How many office Oscar pools are won by the wise ass who happens to know the competition in the often neglected short film categories? This year’s winner could be you, but all joking aside, Magnolia Pictures has, for the past five years, made watching Oscar nominated short films in both the animated and live action categories easier than pie. Starting today until the big day, you can see two double short film bills. Each feature length program includes all of this year’s nominated films, and the animated program includes three additional titles, all shortlisted for this year’s awards. I’ve included the trailer Logorama – the short appeared in the Shorts Program I at Sundance last month, imagine a cross between Michael Mann’s Heat and the thousands of impressionable, bright-colored corporate symbols/logos/characters that have polluted our lives. It all begins at the IFC Center in Manhattan, expanding to 100 cities (see list) in the coming weeks.
Animated Program – total running time 97 min.
“French Roast” Fabrice O. Joubert (France, 8 min.)
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell (Ireland, 6 min.)
“The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” Javier Recio Gracia (Spain, 8 min.)
“Logorama” H5 (France, 17 min.)
“A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park (U.K., 29 min.)
“Partly Cloudy” Pixar (USA, 6 min.) – ADDITIONAL FILM
“The Kinematograph” Tomek Baginski (Poland, 12 min.) – ADDITIONAL FILM
“Runaway” Cordell Barker (Canada, 9 min.) – ADDITIONAL FILM
Live Action Program – total running time 94 min
“The Door” Juanita Wilson and James Flynn (Ireland (in Russian), 17 min.)
“Instead of Abracadabra” Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström (Sweden, 18 min.)
“Kavi” Gregg Helvey (India/U.S.A., 19 min.)
“Miracle Fish” Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey (Australia, 18 min.)
“The New Tenants” Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson (U.S.A./Denmark, 20 min.)