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12/16/2015Wanna Win Your Oscar Ballot? Watch The Shorts! | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=f342150d-e11a-4048-a434-6dca8f8c0477&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4Wanna Win Your Oscar Ballot? Watch The Shorts!Wanna Win Your Oscar Ballot? Watch The Shorts!THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2015You want to win your Oscar pool, don't you? Well, guessing how long the show will run in case of a tie is fun.But's it's just a shot in the dark. If you want to gain a real edge, check out the Oscar Nominated Shorts of 2015.Those three categories -- live action, animated and documentary -- are the ones you usually skim over, taking astab at any you recognize but not really knowing what's what. Luckily, your chance to see them is better thanever. This year, varied screenings of the shorts opened at more than 450 theaters around the country. Add inone-off screenings and you really have no choice, do you?It's not all fun and games, however. The documentary shorts should be dubbed the documentary not-so-shortssince they run from a minimum of 20 minutes to 45 minutes. And while the Academy is drawing upon shortsmade all over the world, the quality is actually quite spotty. I've no idea why. Are these really the best in thesecategories made in the past year? And yet year after year, you attend and are invariably left wishing more of theshorts were better.But here's a secret: when only one or two shorts in each category are actually good, your chances of picking thewinner leap exponentially. Instead of a 1 in 5 chance, you usually have a 50-50 chance. And sometimes a shortis good enough (and its competition weak enough) so that you just KNOW it'll win. And before you know it,you've got a one or two point lead over the competition on your ballot. So head to your local movie theater oranywhere these shorts are screening and invest the time in checking them out. Come Oscar Sunday, you'll be alot better informed than your friends and a few hours of your time might just result in you getting crowned thewinner.Here are my run-downs of the live action and animated shorts. I'll update if and when I get around to the ratherlonger documentary shorts.LIVE ACTION SHORTSAYA (French/Israel) ** 1/2 out of **** -- I watched the shorts in alphabetical order so this was the first I saw. Inretrospect, it became my second favorite. A woman waiting for someone at an airport in Israel is asked to holdone of those signs for a chauffeur who must step away. Of course, before you know it she's serving as a driverfor a Danish man in town to judge a piano competition. It's an ambiguous work with some strong moments --especially the scene where the judge "plays" the piano on the woman's hand and thigh at her request and thetwo actors are very good. But this short bungles that essential moment where the woman decides to go alongwith the man's confusion as to her being his driver. Not explaining everything? Fine. Not convincing us of exactlywhat is going on? Not so good. Other plot elements simply make no sense at the end. Still, it's intelligently actedand though it waaaaaay overstays its welcome at 40 minutes, this was a noble effort.BOOGALOO AND GRAHAM ** (UK) -- Too cute by half, this features two raucous lads living in Ireland duringthe Troubles. They fall for two baby chicks and are soon carting the animals everywhere as their personal pets.It's aggressively eccentric in nature and goes nowhere until the long-suffering mum says the chickens have togo because she's pregnant again. A last minute reprise involves an overly sentimental twist but this ismishandled in a too-quick voice-over in which we're told both about what happens in years to come and what itreally means. It's too much effort just to provide an "aaah" moment that could have been done quite simply with
12/16/2015Wanna Win Your Oscar Ballot? Watch The Shorts! | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=f342150d-e11a-4048-a434-6dca8f8c0477&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/4one wordless moment we see that the kids don't.BUTTER LAMP/ LA LAMPE AU BEURRE DE YAK *** 1/2 out of **** (France/China) -- Leagues better thaneverything else in either category, this short is the exemplar of what these shorts should be. It's not a teaser forwhat someone hopes to make a feature film; this short works perfectly on its own terms. It's a great calling cardfor a director. And it's entertaining! The set-up is simplicity itself; making a virtue of a limited budget and what Iassume is mostly a non-professional cast. A photographer in a village in Tibet is taking pictures of local peoplein front of varied backdrops. Groups of people pose in front of a canvas backdrop depicting the Great Wall ofChina or Tiananman Square and so on. The camera never moves: it shows the people getting into place whilethe photographer herds them around, offers props or changes the backdrop. They finally pose and the shutterclicks and a new group springs into action. We see a family, a young couple, an elderly lady (who can't take hereyes off the canvas backdrop), a group of kids and so on. The scenes are often comic but each has its own logicand rhythm. The kicker can be seen coming a mile away but happily there's a subtle nuance to it that shows