The 2026 Oscar Shorts: Good things in small packages

The Oscar Shorts (2026) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Unrated, akin to a PG-13 for occasional dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.22.26

This year’s batch of Academy Award-nominated animation and live-action shorts is much more entertaining than those from the past several years.

The animated entries aren’t visually weird or off-putting, and the live-action entries aren’t unrelentingly depressing. The overall “mood mix” is varied, with a pleasant balance of serious, gently moral and laugh-out-loud amusing.

 

That said, one live-action entry is quite bizarre ... and we’ll get to that.

 

Starting with animation, I’ve always been impressed by filmmakers who tell their stories without dialogue, making them immediately approachable to viewers throughout the world. Two of this year’s entries take that approach.

 

U.S. writer/directors Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears deliver a fascinating blend of carved wood elements and CGI in Forevergreen, a charming little tale about an orphaned bear cub “adopted” by a fatherly tree. Their bond is strong until the bear reaches young adulthood, at which point it’s tempted by the allure of easy human food: something the wise, long-lived tree knows could be dangerous.

 

This film’s overall look is enchanting. Engelhardt and Spears wanted their bear to be “tree-like,” to strengthen the viewer’s impression of their rapport; the gentle CGI elements definitely deliver that emotional note.

 

This 13-minute film’s conclusion is a heart-tugger, so be prepared.

 

Russian director Konstantin Bronzit’s The Three Sisters employs classic, hand-drawn 2D animation, in an exaggerated style that enhances his story’s broadly comic elements. (No, this has nothing to do with Chekhov.) Three devout sisters live a quiet life on a barren, isolated island that pokes out of the ocean like the upper half of a beach ball.

 

Supplies are delivered periodically by boat; the women pay with coins from a carefully guarded purse, which — horrors! — one day falls into the sea. Now forced to earn money by renting out one of their homes, the dynamic shifts abruptly when the new lodger turns out to be a grizzled fellow as coarse as they are delicate.

 

Except they don’t stay that way, once they vie for his attention...

 

This core story is hilarious enough on its own, but Bronzit adds plenty of droll sight gags that are even funnier, thanks to his animation style.

 

The Oscar Shorts: The great ... and not so great

The Oscar Shorts (2024) • View trailer

Five to zero stars (out of five). Not rated, but absolutely not suited for young children

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

I always look forward to the annual Academy Award-nominated short subjects, because succeeding in that form requires a special skill.

 

It’s the visual equivalent of literary talent. It’s easier to develop an engaging page-turner in the limitless expanse of a novel, but far more difficult to achieve the same dramatic or comedic punch in 14 short pages.

 

And, given how many current big-screen films are overly long and self-indulgent, watching a 22-minute filmlet is a welcome relief.

This year’s crop of live-action entries is quite strong, but the animated nominees are ... a mixed bag.

 

Starting with the former, director Adam J. Graves’ Anuja is the gripping saga of the 9-year-old title character (Sajda Pathan) and her older sister, Palak (Ananya Shanbhag). They live on the streets of Delhi, India, and eke out a hand-to-mouth existence by working in a sweatshop garment factory. The parentless girls’ “home” is an abandoned building, their food meager at best.

 

Palak knows that her younger sister is whip-smart, with a talent for math. Anuja is given an opportunity to attend school, but the placement exam involves a fee that girls never could raise. Worse yet, when the factory’s intimidating manager (Nagesh Bhonsle, in a hissably oily performance) learns of Anuja’s talent, he wants her to spend one day a week doing clerical work for him ... and warns that if she chooses school, Palak will lose her job.

 

Graves’ storytelling approach is unembroidered, which adds to the dramatic impact. He doesn’t preach, choosing instead to simply show every detail of the girls’ grinding, hard-scrabble existence.

 

The story’s conclusion is a nail-biter, but additional dramatic heft comes from the final text block: Graves’ film was made with the support of the Salaam Baalak Trust, a nonprofit that provides food, shelter and education to thousands of street and working children in New Delhi. Pathan — as impressively gifted young actress — is one of those children. Simply amazing.

The 2023 Oscar Shorts: An engaging program

The Oscar Shorts (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, with parental guidance strongly advised

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.24.23

Many of the past several years’ worth of Academy Award-nominated live-action shorts have been grim and unbearably depressing.

 

Happily, this year’s voters have regained their senses of balance and humor, while still focusing on relatable real-world issues. Rest assured: Two of them still pack a gut-punch.

