Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. If this exceptional program happens to slip into your town or is already running, by all means make time for this rare opportunity (rare as in once a year) to check out the complete rundown of Oscar-nominated short films in the live-action and animated categories. Chicago is one of the several dozen lucky cities that gets to see this program this early, leading up to the Academy Awards on February 22. In case you can't make it to see these two separate programs (with separate admissions), I've been told the films also are available on iTunes in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. This is your chance to go into your respective Oscar pools with just a little more knowledge than your fellow competitors. The program featuring the five animated shorts is supplemented by a handful of bonus animated works, including Bill Plympton's HOT DOG and several others. Of the five nominated offerings, you've probably already seen PRESTO, which preceded WALL-E during its theatrical run and is included on its that fim's DVD. I love this little bit of Warner Bros.-style cartoon antics from director Doug Sweetland, maybe more than any other Pixar short, but I think my favorite of the nominees is THIS WAY UP, a twisted tale of two morticians trying desperately to get the body of sweet old lady to her final resting place safe and sounds, and against many freaky obstacles. This CG work from directors Adam Foulkes and Alan Smith is akin to some of the work of Henry Selick, and is just as clever, funny and dark. Also on the CG front, we have OKTAPODI, about two octopi in love who are separated by humans' desire to eat them. This one has the beginnings of a great film, but just when it starts to really take off (literally), it ends. The two hand-drawn works this year are LAVATORY LOVE STORY, a largely black-and-white Russian line-drawing work that is quite touching and features one of the romantic stories every told in a men's room. Finally, LE MAISON EN PETITS CUBES is a cool, very human story about an old man remembering his life and long-gone loved ones as he builds yet another level to his house against the rising tide of time (and a great deal of water). There isn't a weak one in the bunch this year, and while Pixar tends to hold the advantage most years, I don't think PRESTO is a shoe-in. It might be too silly for Academy voters. Honestly, I'd give the advantage to THIS WAY UP, but I'd be happy with most of these as winners. It wasn't too hard for me to pick a favorite from these five, but it is a little tougher to say which one I think will win the Oscar. I could be cynical, and say that one of the shorts (TOYLAND, from Germany) deals with the Holocaust, and therefore it will win. It's actually a pretty strong contender, but not the best of the bunch. The work concerns two young boys--one German, one Jewish--who are best friends living in the same apartment building during World War II. When word circulates among the Jewish residents that all Jews will be rounded up, the German boy asks his mother, where the Jewish family is going. To protect him from the truth, she tells her son they are going to TOYLAND, and the boy decides he's going with this friend. When the German soldiers come to round up the family, the German boy grabs his suitcase and heads for the trucks loaded with families destined for prison camps. When the boy's mother returns home, she finds her son gone and searches frantically for him before he's shipped away via freight car. The film has a clever ending, strong acting, and a great means of building tension in a very short amount of time (less than 15 minutes), so I'm not knocking the achievement of getting it made. It's just not the best of this very strong grouping. The Irish short NEW BOY (based on a short story by Roddy Doyle of THE COMMITMENTS, THE SNAPPER, and THE VAN fame) is a funny tale about a young African immigrant being introduced into the Irish school system, where he is immediately singled out as different by both bullies and do-gooders. Much of the film is told in flashback as we see the young boy back in Africa being treated as an equal by his wonderful teacher, who is soon carted away by the military for crimes unknown. It's a sweet story that I thought I could see coming, but it takes an unexpected turn in the middle that transformed the film from good to great. THE PIG from Denmark is a very silly story about a serious subject--tolerance. When an older man checks into the hospital for what he thinks will be a routine surgery, his doctors find something that might be a little more serious and hold him a bit longer. For reasons unknown, a painting in his hospital room of a pig flying brings him great comfort. But when the family of a Muslim family has the painting removed while the Danish man is sleeping, he calls in the troops, including his lawyer daughter, and insists the painting be returned to the wall. It's a simple story acting as a metaphor for how world conflicts grow from nothing into something much bigger than they have any right being, and I loved it. The longest short is the German/Swiss co-production ON THE LINE, the tale of a lonely store security guard who is in love from a distance with a clerk in a bookstore. Knowing the both take the same train home at night, he often will time his leaving work with her. One night, he sees the woman in question on the train with a man, and the guard becomes jealous. But when he sees them fight and her storm off the train, he is satisfied. He then witnesses the man get made fun of by three young thugs on the train, who go from gentle jabbing to a fierce beatdown. The guard gets off the train before things get too bad, but he later finds out about the stranger's fate after the fight broke out and something concerning his identity. The store clerk asks the guard if he'll accompany her to the train the next day, and the two start becoming close. But the guilt over abandoning the man on the train weighs heavy on our semi-stalker. This is a great, straightforward drama that I would actually love to see get expanded into a full-length feature. There's enough going on with these characters that I wanted to know more about their lives and their motivations. Is the guard a threat, or just a lonely man steered by his emotions into making bad decisions? But my absolute favorite of the nominated live-action shorts is the French offering MANON ON THE ASPHALT, which concerns a young, pretty woman who is hit by a car while riding her bike through a busy street. The film attempts to capture exactly what flashes before your eyes when you think you're going to die. Is it the life you've led? Or is it the life you'll now never have? Perhaps it's a bit of both. By far the most visually interesting work of these five shorts, MANON ON THE ASPHALT moves us through how a woman on the street sees each of her friends will find out about her death, how her boyfriend will take the news, her mother. But then she begins to see the things she'll never get to do or see through to the end. "I'll never have children." "I'll never get to see if my new boyfriend is The One." I know it sounds depressing, but it's actually an incredible celebration of the everyday things in life that most of us get to experience. It's an acknowledgement of life's fragility, and it's comforting in a way to know that those who loved us will go on after they grieve our passing. I've seen three-hour films on these subjects that don't get it as right as this one did. I truly hope MANON wins because it is stunning, and it alone is worth the price of admission to this program. -- Capone capone@aintitcoolmail.com
