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February 16, 2007
Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts
(out of four)
Tired of losing the annual Oscar pool over short film category titles you haven't even heard of, much less seen? Carve out 1 1/2 hours to catch all five live-action nominees, or take our word for it: This year, as usual, there's one entry that towers above the crowd.
All the way from Senegal, Binta and the Great Idea tells the story of a 7-year-old village girl who makes a case not only for everyone's right to attend school (her old-world uncle insists on keeping his daughter at home) but also for educating ourselves by considering the world through another's eyes. It's a lively, colorful piece of filmmaking, capped by a stunning sequence in which palm trees prove that an all-natural fireworks show doesn't require rockets.
The other nominees simply aspire to set up a single punch line. In the Australian-made The Saviour, a Mormon evangelist woos a married woman. Spain's Eramos Pocos (One Too Many) features an amusing twist on an age-old rivalry, in which a man makes up with his mother-in-law after his wife walks out. And the Danish Helmer & Son gives an impatient man an awkward opportunity to better understand his father. The American selection, West Bank Story, is a corny musical comedy spoofing West Side Story by imagining a romance between rival falafel stands.
[as featured in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
Posted by Peter Debruge on