 

Unhappily, the Academy members who selected the animated entries remain too willing to reward weird style over narrative substance: a shortcoming that definitely compromises two of those entries.

But let’s start on a happier animated note. Australian director Lachlan Pendragon’s An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake, and I Think I Believe It is a droll claymation riff on 1998’s The Truman Show (and further inspired, Pendragon explains, by the 1953 Chuck Jones Warner Bros. cartoon, “Duck Amuck”).

 

A young telemarketer has long focused on toaster sales in an office crowded with numerous phone-bank workers … until, quite unexpectedly, the large avian of this film’s title informs him of a much larger world beyond his office walls.

 

Suddenly made aware that he has no knowledge of his childhood or upbringing — as also is the case with all his co-workers — our hero’s disorientation shoots into hyperdrive after realizing that his actions are controlled by Something Out There.

 

Pendragon’s 11-minute film doesn’t really have a point, but it’s fun to watch.

 

That isn’t the case with Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby’s The Flying Sailor, a bizarre and clumsily animated depiction of an urban legend that emerged in the wake of the horrific 1917 Halifax Harbour explosion: the largest human-made explosion at the time, equivalent to 2.9 kilotons of TNT.

 

As the legend developed over time, an English sailor was sent skyward, blown out of his clothes, and landed — unharmed — two kilometers uphill. Canadians Forbis and Tilby intend their 7-minute short to be a parable on making peace with the moment, as one’s life flashes before panicked eyes … but the execution is too sloppy to be effective.

The 2022 Oscar Shorts: Wildly uneven

The 2022 Oscar Shorts • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Not rated, and patently adult

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.4.22

I always look forward to the live action and animated Academy Award nominees; it’s fun to wonder if we’ll see the first efforts of the next Spielberg, Kurosawa or Scorsese, or the next Miyazaki or Lasseter.

 

Most of this year’s live action nominees show plenty of promise.

 

The animated nominees are, um, more challenging. And be advised: Two of them absolutely are not for children.

 

Starting with live action, Polish director Tadeusz Lysiak’s tender, deeply moving The Dress is fueled by Anna Dzieduszycka’s terrific starring performance as Julia, a lonely woman who works as a maid in a rundown rural motel. 

Lysiak’s story is a bittersweet “first sexual encounter” saga, but Julia isn’t a fresh-faced youth; she’s an embittered, sexually frustrated, middle-aged woman who has spent her entire life deflecting rude comments about her diminutive stature as a “little person.” The pain is palpable in Dzieduszycka’s expression and posture, as she angrily chain-smokes and feeds endless coins into slot machines.

 

Then she chances to meet Bogdan (Szymon Piotr Warszawski), a trucker who smiles and treats Julia with respect; the flicker of hope that illuminates Dzieduszycka’s eyes is heartbreaking. Lysiak doesn’t pull back from subsequent details; the difficulty she has buying a suitable “date dress,” for example, is particularly touching.

 

Swiss filmmaker Maria Brendle’s Ala Kachuu (Take and Run) is a harrowing “statement drama.” Nineteen-year-old Sezim (Alina Turdumamatova) lives in a small, rural Kyrgyz village. She’s smart enough to attend university in the capital city of Bishkek: a goal her traditional parents forbid, knowing they’d be “shamed” by a daughter who made such a lifestyle choice.

Sezim nonetheless runs away to Beshkek, moves in with her friend Aksana (Madina Talipbekova), and gets a job in a bakery while awaiting the results of a university entrance exam. One day, totally without warning, she’s kidnapped by three young men; they drive her to an even more remote Kyrgyz village, where she’s forced to marry one of them (Nurbek Esengazy Uulu, as Dayrbek).

 

The village women, themselves former victims of “bride-kidnapping” — which apparently is endemic in Kyrgyzstan — offer no sympathy.

 

Turdumamatova’s performance is shattering; Sezim’s despair and desperation are palpable. Brendle’s plot beats are unrelenting; we Western viewers can’t help being shocked by her helplessness, and the callous “traditions” that tolerate such treatment of young women.

The Oscar Shorts: Big stories in small packages

The Oscar Shorts (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Not rated, but not advised for young viewers, due to dramatic intensity, violence and profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.2.21

This year’s crop of Academy Award-nominated live-action short subjects is impressively robust.

 

The animated nominees are … impressively uneven.