thisfilm knows what it's doing. Wei Hu wrote and directed this and I'm writing his name down: I can't wait to see hisfirst feature and this short should make that leap inevitable.PARVENAH **(Switzerland) -- An Afghan teenager seems to be in Switzerland working illegally (though pressnotes say she's staying at a refugee center). In any case, she has some money desperately needed back home.Unfortunately, this underage girl in a strange country doesn't have the documentation needed to wire money.She warily asks another girl to help her and they strike up an unlikely friendship. Of course! A simple taskbecomes an over-night odyssey including cultural confusion, a disco, an overbearing date-rapish guy and toomuch alcohol. This short crams in a lot of hot-button issues including Islamic faith in a western country, illegals(or perhaps just refugees), male aggression and -- in an aside so perfunctory I found it offensive -- teenage self-mutilation known as cutting. The lead is appealing but it skims over the surface of the issues raised and neverreally comes to life.THE PHONE CALL * (UK) -- You can sometimes spot a ringer in the shorts. That would be the one directed bya well-known actor (Hollywood loves its own) or one just stuffed with name talent, which understandably helpsgarner attention. This very familiar, even rote story of a woman working a crisis line has two top namesattached: Sally Hawkins is the crisis center woman and the voice of Jim Broadbent is the man in crisis who is inthe midst of attempting suicide. This is smoothly directed and of course Hawkins and Broadbent are pros of thehighest order. But the script is so banal -- from its trite, cliched storyline to the "twist" ending and un-earnedsentimentality of the coda -- that it's ultimately quite bad. I didn't even like the production design of the potentialsuicide's home, which is seen in pure, angelic white, a choice that seems to glorify and make lovely a desperate,sad act of suicide, an implication which I doubt is intended here. It would be a bloody shame if the generousparticipation of two talents like Hawkins and Broadbent swayed voters to this.So those are the five live action shorts. And I'll eat my shirt if Butter Lamp loses. It has everything going for it: it'sthe shortest entry (believe me, when people sit through all five, these things matter), it's the only one with asense of humor and indeed is very funny throughout, it has a nice kicker and a political and environmentalundertone that gives it gravitas. It's also undeniably a work of genuine talent and that sense of discovery isexciting.ANIMATED SHORT FILMSTHE BIGGER PICTURE ** (UK) -- Two brothers bicker over the care of their aging mother: one brother issuccessful at work and her favorite; the other actually does the hard work of caring for her and feelsunappreciated. This short is here mostly for its technique, which is visually striking and fresh looking, thanks toits combination of varied approaches that feel both tactile and emotional. The story itself is rather muted anddoesn't quite build or reveal anything beyond the set-up. Still, the visual style -- which would prove exhausting atfeature length, I imagine -- keeps you engaged.
12/16/2015Wanna Win Your Oscar Ballot? Watch The Shorts! | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=f342150d-e11a-4048-a434-6dca8f8c0477&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/4THE DAM KEEPER * (US) -- This muddy, indistinctive short is by far the longest at 18 minutes and feels it. Apig is somehow in charge of the dam that protects a village when his father dies. Nonetheless, the lonely pig(who always has some dirt on his face) is bullied and picked on by all the other animals at school. (Mostly wesee one of various creatures; why a pig should be singled out isn't quite explained.) Things change when a newkid joins the school, a fox who is a talented drawer and soon befriends the pig. They have a briefmisunderstanding but all is soon explained. End of story. The look is un-involving and the short takes a long timeto tell a very basic story.FEAST *** (US) -- This is by far the most commercial offering. It has been included in the theatrical release ofDisney's Big Hero 6, where reviews often singled it out. Essentially, it's the life of a dog through food. We seehim as a puppy getting indulged by his master, growing bigger and getting better and better scraps, watch thefood get "healthy" when a girlfriend enters the picture and so on. It's all told from a below-the-knees perspective,with food falling from the table to dolloped out to our hero. Aesthetically, I don't really like the look of this short.But it has a strong storyline, clear point of view and tells its tale with entertaining elan. These shorts are often atraining ground for directors at Disney so I'm sure we'll see Patrick Osborne take the helm on a feature lengthproject soon.ME AND MY MOULTON ** (Canada) ** -- This quirky tale comes from Canada but is Danish to its core. TorillKove wrote and directed this seemingly autobiographical story about the middle child of three sisters and theirembarrassingly different, liberal parents who always do stuff out of the ordinary. It has a charming visual styleand distinctive tone. Nonetheless the very slight story is stretched out to 13 minutes in length, reducing anygoodwill it