OSCAR'S SHORTS

                      Whoa? Pixar's "Partly Cloudy" Not Nominated? 

The short-film genre is thriving. In recent years these independent filmmakers have been flooding film festivals and pumped up their own brand of world-wide distribution through the internet. It's part of the business to get those big screen showings at festivals; they serve as calling cards and resumes. And all the shorts listed below have won top prizes in festivals such as IFTA, The Jimmy Stewart Crystal Heart Memorial Award, AFI Award, etc. (Except "The New Tenants," which hasn't won anything except an Academy Award). But it's on the net where they thrive. And why not? It gets them the most eyes.

I see hundreds of shorts every year and they're an exciting grab bag of energetic films unbound by Hollywood standards and expectations. By definition, they're less than 40 minutes, and most range from 6 to 20, so if one's not to your liking, well, you haven't wasted much time and can move on. Many of the shorts I see equal or even surpass those selected by the Academy. But no complaints; all ten of this year's nominees are worth seeing. So this week the MLB lists the 2 Award winners and 2 of the best nominees in each category.

WINNER: LIVE ACTION SHORT

THE NEW TENANTS (US, Joachim Back)

Dark, dark, dark and funny, funny, funny in ways that take hold, wrap around the short form and gives its all. The most talked about short at the screening I attended. Okay, the movie has talent most short filmmakers dare not dream of: Vincent D'Onofrio and Kevin Corrigan for starters; then there's Oscar nominated, Roman Polanski cinematographer Pawel Edelman. 

But the script is so good, the dialogue such a hoot, and director Back moves things along so seamlessly that we go right along with the comic mayhem. As one roommate talks to another via Tarantino irrelevant societal rants and the other tells him to shut up, it's so crisp and on the mark we laugh as if we're in the apartment with them. The jokes, and the bodies, pile up, and everything just naturally falls together.

WINNER: BEST ANIMATION SHORT
 LOGORAMA (France, Francois Aluax, Herve de Crecy, Ludovic Housplain)
A barefaced, all-out giddy attack on corporate control and consumer culture that reaches the heights of "Brave New World" satire. These three French animators create a world of non-stop, full throttle advertising, where every building, rooftop,moving vehicle,animal, and person is an ad or a logo. So of course it's set in Los Angeles, and the plot, if it matters, is about a thug-goon Ronald MacDonald taking hostages. Every frame fills the eye with dozens of ads and logos in colors so neon bright and in such high contrast you can't take it all in. My favorite: an earthquake ripping through the city and into the hills as collapsing mountains reveal hidden logos. Even space vehicles take the hit, sprouting logos as they soar through the vast emptiness of the solar system. 
Gotta make sure any possible Aliens buy Pioneer.

NOMINEES: BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
THE DOOR (Ireland, Juanita Wilson)

At first look we're in "The Road" territory: scattered people trying to survive among civilization's ruins after a cataclysmic event; bare, sparse colors on the cinematography palette, and a family barely surviving through the trauma (in"The Road" the mother drifts off to commit suicide). Wilson took the memoir of a Chernobyl survivor (Monologue About A Whole Life Written Down on Doors), shot it in Russian, and came up with this subtle and moving short about a young family being forced to evacuate a radioactive town.

MIRACLE FISH (Australia, Luke Doolan)
Won for best cinematography in a short, but what got me hooked was the subjective use of sound. As an 8 year-old boy who's being bullied in school tries to take refuge and be left alone, Doolan shifts styles from documentary-like, to horror fantasy (shades of
"The Shining") to a sudden, shocking ending. We hear only what the boy hears, not only intensifying our experience, but setting a tone that perfectly sets up the different visual styles. Watch closely, the fish predicts events to come.

NOMINEES FOR BEST ANIMATED SHORT
A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH (Great Britain, Nick Park)
It's not exactly fair to have the new Wallace and Gromit episode among the nominees -- like pitting Pixar against all other animation studios. Director Park has put together a parody-noir, if you can imagine such a thing, and makes it consistently funny through great claymation imagery and directing, not to mention a script that builds on one mystery-story cliche after another. Except here the femme fatale is, ahem, a bit too curvy -- and in a rage at all the bakers for making her that way.

A scene Park hilariously repeats is loyal pet Gromit constantly getting a view of her fleshy ankles. And, as he plays private detective, Gromit sneaks through the evil one's front door, up the stairs and into the bedroom. Shadows, spidery lattice work on the windows, a creaky staircase and a creepy, half-open bedroom door are all pulled out of "Psycho" and you laugh at yourself for giving in to the tension. The shenanigans include hot air balloons, crocodiles, and a giant fart joke. All of it terrific.

THE LADY AND THE REAPER (Spain, Javier Recio Gracia)
Antonio Banderas gets a producing credit in this frenetic gem about a lonely, elderly woman waiting to die so she she can join her deceased husband on the other side.                                                                                                                                                                .

A big chase ensues as a Gaston-like doctor (muscles, great hands, a huge ego, and the nurses swoon over him), keeps saving her from death as the Grim Reaper keeps grabbing her from the edge of life. Imagine Salvador Dali meets Looney Tunes. Fast, funny, and totally unpredictable.