 

Let’s start with the live-action entries, all of which (no surprise) are variations on the themes of racism and tolerance.

 

Writer/director Doug Roland’s Feeling Through, set in New York, opens late one night as teenage Tereek (Steven Prescod) seeks a place to crash. He’s aimless, rootless, perhaps only one impulsive act away from winding up on the wrong side of the law.

 

But his immediate problem — where to sleep — fades due to a chance encounter with Artie (Robert Tarango), an amiable deaf-blind man who needs an assist in finding the correct bus to take him home. (Why such a vulnerable individual would be wandering New York’s mean streets alone, late at night, is something we can’t worry about; this is a parable.)

 

As Roland develops this heartwarming tale, we’re reminded anew that — often — the best way to help yourself, is to help somebody else.

 

High-profile casting is the first thing noticed about writer/director Elvira Lind’s The Letter Room. Oscar Isaac — one of our newest Star Wars champions, among many other roles — stars as Richard, an empathetic corrections officer recently transferred to the mail room in a maximum security prison.

 

All incoming and outgoing letters must be scanned and scrutinized. Richard, who lives alone, soon becomes captivated by the warm and sensitive letters written by a woman (Alia Shawkat) to one of the prisoners on Death Row … who never writes her back. This seems grievously unfair to Richard, particularly since another of the Death Row prisoners pines for letters he never receives. 

 

Isaac’s performance is a masterpiece of subtlety and silence, as this inherently kind and uncomplicated man struggles to make peace with his new role.

Little films, big topics

2018 Oscar Shorts (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Not rated, with some of the live-action entries probably too intense for children
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.9.18

The live-action Academy Award-nominated short subjects are an ideal bellwether of national and international anxiety, and this year’s crop is no exception.

Hollywood responds slowly to social angst and hot-button political topics; feature films can’t help their lengthy gestation period. Short subjects, on the other hand, can be planned, produced and released quickly enough to tap into current events.

Three of this year’s five nominees make it clear that violence — particularly racial and religious violence — remains a subject of deep concern to filmmakers.

The animated nominees, as also often is the case, offer the relief of gentle humor.

American writer/director Kevin Wilson Jr.’s My Nephew Emmett, the stand-out live-action entry, dramatizes the dreadful incident that took place in Money, Miss., at 2:30 a.m. Aug. 28, 1955, when 14-year-old Emmett Till was hauled out of bed by brutal white racists. The 20-minute film is anchored by L.B. Williams’ dignified starring performance as Mose Wright, the 64-year-old sharecropper and preacher forced to watch, helplessly, as his nephew was driven away.

Wilson relates the story economically, deftly sketching the loving relationship between Mose and his wife Elizabeth (Jasmine Guy), and their delight over hosting Chicago-based Emmett (Joshua Wright) for a visit. Laura Valladao’s cinematography is terrific; Mose’s early evening trek to a water pump is framed beautifully against the setting sun.

The script is subtle, with just enough foreshadowing to alert savvy viewers — even those unfamiliar with history — about what is to come.

The atmosphere of nervous tension morphs rapidly into full-blown terror during a savage climax, after which Wilson cuts to archival footage of the actual Mose Wright, while he begins to recount what happened that night (a clip taken from the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize, and readily available online).

The 2016 Oscar Shorts: Little treasures (for the most part)

The 2016 Oscar Shorts (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Unrated, although the live-action entries include profanity, nudity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have an almost xenophobic tendency — for the most part — to limit feature film nominees to American productions. The entire wealth of overseas entries are forced to duke it out in the single Best Foreign Film category.

Kwame (Prince Yaw Appiah) and Inger (Malene Beltoft Olsen) embark on an unlikely
relationship, in Silent Nights.

Granted, exceptions exist; Back in 2000, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon pulled a whopping 10 Oscar nominations, winning four. But that’s rare; an average year generally fields only one or two token foreign nominees. That’s certainly the case with the 2016 contenders: Isabelle Huppert is a Best Actress nominee for France’s Elle, and Sweden’s A Man Called Ove pulled a nod for Best Makeup. And that’s it.

As Garfield has been known to observe, Big, fat, hairy deal.

How refreshing, then, that the two short film categories usually are a gloriously international affair.

An impressive 137 live-action short films qualified for the 89th annual Academy Awards, of which 10 were short-listed back in late November. Those subsequently were winnowed to the final five contenders, which — as has become an annual tradition — currently are touring the country as part of an Oscar Shorts package. They’re showing locally at Sacramento’s Crest Theater, between now and the end of the month.