initially garnered.A SINGLE LIFE ** 1/2 (Netherlands) -- This is the only serious competition to Feast. A Single Life shows awoman playing a single on her turntable (someone explain to the kids what a 'single" and a "45" and a turntable"are, please). When the needle skips, the woman jumps forward in age, when she places the needle backtowards the start, she becomes younger than ever. We also seem to glimpse changes in her life, from single tomarried and so on. It's visually striking and has a smart kicker at the end. But the rules of this transformation arenever established: are we seeing just the varied stages of her life or various possibilities of how her life mightgo? Without that grounding, it's hard to enjoy the quick changes since we don't quite know what they mean. We"get" the finale but it too feels a little confusing. This short needed to catch its breath and let us know what wasexactly going on. Watching it three times, I'm still not quite sure what they intended. It's fun, but a little muddled.So those are the five animated shorts. In years past, a short with some bold technique could steal the Oscarfrom a crowd-pleaser. But now with the honor system and shorts available on screeners, a lot more people canvote without having the bother of going to specific screeners in LA and NYC. So I'd go with the obvious crowd-pleaser and the most clearly successful short here, even if some might grumble Disney and Pixar havedominated too much in recent years.So there you have it: Butter Lamp for Live Action Short and Feast for Animated Short. Your Oscar ballot just gottwo picks smarter. But if you really want to be smart, check them out yourself. I've been wrong before!_____________Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the founder and CEO of the forthcoming website BookFilter, a book lover'sbest friend. It's a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, providescomprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personalrecommendations every step of the way. It's like a fall book preview or holiday gift guide -- but every week inevery category. He's also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals theindustry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It'savailable for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=f342150d-e11a-4048-a434-6dca8f8c0477&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4Wanna Win Your Oscar Ballot? Watch The Shorts!Wanna Win Your Oscar Ballot? Watch The Shorts!THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2015You want to win your Oscar pool, don't you? Well, guessing how long the show will run in case of a tie is fun.But's it's just a shot in the dark. If you want to gain a real edge, check out the Oscar Nominated Shorts of 2015.Those three categories -- live action, animated and documentary -- are the ones you usually skim over, taking astab at any you recognize but not really knowing what's what. Luckily, your chance to see them is better thanever. This year, varied screenings of the shorts opened at more than 450 theaters around the country. Add inone-off screenings and you really have no choice, do you?It's not all fun and games, however. The documentary shorts should be dubbed the documentary not-so-shortssince they run from a minimum of 20 minutes to 45 minutes. And while the Academy is drawing upon shortsmade all over the world, the quality is actually quite spotty. I've no idea why. Are these really the best in thesecategories made in the past year? And yet year after year, you attend and are invariably left wishing more of theshorts were better.But here's a secret: when only one or two shorts in each category are actually good, your chances of picking thewinner leap exponentially. Instead of a 1 in 5 chance, you usually have a 50-50 chance. And sometimes a shortis good enough (and its competition weak enough) so that you just KNOW it'll win. And before you know it,you've got a one or two point lead over the competition on your ballot. So head to your local movie theater oranywhere these shorts are screening and invest the time in checking them out. Come Oscar Sunday, you'll be alot better informed than your friends and a few hours of your time might just result in you getting crowned thewinner.Here are my run-downs of the live action and animated shorts. I'll update if and when I get around to the ratherlonger documentary shorts.LIVE ACTION SHORTSAYA (French/Israel) ** 1/2 out of **** -- I watched the shorts in alphabetical order so this was the first I saw. Inretrospect, it became my second favorite. A woman waiting for someone at an airport in Israel is asked to holdone of those signs for a chauffeur who must step away. Of course, before you know it she's serving as a driverfor a Danish man in town to judge a piano competition. It's an ambiguous work with some strong moments --especially the scene where the judge "plays" the piano on the woman's hand and thigh at her request and thetwo actors are very good. But this short bungles that essential moment where the woman decides to go alongwith the man's confusion as to her being his driver. Not explaining everything? Fine. Not convincing us of exactlywhat is going on? Not so good. Other plot elements simply make no sense at the end. Still, it's intelligently actedand though it waaaaaay overstays its welcome at 40 minutes, this was a noble effort.BOOGALOO AND GRAHAM ** (UK) -- Too cute by half, this features two raucous lads living in Ireland duringthe Troubles. They fall for two baby chicks and are soon carting the animals everywhere as their personal pets.It's aggressively eccentric in nature and goes nowhere until the long-suffering mum says the chickens have togo because she's pregnant again. A last minute reprise involves an overly sentimental twist but this ismishandled in a too-quick voice-over in which we're told both about what happens in years to come and what itreally means. It's too much effort just to provide an "aaah" moment that could have been done quite simply with
