M O N D AY, F E B R U A RY 1 9 , 2 0 0 7The 2007 Oscar ShortsI spent the weekend watching Oscar shorts because I care about youand want you to win your Oscar pool.</p><p> On Saturday at the Lighthouse, Ispent 2.5+ hours watching the live action and animated shorts.</p><p> OnSunday at MoMa, I watched 2.25+ hours of documentary shorts.</p><p> Noneof them were so awful they made you jaw drop and wonder what thenominating committee was thinking, but most were not that good.Later this week, I'll do an Oscar ballot, but here are the picks in thesecategories followed by descriptions and reviews.BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM -- The Danish PoetBEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM -- West Bank StoryBEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT -- The Blood of YingzhouDistrictANIMATED SHORT FILMSThe Danish Poet -- ****By far the best short of the entire weekend and it came first.</p><p> Thischarming little piece is narrated (in English) by Liv Ullmann and tellsthe fanciful story of how our narrator's parents met.</p><p> A Danish poet is somoved by the work of the famous Sigrid Undset that he asks her if hecan visit in hopes of finding inspiration.</p><p> He goes, but gets trapped in afarmhouse by rain, meets the farmer's daughter, but their love isthwarted (much like the love at the heart of Undset's masterpiece) andon it goes, in a gentle whimsical manner.</p><p> The animation is simple andquite charming, reminding us of how most major animated films are soboring for employing the same photo-realistic look of the PIXAR films.Disney (ie Pixar) is very smart to keep making hand-drawn films.Animated movies should be made in every style: hand-drawn andcomputer drawn and stop-motion, luxuriously detailed or cheap andevery sort of variation in between.</p><p> The story here is filled with littletouches, like watching our hero board a ferry, invariably followed by acrowd of boisterous party-goers who are tilted backwards with drinkwhile vacationing college students are bent forward under the weight oftheir massive backpacks.</p><p> It ends on a heartwarming (if not unexpected)note and is generally a sheer delight.Next Blog»sal1mineo@hotmail.comSEARCH BLOG FLAG BLOGFOLLOW BLOGP O P S U R F I N G .</p><p> C O MS U R F I N G T H E WAV E S O F P O P U L A R C U LT U R EB Y M I C H A E L G I LT Z & F R I E N D SPOPSURFING.COM: The 2007 Oscar Shortshttp://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2007/02/2007-oscar-shorts.html 1 of 37/27/09 10:16 PMFAV O R I T E L I N K SAmericablogFive O'Clock Lightning baseball blogDeep Pop -- Lori Lakin's BlogThe Back Page -- Jason Page on ESPNRadioCine-Blog -- George Robinson's BlogDocuments On Art & Cinema - DarylChin's BlogBrucie G's Wondrous Blog OfAdventure and Mystery -- BruceGreenspan's BlogB L O G A R C H I V E▼ 2009 (17)▼ July (3)1939 -- The Greatest Year ForMoviesSwimming Bans Those Hi-TechSuits!Best Movies Of The Year -- TheMaster List► June (3)► May (1)► March (2)► February (1)► January (7)► 2008 (86)► 2007 (781)► 2006 (2412)► 2005 (5)C O N T R I B U TO R SMichael in New YorkBiboyAaron POPSURFING.COM: The 2007 Oscar Shortshttp://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2007/02/2007-oscar-shorts.html 2 of 37/27/09 10:16 PMPOPSURFING.COM: The 2007 Oscar Shortshttp://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2007/02/2007-oscar-shorts.html 3 of 37/27/09 10:16 PM
