REVIEWS: Oscar Shorts : Crimson Monkey

REVIEWS: Oscar Shorts

Sunday, February 12 2012 - Reviews - by: jared_cm

The Short Film category for the Oscars has always been a bit of a mystery to me. There always seems to be some really interesting stuff in those categories but it never seems to be available to wide audiences, and if it does it’s so far after the fact that you’ve forgotten about it anyway. This year I was lucky enough to be able to watch all the Oscar nominated shorts in both the animated and live-action categories and was surprised that there was actually better material in the live-action than in the animated pieces. You would think animation would just lend itself more to the short form, but not the case this year. Here’s the list of shorts and some thoughts on them.

ANIMATED

La Luna (director: Enrico Casarosa)

Not having released a full length film last year, Pixar didn’t have a vehicle to attach their short to, but they still had something to be considered for the Oscar. La Luna is a cute little story of a scruffy old man, a burly muscleman and a little boy who are apparently janitors for the moon. It doesn’t seem like much, but of course in traditional Disney/Pixar fashion, the whimsical and beautiful scenery draw you right in. The problem is there’s not a lot of substance here, which would be fine if there were a lot of laughs or anything else. It’s cute to be sure, and it will make you smile and give you some warm fuzzies, but it’s nothing terribly memorable like a lot of their previous shorts.

A Morning Stroll (director: Grant Orchard)

A Morning Stroll tells the story of a chicken in three very different time periods. Well, it doesn’t so much tell the story as it does just show you a chicken taking a stroll in three very different time periods. The artistic direction is wonderful in this film, with a cool, minimalist approach showing the 1959, then a cel-shaded, brightly colored, ADD world in 2009, followed by a fully rendered apocalyptic 2059. If artistic direction were the only requirement to win the award I would say this one gets it just because it’s so unique and fun. The problem is there’s zero plot here. It’s very light-hearted so it doesn’t need a whole lot of character development and conflict and all that, but it’s really just the same exact situation presented in three different ways, with a punchline that just falls flat and, to me, says ‘we didn’t know how to end this.’

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (directors: William Joyce, Brandon Oldenburg)

For my money, this is hands-down the winner of the animated category. It’s a beautiful story about a writer who loses his motivation (metaphorically shown by losing his city in a hurricane) only to find it later in the form of a house of many living books. At least that’s what I got out of it. There’s definitely some symbolism here. In any case, even if you just look at it at face value, it’s a beautiful story about someone who’s lost everything but manages to find it again with the help of these books. It’s amazing how the film manages to evoke so much emotion in such a short amount of time with a character you’ve barely had enough time to get to know who doesn’t speak a word of dialogue. It has the feeling of being the Pixar film that Pixar never made. It certainly has a leg up on Pixar’s output this year.

Dimanche/Sunday (director: Patrick Doyon)

I hate to resort to saying something as trivial as ‘I don’t get it’ but that’s exactly how I feel after watching this. I couldn’t tell you what this film is about other than an unhappy kid who goes through a seemingly normal Sunday and apparently likes putting coins on railroad tracks. It seems like the filmmakers were trying to put some meaning in here somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t find it. You find yourself on the verge of maybe understanding what they’re trying to get at then it just ends. Simply put, the whole thing just feels pointless to me unfortunately.

Wild Life (directors: Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby)

I love the artistic painterly style of this film, but again the plot itself falls flat because they couldn’t end it. Wild Life is about an Englishman at the turn of the 20th century who has traveled to Alberta, Canada for a taste of the ‘Wild West.’ It’s a quirky, kind of fun story for the most part with little interviews with the locals about this influx of Englishmen, along with our main Englishman regaling his family back home with stories of his ‘ranch’ (which is in fact a shack in a field). The problem comes when the story suddenly takes a rapid depressing left turn and then just ends. There’s no resolution, just a sad ending. It again just feels like they didn’t know where else to go with it so they just ended it there. There’s also vague text about comets that splashes in occasionally, assumingly to force some sort of parallel to the story, but I don’t see it. It’s a shame, as this one showed some real potential and then just sort of fizzled.

LIVE-ACTION

Pentecost (director: Peter McDonald)

This is a fun little film about a boy (ironically named Damien) in a very Catholic neighborhood in Ireland who couldn’t care less about being an altar boy and just wants to watch soccer, although his father is pushing him hard to be the prestigious altar boy. What’s funny is how seriously the competition for the position of altar boy is portrayed with behind-closed-doors meetings in the church trying to fill the position of injured boys, much like coaches would be doing for injured players. There’s then an intense locker room speech given to the altar boys, echoing that of the boys’ soccer teams, complete with roaring cheering being heard in the background. The whole thing is so light-hearted and portraying church as a sport is just hilarious (to me at least). It just seems like everybody had fun putting this together so it’s hard not to root for them.

Raju (director: Max Zahle)

This thriller follows a German couple who has just adopted a son, Raju, in India, but then lose their new son on the streets. In his quest to find his new son, the father stumbles on the startling truth about the orphanage where he and his wife got Raju. They then have to struggle with what to do about the situation. That’s vague, I know, but it’s kind of what the film is about. It’s superbly played out, with great acting, wonderful camera work and fantastic pacing. How the filmmakers were able to get this much character development and plot into a 25 minute film is most impressive.

The Shore (director: Terry George)

Another Irish film, this is strictly a character piece. It tells the story of a man who’s been gone in the states for years, and has just returned to his home. He divulges to his daughter that a primary reason for him staying away so long was that he couldn’t face coming back to see the woman that he loved and his best friend, both of which he felt that he had done wrong when he left in the first place. His daughter pushes him to reunite with both of them (who are now married) and try to put the past behind them. The story is a little muddled at first, but once it starts to settle in, it really is beautiful, and writer/director Terry George did a great job of crafting such a wonderful story and presenting it so well in such a short amount of time.

Time Freak (director: Andrew Bowler)

I’m not sure what this one is doing here. It’s hilarious, for sure, but it seems more like a funny project some buddies did for YouTube or Channel 101 than something to be in Oscar contention. I don’t mean that in a way to talk down on it, it just seems out of place. It’s super fun and goofy, but there’s just nothing here that seems lasting, if that makes sense. It’s more like something you would find on YouTube and send to some friends and you all get some laughs out of it and then you forget it the next day. Very odd choice, given the caliber of the competition.

Tuba Atlantic (director: Hallvar Witzo)

A quirky dark comedy out of Norway, Tuba Atlanic follows a man who has 6 days left to live and spends them doing really the same things he’s always been doing. He’s a stubborn old man, and he’s soon greeted by a young girl from ‘Jesus Camp’ who wants to be his ‘Angel of Death’ which is both creepy and hilarious. She basically is trying to be there to comfort him as he dies, but he of course wants nothing of it. She doesn’t give up though and they actually end up forming a sweet relationship. He tells her of his one big regret, that he’s fallen out of touch with his brother in the US, with whom he used to always be inventing and building things, including a giant wind-powered tuba. This film was another surprise in that it’s amazing how so much can be told and done in such a short amount of time, even with kind of a weird story.