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Washington Post
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
This year's Oscar shorts are affecting, distressing and a little weird
The annual road show of Academy Award-nominated short films that has been making the rounds of major cities for the past two decades is welcome on a number of fronts. Audiences get to spot filmmaking talents on the rise, animation and documentary techniques at the forefront, and hot-button topics addressed with creativity and fire. All that and some inside dope for your office Oscar betting pool. What the three programs of animated, live-action and documentary short films don't offer are any sense of continuity or, conversely, variation, since they're nominated not as programs but as individual works of quality. Thus, you can end up with a situation like this year's live-action lineup, five films whose cumulative bleakness might send you out of the theater despairing that the world will ever be set right. The best of the five and the most immediately infuriating — that's a measure of its success — is 'A Lien,' from brothers Sam and David Cutler-Kreutz; it follows a married couple (played by William Martinez and Victoria Ratermantis) who show up at the New York City immigration office with their young daughter (Koralyn Rivera) for a scheduled appointment to have the husband's application for citizenship approved. The film, suspenseful and heartbreaking, educates audiences on the real-life practice by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of using required green card interviews as a hunting ground to deport people who've been in this country since childhood. More relevant now than when it was made, 'A Lien' reminds a viewer that, for too many agencies and administrations, the cruelty is the point. The other films on the program illustrate the perils of speaking up in 1993 Bosnia ('The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent'), the plight of child laborers in India ('Anuja'), the hardships of South African game rangers trying to protect endangered rhinos from poachers ('The Last Ranger') and the 'Black Mirror'-like possibility that some of us may fail those 'I am not a robot' verification puzzles because we are, in fact, robots ('I'm Not a Robot'). All are thoughtful, well-made and deserving of their nominations, but their combined weight may leave you gasping for breath. The documentary shorts, by contrast, illustrate the vexing modern habit of preprogramming the audience's emotions with heart-tugging music and fancy filmmaking footwork instead of just the facts. Two entries dealing with the death penalty, 'I Am Ready, Warden,' about the final days of death row prisoner John Henry Ramirez, and 'Death by Numbers,' about a survivor of the 2018 Parkland high school shooting attending the killer's sentencing, are powerful enough without the extra frills. Two other shorts focus on women at either end of the human lifespan: the Netflix documentary 'The Only Girl in the Orchestra,' about retiring New York Philharmonic double bass player Orin O'Brien, and 'Instruments of a Beating Heart,' which focuses on a 6-year-old Japanese schoolgirl as she struggles to take part in a school assembly program. The first is a delightful and belated introduction to a larger-than-life force of nature, and the second is a surprisingly complex emotional journey that had me tearing up at times — my second favorite film in this category. My favorite in the documentary short category, and the one that easily deserves to win, is 'Incident,' which shows the 2018 shooting of Harith 'Snoop' Augustus by Chicago police officers from the uninflected POVs of street surveillance cameras and law enforcement body cams. Brilliantly edited by the gifted filmmaker Bill Morrison ('Decasia'), who splits the screen into multiple feeds as neighborhood tensions ratchet up in the minutes after the killing, 'Incident' leaves viewers to come to their own conclusions, the most inescapable of which is that this was a situation that never needed to happen, instigated and escalated by rookie cops and ending in the appalling waste of an innocent man's life. One arrives at the animated shorts nominees hoping for a little levity, please, and past years have seen entries from Pixar and Disney take the prize with ingenuity, wit and endless computing power. This year's program is mostly … weird. And by weird, I mean 'Wander to Wonder,' an absurdist comedy about a British children's TV show whose eccentric creator has died, leaving his three miniature characters alive and confused. By weird, I mean 'Beautiful Men,' about three balding Belgian brothers who journey to Istanbul for hair transplant operations. By weird, I mean 'In the Shadow of the Cypress,' a poetic, pastel Iranian fable about a traumatized sea captain, his daughter and a beached whale. And by really weird — but creative, hilarious and oddly moving — I mean 'Magic Candies' from