Shorts! - 2009 Academy Award Short Film Nominees

© 2010 by John Varley; all rights reserved

Every year shortly before Oscar time (which is 4 days away as I write this; Hollywood Boulevard is already closed down) the Academy holds a showing of all 10 Oscar-nominated short films at the Sam Goldwyn Theater on Wilshire in Beverly Hills. Tickets are only $5, but they sell out in the first 15 minutes online, so you have to be quick. Friends introduced us to this delightful event, and it’s become a regular on our calendar. Afterwards many of the filmmakers go onstage for a short Q&A. It’s fun to realize that we will very likely see some of these people on the stage of the Kodak Theater in a few days, breathing hard and hurrying to thank everybody in the known universe before the director cues the conductor for music to escort these little people off so the real stars can get on with the show. But I guarantee you, these people work harder—and longer; some of these little films take years to make—than any star ever has, and they will cherish the moment more than Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, or even Sally Field. (“You like me!”) This is their moment, probably their only moment in the spotlight. On Monday most of them will disappear again into their studios with their puppets or their computer programs, or out on whatever locations they can wangle on their shoestring budgets, passionately making films that very few people will ever see. It must be for the love of the art, because there is no money in these things, and I’m so very grateful to them. This year the show was especially good. I had a hard time picking two favorites.

ANIMATED SHORTS:

French Roast, Fabrice Joubert (director/writer), France, 8 minutes. The technology and/or skill level has gotten so good that I often can’t be sure if a particular film is stop-motion, hand-drawn, or computer generated, but this one was obviously stop-motion, and it’s brilliant. It’s a little story of a man in a coffee shop in Paris, who finds he doesn’t have enough money to pay his bill. From such simple premises great art and great humor can grow, and it did here. IMDb.com

Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty, Nick Phelan (director/writer), and Darraugh O’Connell (producer), Ireland, 6 minutes. Some of the time I think this was the best of the night; then I’ll think about one I haven’t gotten to yet … Anyway, this is diabolically funny, with Granny delighting in scaring the crap out of her little granddaughter, who we see mostly as a pair of wide eyes peeking out from under the blankets as the old lady insists on telling a bedtime story. Her version of “Sleeping Beauty” is hilarious. IMDb.com

The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte), Javier Recio Gracia (director/writer), Spain, 8 minutes. The Grim Reaper has come for a little old lady, but as she is dying, she is jerked rudely back to life by a doctor and his team of nurses. They battle over the old woman’s body. All she really wants to do is die and get it over with. It’s very well done, but not quite good enough. IMDb.com

Logorama, Nicholas Schmerkin (executive producer), France, 17 minutes. Here is the one that has my vote … most of the time (see above). It is one of the most seriously weird movies I’ve ever seen. It takes place in a city that is made entirely out of corporate symbols, logos, literally thousands of them. I’d like to frame-by-frame it and see just how many I can identify. Each is rendered perfectly. Some are buildings, some are vehicles, and some are characters, like the Michelin Man, or Mr. Peanut. The story concerns Ronald McDonald going on a homicidal killing spree, and then things get really weird … IMDb.com

LIVE ACTION SHORTS:

The Door, Juanita Wilson (director/writer) and James Flynn (producer), Ireland, 17 minutes. There are many reasons for someone to make a non-documentary short film, and one of the most prominent is to dramatize some awful event or social injustice. Two of these films are like that. This one takes place in the area around Chernobyl, where all the residents are hastily evacuated and put up in terrible housing, while waiting to see who will live and who will die. A father returns illegally in the night to steal the door his father was carried to his grave on, so he can use it to bear his little daughter to her grave. It is very moving. It was filmed in the actual area, which I understand is reasonably safe to visit for short periods. I think some elderly people have actually moved back, figuring they don’t have all that much to lose. IMDb.com

Instead of Abracadabra, Patrik Eklund (director/writer), and Mathias Fjellström (producer), Sweden, 18 minutes. A trifle about the worst magician in Sweden. We all laughed, but it’s not really worthy of an Oscar. IMDb.com

Kavi, Gregg Helvey (director/writer/producer), USA, 19 minutes. Made as a graduate thesis for USC Film School. Here is the second social protest film. It portrays an India that I’ll bet the same Indians who protested Slumdog Millionaire … well, they’d prefer you not see this one, either. It shows that, despite the amazing strides made in some parts of India, other parts remain very much like the India I saw 20 years ago, only much, much worse. A shithole of a place where human life is cheap, police ignore incredible atrocities, and slavery is still very much alive. A boy and his family work in a factory that makes bricks in pretty much the way Native American slaves made bricks for the Catholic Church in early California. It is brutal, and it is true. At the end there is a title that says 27 million people around the world can be classified as slaves. What are we going to do about it? I don’t have the faintest idea. IMDb.com

Miracle Fish, Luke Doolan (director/writer), and Drew Bailey (producer), Australia, 18 minutes. A truly startling movie. A little boy goes to school, sneaks off to the nurse’s office for a nap, and when he wakes up the school is deserted. It’s only one in the afternoon. School bags are abandoned beside desks. He looks at a book about alien abductions. He wanders the empty corridors. What the hell is happening? Well, that would be telling, but I can guarantee you will be shocked. IMDb.com

March 5, 2010

Hollywood, CA