Twelve Days of Oscars, Day 9: Animated Shorts and Live Action Shorts

You know what's fun to do every year during awards season? Go see the nominated short films! 

This fun activity is available in more and more cities in recent years, as opposed to twenty years ago, when it seemed to be a much more obscure pursuit. I first started going regularly when I lived in New York, and have been happy to continue hitting up a theater to see them in Chicago. Definitely took time off from this hobby when I lived abroad. 

Animated Short:
Dear Basketball, Garden Party, Lou, Negative Space, Revolting Rhymes

Live Action Short:
DeKalb Elementary, The Eleven O'Clock, My Nephew Emmett, The Silent Child, Watu Wote/All of Us

The whole shorts-watching thing varies from year to year. Sometimes I like the animated a ton better, and sometimes the live action are better overall. I often LOVE the Documentary Short category, but we'll get to that another day. For now, let's think about fiction. 

And the first thing I have to say is that the Live Action Shorts this year were weirdly not-that-fiction like. I mean, they were fictional films, with actors, portraying a story but they were so reality-based, so ripped-from-the-headlines, and even so based-on-a-true-story for a couple of them, that they almost feel similar to the doc shorts in my mind. It's weird. DeKalb Elementary involves a man walking into a school with a gun. My Nephew Emmett is about a specific Emmett, namely, one who traveled from Chicago to the Deep South decades ago, and whose legacy we all now know about.  The Silent Child is about a deaf child whose parents haven't taught her sign language and now she's about to start school, and at the end credits it provides stats about hearing-impaired children. Watu Wote deals with tension between Christians and Muslims in Kenya and depicts an inspired-by-true-events experience on and around a bus in a hot-spot border region. The only one that's really a flight of fancy is The Eleven O'Clock, about a psychiatrist and a patient and some zany confusion. 

And they're all really good! Another tough race to call. 

The animated shorts were good this year, too, although one of them was overlong and didn't do as much for me, and that was Revolting Rhymes, which brings to (animated) life Roald Dahl's poems that parody/reimagine a few classic fairy tales - The Three Little Pigs, Red Riding Hood, etc. It went on and on and on and I'm like, OK, I get it, Roald Dahl was clever, but can this wolf stop talking now? I thought Garden Party and Negative Space were OK. Simple, intriguing, well-rendered. (Don't forget, y'all: animation and animated film aren't my thing to begin with, but I do enjoy the five shorts each year more than the five animated features, generally. That is, if I even get around to watching the five animated features. This year I've seen three.)  The two I liked best were Dear Basketball, Kobe Bryant's letter to basketball that was fantastic and is about his feelings toward his sport, his gift, his passion, and our (all of our!) need to do what we do best before our time is up. Make use of your talents, everyone! The day I saw the shorts, I declared Lou to be my favorite. It's Pixar, and we know they are at the top of their game. This one's content, though, was right up my alley: redemption!

So, let's pick: 

Animated Short: I want Dear Basketball or Lou. I think those are the two that might win, too. 

Live Action Short: Ugh...hmmm... I'd be happy with ANY of them winning, seriously. But I think I'm pulling for DeKalb Elementary. I think it will be that or The Silent Child, although My Nephew Emmett  could sneak in there. It's equally as topical as DeKalb Elementary. 

Yay, shorts!