Japan, about a lonely little stop-motion boy who sucks hard candies that give voice to his living room couch, his dog, the autumn leaves and his grandmother's ghost. That leaves France's adorable 'Yuck!,' a loopily animated charmer about a vacationing gang of kids who respond to all the kissing grown-ups they see by yelling the title sentiment — until little Leo and Lucy find their own lips glowing in unexpected mutual attraction. Yuck! Ew! Awww. And after all the talented intensity of the other nominees: phew. Unrated. At area theaters; check listings for separate program times. Animated shorts: 88 minutes. Live-action shorts: 102 minutes. Documentary shorts: 159 minutes. Contain disturbing situations, documentary violence and stop-motion nudity. Ty Burr is the author of the movie recommendation newsletter Ty Burr's Watch List at
New York Times
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘The 2025 Oscar Nominated Short Films' Review: Bite-Size Stories, Big Ideas
Perhaps it's a sign of the times, that drumbeat of anxiety pulsing through the live action segment of this year's Oscar nominated short films. Proximity to Valentine's Day notwithstanding, this stress-filled collection boasts nary a spark of romance nor a scintilla of comedy. There's cruelty, injustice and existential angst aplenty, though — a thematic through line that suggests any filmmaker seeking a statuette had better wake up and smell the oppression. Luckily, a nasty scent doesn't have to mean ugly visuals. In 'Anuja,' a very pretty picture with a disarmingly perky vibe, a 9-year-old garment-factory worker (Sajda Pathan) must make a risky, life-altering choice. Produced in cooperation with a nonprofit that supports street children (of whom the charming Pathan is one), Adam J. Graves's movie feels a touch pandering, less raw and organic and more like a carefully manufactured gift to softhearted audiences. By contrast, 'The Last Ranger' — which also centers on a child confronting adult barbarity — is a gorgeous and grounded observation of a real-life attack on an endangered South African rhinoceros. Told through the friendship between a curious young girl (Liyabona Mroqoza) and a courageous park ranger (Makhaola Ndebele), this unsettlingly serene film, beautifully directed by Cindy Lee, shapes the complexities of wildlife conservation into a story that's both touching and tragic. Tragedy of a different sort awaits in 'I'm Not A Robot' as a spiraling music producer (a spectacular Ellen Parren) is barred from accessing her computer files after failing successive Captcha tests. Sharp, shiny and original, this increasingly alarming movie, deftly written and directed by Victoria Warmerdam, raises weighty issues — including the right to die and what it means to be human — with energy and empathy. Humanity is in short supply in 'A Lien,' an achingly timely immigration drama from the filmmaking brothers David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz. Set in a Manhattan government building where a young couple (Victoria Ratermanis and William Martinez) have arrived with their small daughter for a green card interview, the film brilliantly conveys our powerlessness in the face of an impenetrable and terrifying bureaucracy. Unfolding in agitated close-ups and a stressful, naturalistic sound design, 'A Lien' will raise your blood pressure, whatever your legal status. Infinitely more subtle, yet every bit as disquieting, 'The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent' places us on a Bosnian passenger train that's been boarded by armed paramilitaries. As they demand identity cards and begin loading passengers onto trucks, the movie focuses its tension on a single compartment where three men will make life-or-death decisions. In barely a dozen minutes, the Croatian director Nebojsa Slijepcevic (referencing an infamous 1993 massacre of innocent civilians) examines the cost of speaking up and, perhaps more important, the soul-destroying consequence of staying silent. — JEANNETTE CATSOULIS From bubble-gum-sweet to straight-up disturbing, this year's batch of Oscar-nominated animated shorts showcase radically different vibes with one major-downer of a unifying factor: Its characters feel powerless, scared and insecure. And, perhaps not so coincidentally, most of the shorts are about boys and men. 