The 82nd Annual Academy Awards are quickly approaching, and while main contenders like “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” are basking in the media’s speculative limelight, there are always nominees that slip through the cracks.
Short films, in particular, have a tendency to go unnoticed. It’s even difficult to find them on the Internet, let alone to see them in a theater, before the Oscars have already aired. Tragically, it’s because there is no money to be made in shorts. If you can’t charge full-ticket price for admission, or even the price of a DVD, why bother? But that doesn’t stop them from being the funniest, most personal and artful films made today. The animated shorts nominated this year are no exception.
The sense of humor in “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” is particularly charming, perhaps because it lacks the sentimentality that saturates three of the other films. The story shows an old woman relating a classic fairy tale to her granddaughter at bedtime. Simple and sweet, right? Truth be told, Granny is a bit of a psychopath. She rants about the stupidity of the young, beautiful fairies and about their cruel mistreatment of the old witch, spinning the story of “Sleeping Beauty” into a crazed and hilarious tirade. All the while, the poor granddaughter cowers helplessly, and we’re left with her on an effective dark final note.
Similar in its use of dark humor is the perplexing “Logorama.” Directors François Alaux and Herve de Crecy have created a world made entirely out of recognizable brands and logos, and I mean entirely. The cops are Michelin U.S.A. men. The pedestrians are made up of little AOL.com and BIC guys, and the trees are straight off a bottle of Malibu Rum. Unfortunately, this fantastic venue is infinitely smarter and more detailed than the story it contains. Two cops are chasing Ronald McDonald, who is actually some kind of insane criminal, but beyond that there isn’t too much to keep you intrigued. The last shot, swooping out amid a whole galaxy of logos, is what lingers.
“The Lady and the Reaper” and “French Roast” are a little less ambitious and a little safer than “Logorama,” but both are extremely well-executed.
“The Lady and the Reaper” chronicles a battle between a doctor and death over the life of an old woman. Stylistically, it’s indebted to the chaos and absurdity of “Looney Tunes.” It is completely ignorant to the laws of physics, and it moves at a furious pace toward its satisfyingly blunt conclusion. In this way, “French Roast” is its exact opposite — slow, meandering, and firmly grounded in reality. A rich man orders a drink in a cafe, but has no money to pay. It’s as simple as that. But the delicacy of it, and especially of the ending (saccharine though it may be), is really something.
The best film of the five is surely Nick Park’s “A Matter of Loaf and Death.” It’s another adventure starring Wallace and Gromit, the lovable tea-guzzling idiot and his sarcastic dog. And if you’ve never encountered these two before, this is a good place to start. Park, as always, works entirely with clay, and the results are nothing short of wonderful. The film brims with personality and a kind of love that just isn’t around in most of today’s computer-generated affairs. Wallace and Gromit are bakers this time around. Unfortunately for them, someone in the neighborhood has been killing off bakers one by one, and I won’t say much more than that. I particularly like how creepy Park’s films can be, while simultaneously holding tight to the duo’s humor and sweet sense of kinship. While it may not be the best of Wallace and Gromit’s outings, that’s hardly a slight. It’s a joy to watch, and it should win the Oscar, hands down.
*Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films, 2010
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