can‘t help feeling that something isn’t right. So begins a fateful journey.

No, everything will NOT be OK.

SHOK (FRIEND)
KOSOVO/UNITED KINGDOM
21MINS/2015

Director & Writer: Jamie Donoughue
Producers: Harvey Ascott, Eshref Durmishi, Howard Dawson
Synopsis: The friendship of two boys is tested to its limits as they battle for survival during the Kosovo war.

War is fodder for many live-action shorts.

STUTTERER
UK/IRELAND
12MINS/2015

Director: Benjamin Cleary
Producers: Shan Christopher Ogilvie & Serena Armitage
Synopsis: Apart from his aging father, Greenwood has only one connection to the external world in the form of an online relationship. Every night, often for hours at a time, he exchanges messages with Ellie. On the eve of their six-month anniversary, Ellie messages Greenwood and tells him that she has traveled to London to surprise him. She asks if he would like to take things “offline” and meet in person for the first time. The image above is taken from the moment just after Greenwood gets that earth-shattering message and is suddenly facing a daunting proposition with everything at stake.

While consequential, this was not nearly so heavy as the others.

Movie Reviews: Oscar-nominated live-action short films for 2012

On my birthday this month, I decided to see the Oscar-nominated short films at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. This was predicated on the fact that I might see Zero Dark Thirty on video, but might be less likely to find these. As it turned out, it was the very last day of its three- or four-week run. The program ran for 115 minutes. The films were interspersed with commentary by Luke Matheny who won a couple of years ago for God of Love, which as I noted at the time, was probably my least favorite of the nominees. Unlike the commenters for the animated films this year, I didn’t think Matheny brought that much insight to the table. It didn’t help that he was trying to be wryly humorous and the films, for the most part, were not.

Film descriptions were from the Spectrum website.

Death of a Shadow (France and Belgium/Dutch, 20 minutes) – A soldier attempts to ransom his soul from Death and return to the girl he loves. Directed by Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele.
This was the darkest of the five, and quite metaphysical, taking photos of people’s shadows at the moments of their deaths, any time in history. It was well done, but most uncomfortable.

Henry (Canada/English, 21 minutes) – Henry, an elderly concert pianist, undergoes a series of confusing experiences as he searches for his wife. Directed by Yan England.
The audience may be a bit confused by the action at first, intentionally so, but ultimately this is a very sweet story of aging. I’ve seen a couple of full-length films about getting old recently. This is not as cavalier as Quartet, but not nearly as depressing as Amour. In fact, this movie showed far more of the couple’s good times than Amour did. This was my favorite of the five.

Curfew (USA/English, 19 minutes) – A young man on the verge of committing suicide receives a call from his sister asking him to babysit his niece. Directed by Shawn Christensen
This film was the Oscar winner, and I can see why. It’s about second chances. The protagonist is the last person his sister knows she’d want to leave her daughter with. Possibly the most whimsical of the five, despite its beginning.

Buzkashi Boys (Afghanistan/Persian, 28 minutes) – Two boys in Afghanistan, a blacksmith’s son and an orphan living on the streets, dream of winning a popular and fierce polo match. Directed by Sam French and Ariel Nasr.
In many ways, Kabul, Afganistan itself is the star. Can you get out of this bleak place, or are you stuck by birth to your destiny? Very magnetic lads, especially the one playing the orphan. The ending is vaguely unsatisfying, but it was still a good film.

Asad (South Africa/Somali, 18 minutes) – A boy from a poor Somali village must decide between piracy and life as a fisherman. Directed by Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura.
The pirates are some scary dudes who our young hero has to deal with, which he does with great skill. Then he is put to another test. An interesting, somewhat peculiar story, though I’m not sure of the ending belongs in this film, which, not incidentally stars a cast of actual Somali refugees.

All in all, a good crop of films worthy of nomination.

MOVIE REVIEWS: Oscar-nominated short animated films

From France, Dripped is about an art thief who really loves his work.

It’s rare that The Daughter has gone to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany; in fact, I’m not sure she’d EVER been there. While it is the preferred film venue for the Wife and me, it often has films not suitable for sensitive eight-year-olds. But the ads said that the films nominated for Academy Awards in the animated shorts category were “family-friendly.” This is useful to know because we saw last year’s entries, and A Morning Stroll most certainly NOT Daughter-friendly, to say the least.

On Washington’s Birthday – which was when the Wife and I went last year; a holiday tradition? – the three of us sojourned to the cinema. In previous years, they just showed the movies, but this year, there were interspersed conversations with William Joyce and Brandon Oldenberg, who created last year’s well-deserved winner, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore [watch it]. In fact, one of these guys looked a bit like Lessmore. They talked about the struggle to get their film made and the surreality of Oscar night.

Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare

The youngest character in the long-running show I used to watch for the first eight or nine seasons, but seldom since then. It was interesting enough for the Wife and me, though the Daughter missed out on the significance of the Ayn Rand School for Toddlers; she liked the ending, though. The piece was OK, not distinct enough to be Oscar-worthy, though; my wife’s third favorite film of the bunch.

Adam and Dog

This retelling of the Creation is beautifully rendered as lovely watercolors. The sound of walking on the grass was terrific. There’s a guy whose opinion I value who said it was the best picture of the bunch, and he may be right. Yet the latter part of the story left me cold.

Fresh Guacomole [watch it]

Two minutes of stop motion zaniness is fun. My wife’s second-favorite of the films; third for the Daughter and me.

Head Over Heels

This is my second-favorite, and the Daughter’s. It’s from the UK, and uses quality Claymation to show a middle-aged couple whose relationship is in trouble because of the husband’s difficulties with gravity. Will they find a way to save the relationship?

Paperman [watch it]

Yet the Daughter and I still liked this seven-minute Disney offering the best, though we had seen it before; it was my wife’s favorite, and it was new to her. It looks old-fashioned in that it is hand-drawn, and in black and white (except for red lipstick); it is quite romantic.

(Another set of opinions.)

To fill out the program, there were three shorts that were “highly commended”:

Abiogenesis

From New Zealand, it’s another Creation story. But this art is computer-generated, and the story is futuristic. I wasn’t engaged until the very end.

Dripped

From France, it’s about an art thief who really loves his work. It’s surreal and manages to work several art styles – impressionism, cubism, abstract – into the storyline. “Dedicated to the memory of Jackson Pollock,” one has to think Pollock would have approved. This piece should have been a contender for the prize instead of Maggie Simpson.

The Gruffalo’s Child

The only piece with dialogue, and by far the longest short at 27 minutes, it is a CGI piece. It’s a follow-up, I understand, to a 2009 BBC Christmas special The Gruffalo. It’s nicely rendered and shares a message about the power of legends. It made my daughter a little nervous, though no cartoon animals were really harmed. Here’s a review.

One other point: both Adam and Dog, and, to a much lesser extent, Dripped, had men with full-frontal male nudity, and their members were obliquely rendered; it was actually distracting.

Film Review-Oscar shorts, live action

It was Valentine’s Day. The wife and I had a long-standing commitment for a child sitter, and movie passes for The Spectrum Theatre in Albany. Obviously, my grandiose plan to see more Academy Award films had put aside in the past two weeks, so seeing a nominee was my preference. But what? She didn’t want to see True Grit. Watching Blue Valentine, a movie about a disintegrating romance, didn’t seem quite right. Nor did seeing separate movies – she wants to see The Social Network, I The Black Swan.

So we decided to see five movies instead, those Oscar-nominated for best live action short films. The descriptions are from Oscar.com.

The Confession – Tanel Toom (UK-25 minutes)
“A young boy preparing for his first confession worries that he has no sins to report, so he enlists a friend’s help in committing one.”
And it’s a pretty minor one, actually, but one that has consequences. Moody, with a bunch of pointed symbolism, well acted, especially the lead boy. I’m told it’s got the Oscar buzz. A brief clip.

Wish 143 – Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite (UK-24 minutes)
“When a terminally ill young boy is granted a wish by a charitable foundation, he makes a surprising request.”
Actually, he’s an older boy, though not an adult, and what he wants is not to die a virgin, which is a bit of a conumdrum to his priest friend. It has humor and pathos, and it was my favorite of the five. A clip.

Na Wewe– Ivan Goldschmidt (Belgium-19 minutes)
“In 1994, as the Rwandan genocide spills over into neighboring Burundi, a bus is attacked by a group of rebels.”
Very tense; I was awaiting the slaughter, yet imdb called it a comedy? Well, maybe a subtle comedy. Na Wewe means You Too in Kirundi. Looks like the kind of film the Academy would like. A clip.

The Crush -Michael Creagh (Ireland-15 minutes)
“Eight-year-old Ardal has a crush on his teacher and is devastated to learn she has a fiancé.”
And Ardal finds the fiancé unworthy and calls him out. My wife’s favorite film. A clip.

God of Love – Luke Matheny (US-18 minutes)
“A love triangle between two musicians and a young woman takes a surprising turn when one of them finds a collection of magical darts.”
Appropriate for Valentine’s day, though probably the most lightweight of the five. Feels Woody Allenesque somehow. The trailer.

Unsurprisingly, all of the filmmakers are first-time nominees. “The Academy’s entire active membership is eligible to select Oscar winners in all categories, although in five – Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, and Foreign Language Film – members can vote only after attesting they have seen all of the nominated films in those categories.”