'Beautiful Men,' by the Belgian director Nicolas Keppens, is a Charlie Kaufman-esque dark comedy about three balding middle-aged brothers. The blue-gray color palette — and a ghostly blanket of fog — accents the film's existential deadpan as the trio head to Istanbul for hair transplant surgery. In eerily sterile hotel rooms and bathrooms, we see the brothers bickering and stewing in their loneliness. An expressive stop-motion animation style (specifically the fine details in the men's physical and facial movements) brings out a tender emotional dimension. The young protagonist in the French, 2-D animation 'Yuck!' also struggles to bare his desires. While on a family camping trip, he falls in with a group of kids who think kissing is gross. They jeer whenever they stumble upon an affectionate couple, whose lips light up in glittery, glowing pink. Directed by Loïc Espuche, this deceptively simple coming-of-age film is about adolescent groupthink, shame, and physical affection — though the flat, intentionally primitive animation style also makes it the least visually impressive among the nominees. By contrast, 'Magic Candies,' by the director Daisuke Nishio (of 'Dragon Ball Z' fame), is perhaps the most aesthetically spectacular. This fantastical computer-animated short places intricate, clay-like characters against fluttering, realistic backdrops. It's a feast for the eyes, even if the story — about a lonely boy who eats mysterious candies that empower him to communicate with others (including pets and inanimate objects) — isn't all that compelling or original. 'Wander to Wonder' is, for my money, the wild-card pick — though best not to show the kids. Directed by Nina Gantz, this nightmare fairy tale mixes stop-motion animation, puppetry and bits of live action to tell the story of three miniature people, the stars of an '80s kids series that vaguely resembles 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.' Though the creator of the series has died, these aging, troll-like humans — whom we see, unsettlingly, in the nude or in decrepit costumes — live on, seemingly trapped on the set of their show. Sunny flashbacks to their glory days create an eerie contrast that questions the value of nostalgia. Finally, the worst-behaved man appears in 'In the Shadow of the Cypress,' by the Iranian directors Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani. With elegantly minimalistic 2-D animation in sandy, warm tones, the short follows a former sea captain who lives alone with his daughter. A symbolic fable about the noxious ripple effects of war and trauma, the movie features unexpected bursts of jazzlike abstraction and a surprisingly moving payoff — making it perhaps the most balanced contender in a field of films with distinct virtues. — BEATRICE LOAYZA If the academy is looking to reward the documentary short that makes the most audacious use of form, the winner should be 'Incident,' from the experimental nonfiction filmmaker Bill Morrison ('Dawson City: Frozen Time'). Working from footage captured by surveillance and body cameras, Morrison reconstructs the scene of the fatal shooting of a barber, Harith Augustus, by a Chicago police officer in 2018. This half-hour short lasts roughly the time of the events it covers, and although Morrison doesn't present each step in strict chronological order, he uses split screen to show simultaneity: After the shooting, while Augustus's body lies eerily still in the street and protesters gather, some of the officers involved frenziedly race elsewhere and speak about the shooting as if they had no choice. Who are you going to believe: them, or the images you just saw? 'Incident' is an outside-the-box use of public material that demonstrates cinema's capacity to be a forensic tool. You could construct a feature from the two nominees that deal, quite differently, with the death penalty. In Smriti Mundhra's 'I Am Ready, Warden,' a condemned man, John Henry Ramirez, a former Marine who stabbed a convenience store worker to death in 2004, awaits his execution in Texas with remorse and apparent calm. Aaron Castro, the victim's son, believes firmly that Ramirez's death will bring him closure. The most powerful moments of this dirge-like film immediately follow the execution. Castro's views seem to grow more complicated as he confronts the reality that the man who had such a terrible impact on his life is gone. 'John Henry Ramirez is dead,' he says. 'Do you know how weird that sounds?' Kim A. Snyder's 'Death by Numbers' is written by Samantha Fuentes, a survivor of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in 2018. It follows the sentencing trial of the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, proceedings at which Fuentes was subpoenaed to testify. After Cruz is spared the death penalty, Fuentes reads an extraordinary statement to him in the courtroom. It's impossible not to be moved by Fuentes's reflections, although Snyder's slick aesthetics, such as incorporating snippets of the classic avant-garde film 'Meshes of the Afternoon' for atmosphere feel inappropriate. In this grim lineup, Oscar voters might easily gravitate toward 'The Only Girl in the Orchestra,' a crowd-pleasing profile of the double bassist Orin O'Brien by Molly O'Brien, her niece. In 1966, Orin, the daughter of the old-time Hollywood stars George O'Brien and Marguerite Churchill, became the first woman to be named a permanent member of the New York Philharmonic. Despite coming across as a wonderful wit and a consummate artist, she professes an aversion to the spotlight, even if she can't help but command it. Her desire to be a supporting player extends to her choice of instrument: 'You're the floor under everybody that would collapse if it wasn't secure,' she tells young bass students near the end. Less world-historic in music history are the events in Ema Ryan Yamazaki's 'Instruments of a Beating Heart,' a way-too-nice Times Op-Doc about a young student in Tokyo who wins an audition to play the cymbal in a performance of 'Ode to Joy' for incoming first graders. — BEN KENIGSBERG
