My annual review of the Oscar-nominated short films

This year’s Oscar-nominated live-action and animated shorts represent a wide variety of subjects and genres. And though I’m giving a thumbs-up to all 13 – the animated program contains the five nominees plus three more “highly commended” selections – there is quite a bit of variance in quality too.

Neither the animated nor the live-action group is quite a strong as last year, but there are a few gems. My pick for best animated short is Disney’s Get a Horse!, which I first saw when it was shown before Frozen. Though it’s shown here in 2-D, not the preferred 3-D format, it’s still superb. Here’s what I said about it in my original review:

“Kids will love Frozen – and it’s admittedly better than the recent Planes, if not as good as Tangled – but the treat for adults will be the accompanying cartoon Get a Horse!  Directed by Lauren MacMullan, the 7-minute short is a masterful mix of hand-drawn black-and-white and 3-D digital color, bringing back to life the Mickey Mouse adventure-comedy from the late 1920s and then, in a brilliant and surreal twist, breaking the fourth wall and throwing that old world wildly into the present. Featuring the original gang of Mickey, Minnie, Peg-Leg Pete, Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow and even Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the film is a unique work of cinema deconstructionism and an animation lover’s dream.

“If Frozen leaves you frosty, come for the warmth of Get a Horse! And if you don’t get goosebumps during the credits when it’s revealed that Mickey was voiced by Walt Disney (by using old voiceovers), then your heart truly is ice.”

Get a Horse! is followed closely by The Blue Umbrella, though the Pixar film isn’t even nominated! It’s included as one of the “highly commended” films. As I wrote in my original review of the vastly underrated (and Oscar-snubbed) Monsters University, which was shown with Blue Umbrella attached, this little gem is the must stunningly photo-realistic cartoon ever.

The mesmerizing Mr. Hublot and the brilliantly dark The Missing Scarf are my third and fourth choices, though the latter is also among the “highly commended” additions and, disappointingly, not an Oscar nominee.

The live-action group contains four real treats and one (the Finnish Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?) that frankly just doesn’t belong. Perhaps I’m a sucker for sentimentality, but my favorite of the bunch is Helium, a fantastical, magical meditation on life after the death of a child. Yes, the gritty That Wasn’t Me feels like a more substantial offering in many respects, but its slight heavy-handedness and handheld camera bothered me, along with the feeling that this was part of a feature film, not a great short in its own right. The Voorman Problem is deep and metaphysically haunting, but it’s also essentially just a good Twilight Zone episode, while Just Before Losing Everything, though subtle, mature and tense, doesn’t burn itself into your brain like Helium.

Below is a ranking of the five Oscar-nominated animated shorts (and the three highly commended ones) and the five Oscar-nominated live-action shorts. (And don’t forget to visit my complete Short Films list, under the “Movie Lists” tab on the menu bar.) Star ratings are done on my 0-5 scale. (See Rating Scale for more info.) For more details on each film, click here for the animated program and here for the live action.

Animated
Get a Horse! – 5
The Blue Umbrella – 5
Mr. Hublot – 4
The Missing Scarf – 4
A la Francaise – 4
Feral – 3
Possession – 3
Room on the Broom – 3

Live Action
Helium – 5
The Voorman Problem – 4
Just Before Losing Everything (Avant que de Tout Perdre) – 4
That Wasn’t Me (Aquel No Era Yo) – 4
Do I Have to Take Care of Everything? – 3