The presentation was fixed this time, no stupid quotes from people about short films. Instead, a title card indicated whether the film was nominated or "Highly Acclaimed" (the running time was just over 60 minutes for all the films, so three were added to bring it to 90). How did this batch hold up?
Overall I'd say the quality overall was higher, though there were none that are as good as Le Maison en Petits Cubes, which to my delight won last year. Still, with a new Wallace & Gromit and a bitingly hilarious satire of our culture, there were a few stand-outs.
First up, French Roast (France, 8 minutes), a clever little film that is essentially one shot spanning an entire day at a café where a gentlemen has forgotten his money and tries different methods to get out of the situation. Recurring characters include a bum, a waiter, and a little old nun who I guess is masquerading as a serial killer. It's funny, but it ain't much of a film otherwise.
Second, La dama y la muerte (The Lady and Death, Spain, 8 min.), a zany movie about a widow who longs to join her deceased husband. Death comes to collect her, but is defied by a hunky doctor with several nurses on his bulging arms, and a battle between death and life ensues that goes way over the top. It's funny, and conveys an interesting message about when its time to die, but that also gets lost in the over-the-top humor that permeates the film. Antonio Banderas was a producer, as a side note.
Third, the new Wallace & Gromit movie "A Matter of Loaf and Death" (U.K., 30 min). The longest of the bunch, this is another classic Wallace & Gromit tale that puts the two as bakers, with a baker serial killer on the loose. It's kind of obvious right away that the woman Wallace falls for is the serial killer in question, but that doesn't stop the film from being zany fun with plenty of cheeky humor. However, it also doesn't live up to the standards of the original Wallace & Gromit shorts, A Grand Day Out, Close Shave, and The Wrong Trousers. You kind of know what to expect at this point, and while its always enjoyable to see the duo at it again, the film's climax goes way over the top and I kind of wished for something a little more original with the two. Still, funny as hell, and the likely winner since Wallace & Gromit is an Academy favorite.
Fourth, Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty (Ireland, 6 min), a very funny story of a Granny who tells her grandchild the story of Sleeping Beauty...with a few twists of her own. The movie is really funny and has a lot of laughs, but two major technical issues bothered me. First, the sound wasn't mixed properly so the old lady shrieked to high heaven and nearly made me deaf. But even more bothersome was the animation itself, which looked cheap, and out of sync with the audio. I love a good story, but if there is no polish or glaring errors, I get pulled out, which makes Granny O'Grimm my least favorite of the lot.
Then the program went to Highly Acclaimed films, which confused me because I had only counted four so far and wondered where the fifth one was (maybe they didn't get rights?). Of the Highly Acclaimed section, we got Partly Cloudy (U.S., 6 min), the cloud movie that showed up before Up; Runaway (Canada, 12 min), a very strange, yet strikingly funny tale of train ride that goes horribly, horribly wrong when the conductor goes to sleep with one of the passengers; and The Kinematograph (Poland, 10 - 12 ish min), a tale of a fictional inventor in the 19th century perfecting motion pictures. This one should have been spectacular, but it has an annoying subplot where is wife or daughter or whoever has consumption and dies. A film like this could have been much better, but is drawn down by hokey dialogue and a hokey message.
A message then appeared on the screen, saying that the final film contained violence and strong language, warning obviously the stupid parents in the theater who brought their kids thinking all animation was for children (which there were none of on a Wednesday afternoon) would leave.
Finally, we got the final nomination, Logorama (France, 16 min), by far the best film of the bunch, and one that you need to see to really understand. It takes place in an alternate Los Angeles where literally everything is some sort of corporate logo. MSN butterflies fly around, the Michelin men are the cops, Big Boy picks his nose, Pringles wolf-whistles at Esso girl, and the Pilsbury doughboy works in a diner. Literally it goes on from there, endlessly continuing on and featuring around 2,500 corporations (or so I read somewhere). Basically, you could say this is how the world sees us, and they wouldn't be far off. Ronald McDonald himself is a the villain of the piece, taking hostages and transporting arms and nuclear materials. Will this win? Probably not, I think it is too polarizing for the Academy voters, but hey, they gave it to Le Maison last year so I could be (rightfully) wrong.
Tomorrow, the Live Action films, then my predictions. Only 30 hours left until the show!
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