12/16/2015Wanna Win Your Oscar Ballot? Watch The Shorts! | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=f342150d-e11a-4048-a434-6dca8f8c0477&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/4one wordless moment we see that the kids don't.BUTTER LAMP/ LA LAMPE AU BEURRE DE YAK *** 1/2 out of **** (France/China) -- Leagues better thaneverything else in either category, this short is the exemplar of what these shorts should be. It's not a teaser forwhat someone hopes to make a feature film; this short works perfectly on its own terms. It's a great calling cardfor a director. And it's entertaining! The set-up is simplicity itself; making a virtue of a limited budget and what Iassume is mostly a non-professional cast. A photographer in a village in Tibet is taking pictures of local peoplein front of varied backdrops. Groups of people pose in front of a canvas backdrop depicting the Great Wall ofChina or Tiananman Square and so on. The camera never moves: it shows the people getting into place whilethe photographer herds them around, offers props or changes the backdrop. They finally pose and the shutterclicks and a new group springs into action. We see a family, a young couple, an elderly lady (who can't take hereyes off the canvas backdrop), a group of kids and so on. The scenes are often comic but each has its own logicand rhythm. The kicker can be seen coming a mile away but happily there's a subtle nuance to it that shows thisfilm knows what it's doing. Wei Hu wrote and directed this and I'm writing his name down: I can't wait to see hisfirst feature and this short should make that leap inevitable.PARVENAH **(Switzerland) -- An Afghan teenager seems to be in Switzerland working illegally (though pressnotes say she's staying at a refugee center). In any case, she has some money desperately needed back home.Unfortunately, this underage girl in a strange country doesn't have the documentation needed to wire money.She warily asks another girl to help her and they strike up an unlikely friendship. Of course! A simple taskbecomes an over-night odyssey including cultural confusion, a disco, an overbearing date-rapish guy and toomuch alcohol. This short crams in a lot of hot-button issues including Islamic faith in a western country, illegals(or perhaps just refugees), male aggression and -- in an aside so perfunctory I found it offensive -- teenage self-mutilation known as cutting. The lead is appealing but it skims over the surface of the issues raised and neverreally comes to life.THE PHONE CALL * (UK) -- You can sometimes spot a ringer in the shorts. That would be the one directed bya well-known actor (Hollywood loves its own) or one just stuffed with name talent, which understandably helpsgarner attention. This very familiar, even rote story of a woman working a crisis line has two top namesattached: Sally Hawkins is the crisis center woman and the voice of Jim Broadbent is the man in crisis who is inthe midst of attempting suicide. This is smoothly directed and of course Hawkins and Broadbent are pros of thehighest order. But the script is so banal -- from its trite, cliched storyline to the "twist" ending and un-earnedsentimentality of the coda -- that it's ultimately quite bad. I didn't even like the production design of the potentialsuicide's home, which is seen in pure, angelic white, a choice that seems to glorify and make lovely a desperate,sad act of suicide, an implication which I doubt is intended here. It would be a bloody shame if the generousparticipation of two talents like Hawkins and Broadbent swayed voters to this.So those are the five live action shorts. And I'll eat my shirt if Butter Lamp loses. It has everything going for it: it'sthe shortest entry (believe me, when people sit through all five, these things matter), it's the only one with asense of humor and indeed is very funny throughout, it has a nice kicker and a political and environmentalundertone that gives it gravitas. It's also undeniably a work of genuine talent and that sense of discovery isexciting.ANIMATED SHORT FILMSTHE BIGGER PICTURE ** (UK) -- Two brothers bicker over the care of their aging mother: one brother issuccessful at work and her favorite; the other actually does the hard work of caring for her and feelsunappreciated. This short is here mostly for its technique, which is visually striking and fresh looking, thanks toits combination of varied approaches that feel both tactile and emotional. The story itself is rather muted anddoesn't quite build or reveal anything beyond the set-up. Still, the visual style -- which would prove exhausting atfeature length, I imagine -- keeps you engaged.
