Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action

Butter Lamp

In keeping with my desire to actually watch all the short film nominees this year, I'm following up this post on the animated shorts with this one on the live action ones.

This category was as a whole much, much weaker than the animated one, with only two or three films that I'd say were generally good. Below you'll find them ranked from best to Aya.

Oscar Nominated Short Films: Animation

The Dam Keeper

When I posted my Oscar predictions on Saturday morning, I joked about how I had not seen any of the films nominated for the Short Film categories and so just guessed wildly about which of them would win. I make the same joke every year, and it's more or less as funny each and every time (i.e. mildly). I'm far from proud of my ignorance about these categories, but it remains the case that I rarely get to see any of the nominated films unless they play before a Pixar film or something.

This year, that changed. As I was reading something on Indiewire yesterday, I got pop-up ad say that the short films were available to rent or buy via Vimeo and, after recovering from the shock of encountering the only worthwhile pop-up ad in history, I decided to break my streak and actually watch the damn things. Below are my thoughts on all five nominated films, ranked from best to not quite best, since none of them are bad.

Film Review: Equity (2011)

Claire (Francile Albright) is a young mother struggling to pay the rent and to keep a roof over the heads of her family. When a mysterious man (Karl Bury) offers her a job that will solve all her financial problems, she agrees to take it. Unfortunately, the ‘job’ is to kill Jack (Tony Nam), a man who has become estranged from his wife and daughter.  As Claire sees the life that Jack leads, she finds it increasingly difficult to carry out the task assigned to her, even as she knows that the consequences of not doing so will be very dire indeed.