Mood swings wildly with 2015's Oscar-nominated animated and live-action shorts
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
If the 87th Academy Awards' nominated short films share any sort of thematic thrust, it's that life is a serious drag, even if you're animated.
<center><i>La Lampe au Beurre de Yak (Butter Lamp)</i></center>
<center><i>Aya</i></center>
<center><i>Parvaneh</i></center>
<center><i>Boogaloo and Graham</i></center>
<center><i>Me and My Moulton</i></center>
<center><i>A Single Life</i></center>
<center><i>The Bigger Picture</i></center>
<center><i>The Dam Keeper</i></center>
<center><i>The Phone Call</i></center>
If the 87th Academy Awards' nominated short films share any sort of thematic thrust, it's that life is a drag, even if you're animated.
The live-action side is led, in both running time and esteem, by Aya, Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun's moody glimpse at a headstrong Israeli woman (Sarah Adler) and her chance airport encounter with a reserved Danish pianist (Ulrich Thomsen). The encapsulated storytelling (mostly inside a car) and personal subject matter might bolster its statue chances over its four competitors, but that doesn't mean it's a perfect candidate, especially considering its predictable, happy-people-are-unhappy ending.
Elsewhere, Sally Hawkins stands out as a concerned crisis hotline operator in The Phone Call, while another U.K. entry, Boogaloo and Graham, sets a sweet coming-of-age story against the violence of 1970s Belfast. Parvaneh is a charming but unambitious meet-cute between a struggling Afghani immigrant and a sullen Swiss teenager. Visually speaking, the most interesting live-action entry is La Lampe au Beurre de Yak (Butter Lamp), a single-shot series consisting of nothing more than a new-world photographer staging portraits of suspicious Tibetans. Each shutter click in Wei Hu's snappy 15-minute feature tells some sort of story, though it's most often left up to us to handle the shading.
The animated competition is more crowded — and this year, much more morose than the live-action slate in terms of subject matter. This doesn't apply to its most prominent entry, Feast, a Disney offering that ran before 2014's Big Hero 6. It's hard to ignore the warm-hug appeal of a plucky Boston Terrier named Winston inhaling spaghetti and meatballs while attempting to reunite his depressed master with his ex.
Shorts like Bus Story, a minimalistic tale about a hack driver and her miserable boss; The Bigger Picture, an arresting stop-motion piece about bickering brothers and their ailing mom; and The Dam Keeper, a sooty, impressionistic story about a ostracized piglet driven to mass violence by the cruelties of society, move the action back into morbid territory. (Yes, these are cartoons.)
Oscar winner Torill Kove's autobiographical Me and My Moulton, a Wes Anderson-esque sketchbook about her oddball Norwegian architect parents; and Bill Plympton's edgy Footprints, animated entirely in ballpoint pen, split the difference between dark and light. The goofy, innovative A Single Life, the graceful Duet and the cutesy, colorful Sweet Cocoon are among the category's most kid-friendly entries.
The 2015 Oscar Shorts programs — Live Action (117 min.) and Animated (77 min.) — open at Ritz at the Bourse (400 Ranstead St.) on Friday, Jan. 30. The 87th Academy Awards airs on Sunday, Feb. 22.
