Oscar Nominated Short Films...in 10 words or fewer
If "Logorama" hijacked any more intellectual property, it'd be a Girl Talk album.
The five animated and five live-action selections in the Oscar Nominated Short Films 2010 lineup are not extremely brief, but they do reach emotional extremes through brevity. Juanita Wilson's "The Door" will likely earn the most tears of the bunch, for all the empathy and terror it somehow packs into a handful of quiet scenes. The animated "Logorama" uses the tricky compactness of short films to its comedic advantage, jamming each frame of its action-fantasy world with logos and mascots, right down to the MSN butterflies that flit across the opening scene. Still, the shorter a film, the more annoying it is to give away too much detail about it. Before the shorts open a run Friday at Times Cinema, The A.V. Club watched and attempted to honor their spirit by describing each in 10 words or fewer.
LIVE ACTION
"Kavi" (Gregg Helvey): Cruel debt-slavery foremen manacle a boy's dreams of cricket.
"The Door" (Juanita Wilson): Chernobyl's fallout strikes a little girl in ghastly, austere frames.
"Miracle Fish" (Luke Dolan): The Twilight Zone's "Time Enough At Last" episode, for kids.
"The New Tenants" (Joachim Back): Homicide and Vincent D'Onofrio cause reverse pop-up book collapse.
"Instead Of Abracadabra" (Patrik Eklund): Witty magic tale told through acts of Wes Anderson worship.
ANIMATED
"Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty" (Nicky Phelan): Senior-citizen revenge fantasy claws apart bright, bubbly story time.
"Logorama" (François Alaux, Hervé De Crécy, Ludovic Houplain): Michelin Men battle Ronald McDonald in ecstatic brand-jacking apocalypse.
"The Lady And The Reaper" (Javier Recio Gracia): Death battles pretty-boy surgeon on woman's heart-monitor curves.
"A Matter Of Loaf And Death" (Nick Park): Bakers Wallace and Gromit leaven a murder mystery with puns.
"French Roast"(Fabrice O. Joubert): Built like a Seinfeld episode, but the restaurant's in Paris.