12/16/2015Wanna Win Your Oscar Ballot? Watch The Shorts! | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=f342150d-e11a-4048-a434-6dca8f8c0477&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/4THE DAM KEEPER * (US) -- This muddy, indistinctive short is by far the longest at 18 minutes and feels it. Apig is somehow in charge of the dam that protects a village when his father dies. Nonetheless, the lonely pig(who always has some dirt on his face) is bullied and picked on by all the other animals at school. (Mostly wesee one of various creatures; why a pig should be singled out isn't quite explained.) Things change when a newkid joins the school, a fox who is a talented drawer and soon befriends the pig. They have a briefmisunderstanding but all is soon explained. End of story. The look is un-involving and the short takes a long timeto tell a very basic story.FEAST *** (US) -- This is by far the most commercial offering. It has been included in the theatrical release ofDisney's Big Hero 6, where reviews often singled it out. Essentially, it's the life of a dog through food. We seehim as a puppy getting indulged by his master, growing bigger and getting better and better scraps, watch thefood get "healthy" when a girlfriend enters the picture and so on. It's all told from a below-the-knees perspective,with food falling from the table to dolloped out to our hero. Aesthetically, I don't really like the look of this short.But it has a strong storyline, clear point of view and tells its tale with entertaining elan. These shorts are often atraining ground for directors at Disney so I'm sure we'll see Patrick Osborne take the helm on a feature lengthproject soon.ME AND MY MOULTON ** (Canada) ** -- This quirky tale comes from Canada but is Danish to its core. TorillKove wrote and directed this seemingly autobiographical story about the middle child of three sisters and theirembarrassingly different, liberal parents who always do stuff out of the ordinary. It has a charming visual styleand distinctive tone. Nonetheless the very slight story is stretched out to 13 minutes in length, reducing anygoodwill it initially garnered.A SINGLE LIFE ** 1/2 (Netherlands) -- This is the only serious competition to Feast. A Single Life shows awoman playing a single on her turntable (someone explain to the kids what a 'single" and a "45" and a turntable"are, please). When the needle skips, the woman jumps forward in age, when she places the needle backtowards the start, she becomes younger than ever. We also seem to glimpse changes in her life, from single tomarried and so on. It's visually striking and has a smart kicker at the end. But the rules of this transformation arenever established: are we seeing just the varied stages of her life or various possibilities of how her life mightgo? Without that grounding, it's hard to enjoy the quick changes since we don't quite know what they mean. We"get" the finale but it too feels a little confusing. This short needed to catch its breath and let us know what wasexactly going on. Watching it three times, I'm still not quite sure what they intended. It's fun, but a little muddled.So those are the five animated shorts. In years past, a short with some bold technique could steal the Oscarfrom a crowd-pleaser. But now with the honor system and shorts available on screeners, a lot more people canvote without having the bother of going to specific screeners in LA and NYC. So I'd go with the obvious crowd-pleaser and the most clearly successful short here, even if some might grumble Disney and Pixar havedominated too much in recent years.So there you have it: Butter Lamp for Live Action Short and Feast for Animated Short. Your Oscar ballot just gottwo picks smarter. But if you really want to be smart, check them out yourself. I've been wrong before!_____________Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the founder and CEO of the forthcoming website BookFilter, a book lover'sbest friend. It's a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, providescomprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personalrecommendations every step of the way. It's like a fall book preview or holiday gift guide -- but every week inevery category. He's also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals theindustry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It'savailable for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of