Voters apparently favored European sensibilities this year, with the five finalists — every one of them thoughtful, provocative and/or delightful — hailing from France, Switzerland, Denmark, Hungary and Spain.

I only wish the voters in the animated short film category had displayed similar taste, judgment and imagination. Ten titles were short-listed, again in late November, from an initial 69 submissions; they subsequently were narrowed down to the five remaining nominees. To my surprise and disappointment, they’re all English-language: three from the States, and the remaining two from Canada.

And at the risk of offending our Northern neighbor, both of the Canadian entries leave much to be desired.

I simply cannot believe that none of the other 64 contenders, no doubt from all sorts of different countries, weren’t better than those two nominees. The mind doth boggle.

2015 Oscar predictions: The envelope, please...

Let’s deal with the elephant in the room.

As of a few weeks ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had 6,261 voting members. All of them submit nominations for best picture.

Alejandro González Iñárritu, left, and Leonardo DiCaprio are certain to win Oscars for
Best Director and Best Actor. But will their film, The Revenant, also take Best Picture?

Nominees in most of the remaining categories are selected via balloting by various Academy branches: editors for editing, cinematographers for cinematography, and so forth. The same is true of the four acting categories, where — again, as of this year’s balloting — 1,138 Academy members, all actors, determined the nominees.

So: 6,261 overall voting members, 1,138 of whom are in the actors branch. And all of whom are limited by one incontrovertible fact: They’re only able to consider the product booked into U.S. movie theaters during the previous calendar year. To put it another way, not one of those Academy actor members is, was, or ever will be in a position to determine which movies get made and/or released, in order to be voted upon.

Those decisions come from a couple dozen different studio heads: almost all male, and white, and young, and guided entirely by bean counters, focus groups and the panicked certainty that more than one flop in a row likely will cost them their jobs. Ergo, they all too frequently stick to the tried and true.

So why — why — is everybody so upset with the Academy, when an absence of diversity clearly isn’t their fault?

If people are unhappy about racial diversity in any category — and yes, I share their absolutely legitimate frustration — then the anger needs to be channeled toward Hollywood’s studio board rooms, and nowhere else. It’s a separate conversation.

The Oscars, one hopes, are presented to honor the best work in the best movies available during a given year. Anything else would be quota pandering, which would make a mockery of an institution celebrating its 88th anniversary this year.

So let’s embrace the tradition for what it is, and what it does — and should — represent. And let’s also enjoy the time-honored pastime of trying to predict what’ll win this year.

But before we get down to cases, some fun facts:

• The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road are only the fourth and fifth films ever to receive nods in all seven technical categories — cinematography, costume design, editing, production design, sound editing, sound mixing and visual effects — after Titanic, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and Hugo.

• Bridge of Spies brought Steven Spielberg his 11th nomination for best director, a category he won twice, for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. Director William Wyler still holds the record, at 13 nominations and three wins: Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives and Ben-Hur. (But Spielberg still has plenty of time!)

• On the other hand, the total number of nominations accrued by Spielberg’s various films now sits at 128 ... to Wyler’s 127. That makes Spielberg the top nomination-gathering director of all time.

• All six of director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s films have earned at least one Oscar nomination.

• Jennifer Lawrence has become the youngest actress to earn four Oscar nominations, having snatched that honor from Kate Winslet.

• With a span of 39 years between Sylvester Stallone’s Oscar nod for 1976’s Rocky and last year’s Creed, he has broken the previous record of 38 years, held by Helen Hayes, Jack Palance and Alan Arkin. Stallone also has become only the sixth actor to be nominated twice for playing the same character, after Bing Crosby (Father O’Malley), Peter O’Toole (King Henry II), Paul Newman (“Fast Eddie” Felson), Al Pacino (Michael Corleone) and Cate Blanchett (Queen Elizabeth II).

The 2014 Oscar Shorts: Petite delights

The 2014 Oscar Shorts (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.6.15

Much as I anticipate this annual opportunity to focus on big-screen “short stories,” the 2014 Academy Award nominees — as a group — are a bit disappointing.

To be sure, both the live-action and animated categories offer several strong nominees. But others are unsatisfying, even puzzling. The respective nominating committees sometimes focus more on form than content — chiefly with animated shorts — and that’s particularly true this year.

