75th Annual Academy Awards - Short Films (1 Viewer)

[SteveGon]

Just rented this collection on DVD and wanted to recommend it to those of you (like me) who were unaware it'd been released. I'm placing it in Movies as this is more about the films than the disc.

You get the two AA winners: The ChubbChubbs! (animated) and This Charming Man (live-action).

Also included are seven nominees (not sure if that's all of them): Rocks, Mt. Head, Mike's New Car, The Cathedral (all animated) and I'll Wait for the Next One, Gridlock, Dog (live-action).

The ChubbChubbs :star: :star: :star:

Havoc reigns at a space bar thanks to a klutzy janitor and the imminent arrival of the ChubbChubbs. This one is more cute than outright funny, though the running gag with "Aretha Franklin" was hilarious. The cameos are great, too.


Rocks :star: :star: :star:

Witness the rise and fall of the human race through the eyes of a couple of rocks.


Mt. Head :star: :star: :star: 1/2

A miser is so tight he won't even spit out the seeds of the cherries he's devouring. Wrong move. Soon enough a cherry tree begins sprouting from his head. My favorite of the animated shorts has the feel of a fable to it.


Mike's New Car :star: :star: :star: 1/2

Very funny short featuring the main characters from Monsters Inc. I know this was included on the MI DVD so most of you are probably familiar with it.


The Cathedral :star: :star: :star:

This one feels like a Moebius painting come to life, a phantasmagoric and visually-stunning trip. A lone wanderer makes his way through a cathedral made of trees. Trees that resemble people...


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This Charming Man :star: :star: :star: :star:

Very funny comedy of errors about an unemployed Danish man who falls in love with a long-lost classmate. A bureaucratic error compels him to help her save her new job; it also gives him a taste of the too-prevalent rascism in his country.


I'll Wait for the Next One :star: :star: :star:

A man on a subway train begs not for money, but for love. The thing about love is, someone usually gets hurt. The shaggy dog ending works.


Gridlock :star: :star: :star: 1/2

Stuck in traffic, a harried man decides to finally use his new cell phone to call home - only to discover that his wife is trysting with a lover. Great twist ending that recalls the opening sequence of the Coens' Intolerable Cruelty (you'll get it when you see it).


Dog :star: :star: :star:

A young South African boy befriends the household puppy - an act that doesn't sit well with the white owner. What follows is very hard to watch; let's just say the owner teaches the boy how to discipline the dog. But years later the man's cruelty comes back to haunt him....and the boy. This is a disturbing film, but one worth seeing.

(Personally I would have let the f****r die. Hey, karma's a bitch.)


I'm sure some of these shorts have been released elsewhere, but this is the first time they've been released together on one disc. Hopefully we'll see more Academy Awards collections like this.

 

[Craig S]

Wow! This is news to me. Who makes the disc?

 

[SteveGon]

This was released by Apollo Cinema and distributed by Questar Entertainment. I know Amazon has it, but you might want to check other etailers for better prices.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I saw most of them at a local theater just before the Oscars; it's worth mentioning that most of the animated ones (aside from "Mike's New Car") appear on the forthcoming "The Animation Show" DVD from Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge. I wasn't terribly impressed with most of the live-action shorts (I ususally seem to see several better ones at the Boston Film Festival every year), though "This Charming Man" was my favorite.