The Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film is one of the Academy Awards’ more obscure categories and chances are, you haven’t seen them. With the awards show on Sunday, I’m here to offer a slightly irreverent and spoiler-filled look at this year’s nominees.
Pentecost (Ireland, 11 min.) -A soccer-loving boy is bounced from his parish’s altar boy team after a mishap involving an incense thurible that sent a priest flailing to injury. The boy is pressed into service as a last resort when the archbishop comes to town.
A not very interesting story lasts ten and a half minutes to set up a barely funny punchline in the final seconds of the film. The director of this short film Peter McDonald, lost me when his film was filled with liturgical inaccuracies. If you’re going to make your film about a Mass, get it right.
Raju (Germany/India, 24 min.) – A well-to-do German couple go to India and adopt an orphan, the orphan runs away, and the Germans figure out their newly adopted child was actually kidnapped from his real parents.
A visually stunning film, but unnecessarily depressing with no happy ending. Because the film lasts less than half an hour, I didn’t get enough time to connect with the characters so I couldn’t feel for their heartache. Maybe I’m defective.
The Shore (Northern Ireland, 30 min.) – This was the only short film with an actor I recognized, although I had to IMDB his name: Ciaran Hinds (he played Bland in Tinker Tailor Solider Spy). Hinds’ character returns to his small hometown with his daughter after 25 years in the U.S.
The protagonist never returned because he left under bad terms and he’s afraid his estranged best friend will reject him, but he’s shocked when his childhood friend remembers things happening differently. A light-hearted comedy of errors.
I hope this film wins on Sunday evening.
Time Freak (USA, 11 min.) -A poor man’s Seth Rogen invents a time machine and his first trip back in time is to fix an awkward run in with his dry cleaner, which takes a few tries, and then he goes back to make an interaction with his crush less awkward, which messes up his “fixed” interaction with the dry cleaner.
Three years of time traveling later and he’s managed to make his yesterday perfect. A too-close-to-home commentary on our obsession with the minutiae of our own lives.
Tuba Atlantic (Norway, 25 min.) – A 70-year-old Norwegian, who has a beloved machine gun, a active hatred of seagulls and only six days to live, wants to patch things up with his estranged brother who now lives in the U.S.
Assisted by a teenage girl sent to his home by the local “Jesus Club” to serve as his “death angel” (I can’t tell if it’s a joke either) the dying man makes his giant tuba send a blast of sound across the Atlantic.