Los Angeles Times
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Oscar-nominated live-action shorts grapple with fraught sociopolitical issues
The five Oscar-nominated live-action short films each tackle urgent sociopolitical issues. By placing us in the shoes of people on the front lines of them — even in a sci-fi pseudo-comedy — they promise to shake viewers. Sophie and Oscar have been together for years. They're married, they have a young daughter. But Oscar came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant and when he arrives for a required interview at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office to establish his green-card status, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are arresting those answering the summons. At its core, says Sam Cutler-Kreutz, the tense and frantic 'A Lien' — inspired by a New York Times article — is 'a horror film about documents.' Cutler-Kreutz, who co-wrote and co-directed with his brother, David, laments a 'Kafkaesque' immigration system labyrinthine enough to confuse native-born Americans, much less noncitizens attempting to follow the rules to gain legal status. 'We've built this process that is fundamentally for humans but is strangely inhumane.' The title protagonist in 'Anuja' is a 9-year-old orphan living with her young teen sister in Delhi, surviving by working long hours in a garment factory. 'Child labor is not an Indian problem alone,' says filmmaker Adam Graves. 'It exists on all continents in every country, right here in California as well; right here in Los Angeles, for that matter.' When Anuja has a potential way out of squalor, the choice isn't so simple; she also has to think of the possibly dire consequences for her beloved sister. 'It's easy to kind of wag your finger and say, 'Go to school, Anuja,'' Graves says. 'I've tried to tell a story that complicates it and [respects] the decisions a lot of kids and their families who live in abject poverty are faced with on a daily basis.' Victoria Warmerdam's 'I'm Not a Robot' starts from a humorous premise — what if you fail the test posed by online-verification programs — then shifts to its potentially serious ramifications. 'As a female, bodily autonomy is always a question in terms of some other people' accepting it, says Warmerdam, acknowledging it among the many other questions the scenario raises.. 'It really resonates with people who are neurodivergent and are not fitting in,' she says. 'There's something off [with the world], but they can't describe it. I have two neurodivergent brothers. So this film and my two previous films are about outsiders.' Rhinoceros poaching in South Africa is a serious issue that 'The Last Ranger' puts into sharp focus, highlighting the dangers not just to the endangered animals but to the humans who try to protect them. When the project began, writer-producer Darwin Shaw says, 'It was more a cartel story, but we honed it down into a woman's story.' Shaw and actor David Lee recruited Lee's sister, Cindy, a veteran director, to make the film about a young, impoverished girl who goes with a brave, mother-figure ranger on patrol, with tragic consequences. 'It's so much bigger than somebody taking a horn off a rhino,' the director says. 'The communities sometimes have no other source of income, and that's a very big problem.' An ordinary man is traveling by train with his two young daughters. It stops unexpectedly and armed men with a paramilitary unit begin questioning passengers about their religion … and taking passengers away. A nervous young man in their compartment admits to them he doesn't have his identification papers. What can the father do? It's 1993 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The quietly tense 'The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent' puts us very uncomfortably inside an infamous incident in the Bosnian War, when one man (Tomo Buzov) made a momentous decision. 'What he did is something that needs to be remembered,' says writer-director Nebojša Slijepčević. 'He was sort of a forgotten hero for political reasons that may be too complex to explain now because it's very local Balkan stuff. He did not fit any of the nationalistic narratives. 'I recognize something very universal in this situation, when you witness violence that is not intended against you, you're just a witness and you must decide what to do in this situation. Do you ignore it or do you react and risk your safety? There is no easy way out.'
