Yesterday I went to the Coolidge Corner Theatre and saw both the live action and animated oscar nominated shorts. I wasn't as impressed with this years crop as I have been with previous years. I still have idea what I think will win the awards on Sunday.
The Nominated Live Shorts:
1. AT NIGHT - A Danish film about three teenage girls spending the holidays in a cancer ward. At 40 minutes long, lots of sad elements and one Freddy Krueger reference.
2. THE SUBSTITUTE - An Italian film about a crazy substitute teacher who seems to be inspired by the antics of Roberto Beigni. Pretty funny at times. It was "dedicated to those with difficulties with conduct".
3. THE MOZART OF PICKPOCKETS - A french film about some really bad pickpockets who take in a deaf homeless boy and use him in their life of crime. I thought it dragged.
4. TANGHI ARGENTINI - An office worker meets a woman on the internet and arranges to meet her at a dance club for the tango. He then has to have a colleague give him dance lessons in just two weeks time. It was only 13 minutes and was a lot of fun. It reminded me of a funny european beer commercial.
5. THE TONTO WOMAN - A western based on an Elmore Leonard story. A mexican cattle thief meets a woman who was previously held by indians for 11 years, now being held in her own log cabin by her husband. It was slow and boring and stupid and I really didn't like it.
The nominated Animated Shorts:
1. I MET THE WALRUS - True story: "In 1969, fourteen-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room with his tape recorder and persuaded him to do an interview." This film is (pen and ink?) animation to that audio track, mostly just playing off the words spoken. Pretty fun and only 5 mins long.
2. MADAME TUTLI-PUTLI - A wordless mix of claymation and CGI from Canada about an old woman on a train. She looks like an old Winona Ryder. The first half introduces here to various characters on the train and there's a really fun chess game. The second half throws all of that away and turns it into some kind of weird horror film that seemed completely pointless to me.
3. EVEN PIGEONS GO TO HEAVEN - A 9 min French film in which a priest visits an old man in a cottage and tries to sell him a machine that will transport him to heaven. Pretty fun and Pixar-like.
4. MY LOVE - A 27 min Russian story set in the 19th century about a prince drawn to two very different women. The animation is watercolors that looked like impressionists crossed with the Saturday Evening Post. The images all morphed into each other and while I got the overall gist of the story I found parts of it confusing.
5. PETER & THE WOLF - A wordless animated version of Prokofiev's classical music piece. The stop-motion animation struck me as Robot Chicken done well. It was fun but at 27 min I found it very long with lots of long slow dramatic pauses.
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