As a result, you’re unlikely to greet the entire road-show package with the same delight and enthusiasm generated by those from previous years; the 2014 nominees are noteworthy more for isolated pockets of excellence, rather than overall superiority.

To cases, then, starting with the live-action nominees:

Irish director Michael Lennox’s Boogaloo and Graham is charming, thanks to Ronan Blaney’s droll script and fine performances by the film’s two young stars. Riley Hamilton and Aaron Lynch play Jamesy and Malachy, the sons of working-class parents (Martin McCann and Charlene McKenna) who maintain an uneasy co-existence with occupational British soldiers in 1978 Belfast.

The boys have little to call their own, and therefore are thrilled when their soft-hearted father surprises them with two baby chicks. The boys name their new pets Boogaloo and Graham, and soon amuse their neighbors by “leashing” the birds and taking them for walks. But as the chicks grow into chickens, their mother becomes increasingly annoyed by the bother, and eventually issues an ultimatum.

The result of which leads to a particularly ingenious conclusion.

The British actually have a tendency to stand out in this category, with A-list stars often lending their talents; I still remember how much I enjoyed Martin Freeman and Tom Hollander, in last year’s The Voorman Problem. They’re matched this year by Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent, both sensational in director Mat Kirby’s The Phone Call.

Hawkins, Oscar-nominated for 2013’s Blue Jasmine, stars as Heather, a shy young woman employed at a telephone crisis center, where she can’t work up the nerve to chat with the good-looking guy (Edward Hogg) who handles one of the other phones. But such idle thoughts are forgotten when she receives a call from a distraught old man named Stan (Jim Broadbent), who can barely speak through his misery.

To Heather’s mounting terror, Stan admits to having taken an overdose of pills, but he refuses to divulge any helpful information regarding his whereabouts. We never see Broadbent: just hear his voice on the phone, or from a point within his home where he’s not quite in view ... but he’s easy to recognize, and he’s mesmerizing.

As is Hawkins. Kirby keeps her face in tight close-up, and the actress works this scenario with heart-stopping conviction. Her emotional intensity is absolutely shattering.

Kirby co-wrote this script with James Lucas, and they build their 21-minute film to a very powerful conclusion.

The 2013 Oscar Shorts: Small but mighty

The Oscar Shorts (2012) 
Four stars. Rating: Not rated, and suitable for all ages (animated) and older children (live action)
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.1.13

The Oscar-nominated live-action short subjects traditionally lean toward gloomy and often politically charged topics, but this year’s crop is relentlessly grim, even by those standards.

After viewing the first two or three, you’ll be tempted to go home and run a razor blade across your wrists ... but the act would be redundant, because the next film begins as a character does that very thing.

And that’s the only genuinely funny entry among the five nominees.

Mordantly funny, anyway.

But don’t misunderstand me. The themes may be ultra-heavy, and it’d be hard to classify the collective viewing experience as “fun,” but every one of these short films is sharply scripted, deftly directed and well acted ... in some cases, by inexperienced amateurs.

The five nominated animated shorts, I’m happy to report, are much lighter fare ... and no less engaging.

Indeed, I’ve often been unimpressed by one or two entries in each category, but all 10 films this year are quite strong.

Until quite recently short subjects were little more than titles and fleeting film clips during the annual Academy Awards broadcast; jes’ plain folks had no access to them. It wasn’t always that way; during Hollywood’s golden age, a “night out at the movies” was a lengthy evening comprising two features, a newsreel, a dramatic short and one or two animated shorts.

Let’s not forget that Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon was a short subject, when released back in 1956; it’s now regarded as one of the best little movies ever made.

Multiplexes and an economically driven desire to turn over audiences as many times as possible — thus maximizing snack bar sales — eventually spelled the end of double features, newsreels and short subjects. Happily, though, shorts once again hit our radar during the first decade of the 21st century, thanks to their availability online — via iTunes, YouTube and other providers — and packaged “road show” engagements at venues such as Sacramento’s Crest Theater.

This year’s live action category features entries from all over the world. Two focus on young boys; these also are the most politically provocative entries.

Writer/director Bryan Buckley’s Asad stars Harun Mohammed as the title character, a young Somali boy just now old enough to choose between two worlds: on the one hand, life as a fisherman, encouraged by a wizened old man who believes the boy is capable of catching “great things”; on the other hand, the violent option of joining the Somali pirates who prey on passing boats and ships.

