Tuesday, February 19, 2019

The Wheel Award for Excellence in Live Action Short

IMDB
There are five movies nominated for an Oscar for Live Action Short. My own pick for the Oscar, if I had a vote, would be for:

  • Fauve (Canada): Two boys play in the woods, on a train track, in a surface mine, until they get in trouble. Fun and games turns serious. Good acting. A complete short story in 17 minutes. A-






My runners-up:

  • Skin (USA): Starts realistic but gets progressively extreme and ends up over-the top revenge porn. Why can't people just be nice to each other? B+
  • Marguerite (Canada): Elderly woman and her visiting nurse develop a friendship. Nurse freely shares the fact of her same-sex relationship, which causes her patient to recall her own denial of same years before. Sweet and sad. B+
  • Detainment (Ireland): Based on real life confessions of two ten-year-old boys who abduct and kill a toddler. One a bully, the other maybe persuaded by peer pressure. Great acting by both. Abrupt ending. B-
  • Madre (Spain): Mother gets a call from 6-year-old son abandoned on a beach by his father. Panic grows as phone battery weakens and rescue seems remote. Great acting in scene, but no climax or ending. B-

Tune in Sunday to see the Academy's pick.

1 comment:

Mark Steger said...

"Skin" won. I gave it a "B+" immediately after seeing it, so I guess I shouldn't complain. But the short didn't age well. By Oscar night, I actively hated this film. It was a cheap exploitation of emotions. "Revenge porn" is what I called it and that's all I can think about it now.