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February 04, 2009
And The Best Oscar Nominated Shorts Are...
Shorts International and Magnolia do a great job getting out the Oscar nominated shorts each year. The show of all ten nominees (not including the doc shorts) opens here in Los Angeles on February 6, will make it to at least 60 US markets in the next few weeks, and will be available on iTunes on February 17. (Pixar’s Presto is already available and is the current top selling short on the site.)
This time of year, the shorts categories are always the hardest to handicap. First, for lack of seeing the films. But then, add in that the group voting is limited to Academy members who have seen all five films. So you never know.
For me, the call of which the best of each group is not terribly challenging. I like Presto a lot, but in Pixar is The King and they can afford to lose a few awards now and again. What is wonderful about the film is that it is much more WB Termite Terrace than anything else they have ever done over there. Fun. Slick. Top notch.
But in Animated, my personal winner is the less polished, more weird This Way Up by Smith + Foulkes, who use a fascinating visual palette to tell the story of a father & son morticians who are, literally, more than 100% committed to getting their charge to her final resting place. Wow.
In Live Action, it’s an easy call for Manon of the Asphalt, Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont’s 15 minute intimate, lingering, romantic, sexy, whisper of a tale that manages to not feel like a short, but like a complete telling of the moment in a life they seek to explore.
Ms. Marre seems have moved from acting to being a Second A.D. and then to First A.D. for films you might know, like Caramel and La Mustache. Mr. Pont seems to have worked as an animated for Phil Nibbelink & Simon Wells before becoming a successful comic book/graphic novel illustrator and jumping into shorts with Ms. Marre.
The film has a familiar French film feel… but the small brush strokes belong to these two and I suspect that, if they want it, they have a significant feature career coming soon.
Does it say something about me - or about the Obama Era (hee hee) - that my two favorites involve mortality?
A full list of the nominees after the jump…
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
La Maison en Petits Cubes - Kunio Kato
Lavatory - Lovestory - Konstantin Bronzit
Oktapodi- Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
Presto - Doug Sweetland
This Way Up - Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
Auf der Strecke (On the Line) - Reto Caffi
Manon on the Asphalt - Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont
New Boy - Steph Green and Tamara Anghie
The Pig - Tivi Magnusson and Dorte Høgh
Spielzeugland (Toyland) - Jochen Alexander Freydank
Posted by dpoland at February 4, 2009 09:43 PM
Comments
My faves are "Grisen" and "La Maison en Petits Cubes." I think Pixar might face some stiff competition from the latter, but I expect live action will go to "Spielzeugland."
Posted by: Kristopher Tapley ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 4, 2009 10:47 PM
We live in the 21st century. The shorts should be available on-demand RIGHT NOW on my comcast cable, or available on the Oscars website. If they want to keep this category viable. They should do as much as possible to get people to see these shorts... now.
Posted by: IOIOIOI at February 4, 2009 11:45 PM
yes, but how and when does one see the doc shorts?
Posted by: movielocke at February 5, 2009 12:11 AM
Apparently only the people on the LOST island can see these shorts. I hear Daniel Faraday is a big fan of all of them, but really cannot explain to us why he's a fan.
Posted by: IOIOIOI at February 5, 2009 12:24 AM
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