Spoilers

Every year, I go down to Cinemark the weekend of the Academy Awards so I can see the Live-Action Short Films and Animated Short Films that had been nominated for Oscars. It is always fun seeing these in their blocks.

It was weird this year because the shows were being produced by Roadside Attractions instead of the company that normally did it. It also said that the show was being presented by Taika Waititi, but I never saw or heard one thing from him. That was strange.

I am going to list my personal favorites from 5-1 here. This is not my Oscar predictions. It was just the ones I liked the best. In fact, i can almost 100% guarantee that my favorite of the Live-Action Shorts will NOT be the Oscar winner. I plan on doing my official predictions either later tonight or some time tomorrow before the ceremony.

Kicking off with the LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILMS

#5. Butcher’s Stain. This was my least favorite of all the shorts I saw today. It is a drama taking place in a supermarket in Tel Aviv. I had a hard time getting into this one. I was not interested and found little to grab my attention.

#4. The Singers. This was a fun short. It was the first one we were shown today and it featured a group of men in a bar, drinking and betting on who had the best singing voice. It had some great singing on it, but, while entertaining, I did not find, much depth in the short.

#3. Two People Exchanging Saliva. Weird. Wild. A strange world where kissing is frowned upon and the people go to the extreme of having terrible breath to ward off the kissers. It is also a society that pays for things by getting slapped in the face. This is such a bizarre short that it was tough to follow, but it fit right in with films like Bugonia.

#2. Friends of Dorothy. A sweet short that featured a young man (Alistair Nwachukwu) who meets an older woman (Miriam Margolyes) and they bond over plays. The young man secretly wishes to be an actor and the older woman is encouraging him to do so. This is such a sentimental flick, but it is very engaging as well.

#1. Jane Austen’s Period Drama. This was, BY FAR, my favorite short of the day. It was hilarious. The title lets you know what type of short this is going to be… and the “period” in the title does not refer to a time frame. The names of these characters were making me laugh every time they were mentioned. We had Estrogenia, Labinia, Mr. James Dickley, Mrs. Bitts,  Dr. Bangley, and my personal favorite… Miss Vagianna. It sticks with these jokes throughout the film and it was amazingly funny. Again, while I would love seeing this as an Oscar winner, I can almost guarantee that it will not win. It is definitely my personal favorite though.

Next… Animated Short Films

#5. Forevergreen. The relationship between a bear cub and a tree. Yes, that is what I said. While this was fine, it felt very heavy-handed in its story and I simply found the story not to my liking. Perhaps it was too saccharin.

#4. Three Sisters. I liked this one. It was the first animated short they showed us, and it had some real funny moments with characters who barely made a sound, let alone speak. Three Sisters is quirky and unique and worked well with the animation that it gave us. There were some laugh out loud moments too.

#3. Retirement Plan. Narrated by Domhnall Gleeson, this short follows the life of a man who has just retired and who has planned on doing all kinds of things. We get a list of these plans as the unnamed man gets older with every one. This is very solid animated film with some strong moments. Gleeson does a tremendous job narrating the short. It takes us right up to the man’s death (and actually beyond it) and it is a good short.

#2. The Girl Who Cried Pearls. If I were talking about story only, this might have been my favorite. However the animation of the short was tough on me the whole time. Not only did the characters suffer from the old uncanny valley, their faces were just not what I wanted to see. While most of the film looked great, none of the characters did and it hurt a film that I think was one of the better ones I saw.

#1. Butterfly (aka Papillon). This was an absolutely beautiful short with a very powerful story of swimmer Alfred Nakache. Not only does the film focus on his swimming, it also has comments on the Holocaust and the cruelty of the Nazis. The animation style felt like we were constantly seeing everything in a water color background and it was gorgeously designed. I thought this was the best animated short we saw by a great distance.