Academy Shorts 2013

[Stewball]

I saw all these yesterday. by my picks.

Best short films: Live action
Asad (2012): Bryan Buckley, Mino Jarjoura Somali cause piece, cool ending though
Buzkashi Boys (2012): Sam French, Ariel Nasr Afghan cause piece, not in b&w but it should have been,
Curfew (2012/I): —Best by far, and I’m not just saying that because it was the only entry that was in English set in the US. Where do they find these unconscious child actors for the first three entries here, but especially this one.
Death of a Shadow (2012): Macabre-quirky but pretty good
Henry (2011/III): DE-pressing. Instead of chronicling the down aspects of old age, why don’t we face it head on instead?

Best short films: Animated
Adam and Dog, 2011): Minkyu Lee Best. It had me at "Dog", good ending. (Film dated 2011, up for award for 2012, released 1 Feb, 2013. This is getting out of hand.)
Fresh Guacamole (2012): Very short (2 min) but clever
Head Over Heels (2012): Timothy Reckart, Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly, Clever as well
Paperman (2012): John Kahrs. Opened with Wreck-it Ralph A little too Disney.
The Simpsons: The Longest Daycare (2012): Short (5 min) may be sentimental favorite but not Simpsons best stuff.

[Stewball]

Unlike the other two categories, the documentary category is all downers. Here's an article about them. A good excerpt:

Oscar's Mea Culpa

Be warned: It won’t be easy taking all five of this year’s Oscar-nominated documentary shorts in one gulp. That is, unless your idea of a good time involves a movie about Rwandan children with heart disease, and one about a homeless San Diego teenager, and one about New York City’s weary homeless can-and-bottle scavengers, and one about women in Long Island losing their breasts and their hair to cancer, and one about lonely disappointed elderly people waiting out their final days in a Florida retirement resort. In which case, we’ve got just the quintuple-feature for you.....

Clearly, there’s pathos to be had calling out discrepancies between the way our world is and the way we wish it would be. Documentaries needn’t be very long to be good at that.

To put them in the "shorts" category is to stretch the definition, running 3 1/2 hours at one sitting. Needless to say my butt has not occupied such a seat.

[ayall]

Haven't seen it yet, but heard this story on NPR today which makes me wanna watch this short;

In 'Redemption,' Collecting Cans To Survive

http://www.npr.org/2013/02/20/172519455 ... to-survive
Matthew O'Neill about his Oscar-nominated short documentary, "Redemption." The film is about New York City canners — people who survive by collecting cans and bottles and redeeming them for change.

Looks like it's under Best Documentary, Short Subjects this year