The 2011 Oscar Shorts: Tiny sparks, mighty flames

The 2011 Oscar Shorts (2011)
Four stars. Unrated, but certainly suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.10.12


Oscar season — just a few weeks to go! — means that it’s time for another cherished part of the annual ritual: the road-show program of Academy Awards short subjects.

A little boy enters a most unusual family business, in Pixar's thoroughly
charming "La Luna."

Until quite recently, access to these short films remained limited; a few popped up randomly on PBS or cable/satellite channels, but for the most part we never saw more than the glimpses afforded during the actual Academy Awards broadcast. This changed five years ago, thanks in great part to the increased marketability of feature-length documentaries.

Folks take notice when films such as 2005’s March of the Penguins rake in just shy of $80 million in the United States alone, and when nonfiction cousins such as Spellbound and Young @ Heart out-perform mainstream alternatives. We also mustn’t overlook the popularity of efforts by Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock.

And so, thanks to the involvement of art houses such as Sacramento’s Crest Theater — and what I imagine must be nightmarish contractual arrangements, with 10 different films involved — we now have the opportunity, each year, to savor cinema’s answer to the novella and short story.

In some cases, the short-short story.

Beginning with the live-action nominees, Norwegian director Hallvar Witzo does wonderful things with scripter Linn-Jeanethe Kyed’s Tuba Atlantic, a droll study of how 70-year-old Oskar (Edvard Haegstad) handles some rather unsettling news from his doctor. The prognosis: only six more days of life. (“That’s very precise,” Oskar mutters.)

Oskar (Edvard Haegstad) hates seagulls; their shrill cries are upsetting his
precious few remaining days of life. Young Inger (Ingrid Viken), assigned to
help him "prepare" for his fate, scarcely understands this old coot, but she's
determined to make a difference as his moral hourglass runs out.

Oskar’s a cantankerous coot, living alone at the edge of the bitterly cold ocean. He has embraced novel methods — involving a machine gun and dynamite-filled fish — of killing the raucous seagulls that make sleep impossible. His beloved isolation is invaded by the inappropriately cheerful Inger (Ingrid Viken), a bubbly teen with a mission, as a Jesus-preaching “Angel of Death” assigned to help Oskar through the “five stages” of accepting his fate.

Both these characters are captivating misfits, forever living in the shadows of more successful siblings. Inger suffers the humiliation of braces, while her sister dates two boys; Oskar long ago lost touch with his brother Jon, who moved to the United States. Oskar initially wants nothing to do with Inger’s “ministrations,” of course, but events — and a huge, rather peculiar “something” concealed beneath a massive tarp, and pointing out toward sea — will conspire to build a most unlikely relationship.

This film’s one shortcoming: The white subtitles, often projected against the setting’s snow-white background, can be very difficult to read. Do your best; the effort is worthwhile.

Again, the Academy Awards: Predictions 2010

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.27.11


Oscar prognostication, once no more than a living room activity, has become Big Business; every print or TV media personality remotely connected to cinema has jumped onto the bandwagon.

No surprise, really. The gig is tantalizing; the trick is to anticipate and navigate the complex weather patterns that might guide Academy voters each year. Will they honor individual achievement, or consider a nominee’s past work? (Hello, John Wayne.) Will a sweeps mentality prevail, motivated by an over-compensating desire to acknowledge a tremendous achievement? (Got my eye on you, Titanic and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.)

Will the voters in a particular category, stung by recent bad press, behave foolishly in an effort to be viewed as hip? (Nothing else can explain the Best Song wins by “Last Dance,” from 1978’s Thank God It’s Friday, and “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” from 2005’s Hustle and Flow.)

At the end of the day, it’s impossible to catch all the prevailing winds; the Academy Awards always produce some surprises. Indeed, that’s part of the fun. And although we definitely suffer from “awards show glut” at this time of the year, I take heart in the fact that the Oscars remain The Big Show. After all, nobody bothers to predict the Golden Globes, or offer contests for same.

The Academy Awards show itself continues to be tweaked and fine-tuned to increasingly silly degrees. We once again have 10 choices for Best Picture, apparently to bribe viewers who wouldn’t tune in unless they could see scenes from 127 Hours and Inception. And I could kvetch about the weirdness of having only four Best Song nominees, but I long ago gave up on the idiotic Academy members who rule this category. They’re wombats.

