I always look forward to the annual Oscar-nominated short films. Compared to the average feature film, which arrives in theaters after months of ads, trailers and assorted promotion, Oscar shorts land with a blissful minimum of pre-release hype. The result is an element of surprise frequently missing from the film-going experience.
This year’s lineup of Oscar-nominated Live Action shorts (along with the Animated Shorts) arrives in Atlanta on Feb. 10, and as usual it’s a generally strong group of short films spanning countries and genres. While none rise to the heights of last year’s artsy charmer God of Love (the eventual Oscar winner), there’s only one semi-clunker in the bunch: Pentecost.
This 11-minute Irish comedy centers on an altar boy previously shamed by a mass mishap. As punishment for this egregious error, his dad has banned him from watching his beloved football, but the young chap is given a shot at redemption when the archbishop comes to town.
Pentecost delivers a few good chuckles, most notably when the priest does his best Vince Lombardi impersonation in an effort to motivate the altar boys, but the lackluster payoff is a disappointment.
Fortunately, the Irish are well represented in The Shore, which boasts the biggest names in this year’s Oscar Live Action shorts lineup: Oscar-nominated director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) and renowned character actor Ciaran Hinds (The Eclipse, Road to Perdition, Munich). Hinds plays Joe, a successful American businessman returning home to his native Ireland for the first time in 25 years.
His daughter Patricia, along for the trip, discovers a long-concealed rift between her father, his former fiancée and his best friend Paddy (Conleth Hill), and encourages her dad to reunite with the duo and put the incident behind him.
George deftly mixes humor amidst The Shore’s heartfelt scenes of reconciliation, and his cast, led by the dependable Hinds, is strong. Michael McDonough’s cinematography, which alternately captures the beauty of the Irish countryside and the muddy muck where Paddy scours for mussels, is also a cut above.
Tuba Atlantic, a Norwegian short directed by Hallvar Witzo, shares The Shore’s themes of reconciliation and redemption. As the short begins, Oskar’s doctor provides a grim diagnosis: He has six days to live. To make matters worse, Oskar (Edvard Haegstad) has no way to contact his next of kin, a brother living in the United States. The siblings were close as children, but a falling out has resulted in the two not speaking for many years.
Fortunately—or not, depending on which character’s point of view you’re looking at—Oskar doesn’t have to face death alone. A young girl named Inger (Ingrid Viken) arrives to fulfill her charitable duty and accompany Oskar during his final days. She’s horrified by his penchant for gunning down birds with a machine gun, and he wants nothing to do with her. Their odd-couple pairing is humorous and sweet.
As Oskar nears the end, he makes one last-ditch attempt to reach his brother via a most unusual channel of communication that’s so old-school it makes the fax machine look like an iPad.
Even as Oskar takes his final shot at forging a connection with his long-estranged brother, Haegstad maintains his amusingly ornery edge, and Witzo injects enough quirky wit into the proceedings to help Tuba Atlantic avoid a slide into easy sentiment.
Grades: Pentecost, C+; The Shore, B+; Tuba Atlantic, B+
Read my reviews of the other 2012 Oscar-nominated Live Action shorts: Time Freak and Raju.
The "2012 Oscar-nominated Live Action Shorts Program" opens in Atlanta on Feb. 10 at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.
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