There is little really to say about The 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films. Both the Live Action Shorts and the Animated Shorts are presented, the former running about 137-minutes while the latter clocks in at a brisk 90. For those interested in seeing what’s up for Oscar, then this program (like always) is pretty much a can’t-miss. For those who don’t exactly care then this enterprise is definitely not for you.

A scene from "Even Pigeons Go To Heaven," part of Margnolia Pictures' 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films

As for those attending just so they can do a bit better in their office pools, I’m not sure how seeing this year’s nominees is going to be of any help to you. Maybe this was an off year, but the films nominated this time around are a decidedly mediocre-to-average lot to say the least. For my part, there are a couple of clear cut winners heads and tails above the rest of the program. But even those are only just a bit better then good, so saying they’re going to be the likely Oscar recipients isn’t a call I’d feel at all comfortable making.

On the live action side of things, the one to see is the 17-minute Spanish effort Il Supplente (The Substitute). It revolves around a strange man who enters a classroom claiming to be the substitute teacher for the day, proceeding to terrorize and engage the kids on a childlike level that both terrifies and fascinates them. This short is funny, endearing, affectionate and sublime, and while the points it ultimately makes are a bit trite and familiar getting there is just enough fun I didn’t really care.

The other films in this set are At Night, a positively maudlin and infuriatingly syrupy drama revolving around three women sharing their problems with one another during the New Year’s holiday while residing in a hospital cancer ward; The Mozart of Pickpockets, an okay French farce about two downtrodden thieves whose luck turns for the better when the befriend a deaf homeless boy; Tanghi Argentini, an agreeable (if overly-familiar) Shall We Dance knockoff about a man who must learn to tango and gets help from his cantankerous office manager; and The Tonto Woman, an elegantly shot Western based on the short story by Elmore Leonard from the United Kingdom about a cattle rustler and the lonely woman who was once a Mojave Indian captive who changes the course of his life forever.

Of the animated shorts, the one I enjoyed the most was the nine-minute French entry Meme Les Pigeons Vont Au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven). It’s a CGI story of a slickly conniving priest who keeps tabs on the Grim Reaper so as to finagle the ghoul’s victims of all their wealth before he dispatches them by trying to sell them a machine which will supposedly take them to Heaven, no questions asked. Beautifully animated and murderously funny, this little bit of fluff isn’t magnificent but it does get the job done, the giddy finale worthy of a hearty chuckle even if it isn’t much of a surprise.

As for the rest, I Met the Walrus is a cute if underwhelming Canadian 2D production concerning a 14-year-old boy sneaking into John Lennon’s hotel room in hopes of conducting an interview; Madame Tutle-Putli, a routine claymation short also out of Canada about a timid woman and train full of frightening experiences; My Love (Moya Lyubov), a magnificently animated (and frustratingly boring) drama out of Russia about a teenage boy searching for love and finding it with two very different women; and Peter & the Wolf, a United Kingdom/Polish co-production of Prokofiev's classic musical that seems to go on forever and will not make anyone forget about Disney’s much more enjoyable 1946 adaptation of the same piece. 

All of this said, I say The 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films are worth taking the time to go and see if only to see them on a big screen. Seldom do we get the opportunity to see shorts in movie theaters anymore, and any chance to do so should probably be embraced. In other words, go get some culture. At the very least, with ten films on the docket leaving the screening you and your friends should certainly have something to talk about and discuss.

Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)