2009 Animated Oscar Nominated Shorts

This show has been held over for another week at the University-area theatre. Jack & I highly recommend it.

It shows five nominees:
1. “French Roast” (France, 8 min.), a funny, nearly wordless (the waiter says, "Un autre?" which means, "Another?" and the man says, "Café") scene that takes place in a café, and reminded me a bit of the full-length Oscar-nominated animated feature, The Triplets of Belleville (2003), which I loved.
2. “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” (Ireland, 6 min.), also funny, in which a scary grandmother terrifies a little girl with her version of the fairy tale.
3. “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” (Spain, 8 min.), completely wordless, in which an old lady, mourning the loss of her husband, meets the grim reaper. Ultimately funny as well. Produced by, among others, Antonio Banderas.
4. “A Matter of Loaf and Death” (U.K., 29 min.), another fine clay-mation Wallace & Gromit tale, wherein Wallace, the dumb baker, is rescued repeatedly by Gromit, his smart dog. Hilarious and chock-full of sight gags.
5. “Logorama” (France, 17 min.). We found this one, the finale, side-splitting, in which Ronald McDonald is a trash-talking criminal and every bit of the screen is filled with some sort of logo. We figured it had to be French, because Americans would be sued for it. WARNING: there is bad language and violence and you will laugh your [bad language] off. You can watch it at this link, unless it's removed, as it was from youtube. Best on a big screen, second best if you click the fullscreen arrow at the lower right.

And three extras:
6. “Partly Cloudy” (USA, 6 min.), a Pixar short which was screened with Up in its theatrical release, about clouds who make infants for storks to deliver and one cloud/stork pair.
7. “The Kinematograph” (Poland, 12 min.), not funny, but beautiful, about an inventor who is putting the finishing touches on the technology of film, and his devoted wife. The people have a sort of wood grain to their skin.
8. “Runaway” (Canada, 9 min.), about a runaway train, where each car has its own personality, like in the movie-within-a-movie in Woody Allen's Stardust memories (1980).