And I’m equally dismayed by the dweebs who make similarly ludicrous rules in the Best Animated Feature category, which once again fields only three entries. C’mon, folks; be logical: If you expanded the Best Picture category for the sake of acknowledging box-office popularity, wouldn’t it make sense to do the same with animated features?

But enough with the eye-rolling; let’s get to the meat of the matter. It’s a potentially exciting year for Oscar, and a tough year for predictions. So let’s see how many right answers I can talk myself out of this time...

Visual effects

A busy category this year, with five nominees (usually no more than three). The marvels of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1 and Iron Man 2 aside, I suspect this is a dust-up between Alice in Wonderland and another hot challenger. I therefore expect these statues to be claimed by Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb, for Inception.

Makeup

Nobody saw The Way Back, and Adrien Morot’s aging make-up in Barney’s Version, while excellent, also wound up in a little-seen film. Name-brand recognition is tough to beat in this category, and the name belongs to Rick Baker. So even though his film was perceived as a horror dud, I expect him to win, for The Wolfman.

Sound mixing

Bear in mind that this category represents the totality of the sound-mixing process – the music, the dialogue, the background noises and everything else – whereas the next category focuses more specifically on fabricated sound. Think sound effects, like visual effects.

The Motion Picture Sound Editors’ annual Golden Reel Awards aren’t much help here, since they divide the spoils within even more sub-categories. Their 58th annual ceremony, which took place Sunday, gave two awards to Inception, for music editing and sound effects/foley editing. The Social Network took the Golden Reel for “dialogue and ADR,” which would correspond most closely to this Oscar category.

My personal choice would be the folks who really made me feel like a part of the action, in True Grit, but that ain’t gonna happen. Both sound categories, as with visual effects, will be knee-jerk bones thrown to Inception, in this case acknowledging Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick.

Oscar Shorts 2007: Good things in small packages

Academy Award-Nominated Short Subjects (2007)
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: Unrated, but the equivalent of PG-13 for chaste nudity and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.15.08

We see tantalizing snatches of them — no more than a few seconds from each — during the annual Academy Awards ceremony.

Some look interesting; others look profoundly poignant. Some seem downright weird.

Peter and his pet duck stare longingly through a hole in their protective fence,
and out at the forest beyond, which looks like such a wonderful place to play.
But they'll soon learn that this glade has hidden dangers, in Peter and the Wolf.

I refer to the live action and animated short subjects, which for most of us are no more than a list of nominated titles and directors, followed by a gratefully enthusiastic acceptance speech that leaves us wishing for an opportunity to see these filmlets. Aside from an occasional flicker of recognition — Pixar has placed quite a few entries in the animated category, over the years — we're left to wonder about most of these shorts.

Well, wonder no longer.

Perhaps encouraged by the public's growing taste for feature-length documentaries, Magnolia Pictures has assembled the 10 Oscar-nominated live action and animated shorts — five of each — into a road-show package that will dock for one week at Sacramento's Crest Theater, starting today. And while my recommendations are cautiously qualified, you really shouldn't miss the chance to see this program at least once, if only to satisfy your own curiosity.

I say "qualified" because the menu is quite a mixed bag.

All five of the live-action entries are noteworthy: modestly amusing at the least (The Substitute) and impressively produced and acted at the best (The Tonto Woman). One of them, At Night, may well be the saddest short film you ever experience.

The animated entries are ... not so hot. Several represent the triumph of form over content; I can only assume that the individuals who selected the nominees valued animation style first, and storyline second. Not one entry has the brilliant blend of storytelling and rich animation that made prior Pixar entries such as One Man Band and For the Birds (the 2001 winner in this category) so entertaining.

Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman's revisionist take on Peter and the Wolf, a UK/ Polish co-production, is the most satisfying of the current bunch. The puppet-style animation is perfect for this adaptation of the familiar story, although you'll wonder for the first few scenes — which play to dead silence from the soundtrack — if you've stumbled into the wrong film.

But then Prokofiev's familiar anthems swell into life, and the saga of a boy, his duck, a bird, a cat and a hungry wolf unfolds as we remember it ... more or less. The charm of this adaptation, aside from the beautifully crafted puppets, comes from the ways in which Templeton and Welchman tweak the narrative. This is most definitely a post-modern Peter, and he comes of age with a live-and-let-live maturity far beyond his years.

At just over 32 minutes, it's also the longest animated piece, but the time passes without discomfort.