The five 2011 Oscar nominations for “Best short film (live action)”

Movie: The five 2011 Oscar nominations for “Best short film (live action)”:

"The Confession": Two young boys are preparing for their first Catholic confession.  A practical joke goes tragically wrong.  For one of the boys, things goes from bad to worse as he struggles to decide just what he is going to confess to when he has his confession.  Starts out pretty funny and then gets really serious in a shockingly short time. Pretty well done.

"The Crush": A third grader has a crush on his school teacher.  He takes his feelings REALLY seriously.  A lot of surprises and a lot of humor – some a bit dark.  I thought this was the best of the bunch.

"God of Love": A singer receives a mysterious package of darts.  Sticking someone with one of the darts makes the person more susceptible to love – with the next person to come along.  A pretty funny film as the singer learns that he has a real knack for picking couples.  The surprise comes when we learn who sent the package.

"Na Wewe": Takes place during the civil war between the Tutsis and Hutus in 1994 Burundi.  A bus containing a diverse group of people is stopped by Hutu soldiers who demand that everyone in the bus identify themselves.  The plan is to execute any Tutsis. This film left me kind of flat – my least favorite.

"Wish 143": David is a terminally ill teenager whose wish (number 143) is to lose his virginity before he dies.  The film follows his efforts – and the efforts of a priest to dissuade him – to accomplish his wish.  This was myt second favorite of the five.  I thought this was a really sweet film with a pretty decent ending.  There is a scene where he is actually in bed with someone (I don’t want to give everything away).  When I heard what he really wanted, it almost made me cry.

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The five 2011 Oscar nominations for “Best short film (animated)”

Movie: The five 2011 Oscar nominations for “Best short film (animated)”:

"Day & Night": “Night” and “Day” are ghost shaped entities who discover each other and have to figure out how to co-exist.

“The Gruffalo": A mouse on a quest for nuts runs a gauntlet of a fox, a snake and an owl out to get him.

"Let's Pollute": A satirical piece urging everyone to pollute, pollute, pollute.

"The Lost Thing": Someone finds a really big strange “thing” on the beach and tries to find it a home.

"Madagascar, carnet de voyage" A tourist in Madagascar is invited to watch a burial ceremony.

My two cents: Overall, I was quite disappointed by this year’s nominees.  “Day & Night” was moderately amusing.  I thought “The Gruffalo” was far and away the cream of the crop – it was absolutely brilliant.  The other three ranged from boring to just plain bad.  I would love to know what it was about these three that got them nominated.

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Gnomeo & Juliet 3D

Movie: Gnomeo & Juliet 3D

Genre: animated

Synopsis: The Red gnomes live in a yard on one side of an alley and the Blue gnomes live in a yard on the other side.  Naturally, they are mortal enemies.  The leader of the Reds is the widower Lord Redbrick (Michael Caine).  His head fighter is Tybalt (Jason Statham).  Lord Redbrick’s beautiful daughter is Juliet (Emily Blunt). The Blues are lead by the widow Lady Blueberry.  Her son is Gnomeo (James McAvoy).

The two sides are continually setting traps for each other and engage in minor skirmishes.  One of the primary ways they compete is racing lawnmowers down the alley.  Finally things go too far and the Blues decide to make a night-time excursion into the Red yard.  That is where Gnomeo meets Juliet and, of course, fall in love.

They spend the rest of the movie figuring out they are in love and then trying to get the fighting of the families to stop.

My two cents: This was a cute movie and I quite enjoyed it.  There was a lot of humor based on Shakespeare.  For example, the street address of the Reds was 2D with a circle around it.  The street address of the Blues was 2D with a cirle around it along with a diagonal line through the circle – “To be or not to be…”  I got a real kick out of it.  The 3D effects were pretty decent.  The character (and voice) that I thought stole the show was the 500 horsepower lawnmower knows as the Terrafirminator V.O. (Hulk Hogan).

Bottom line: this movie would be fun for the kids and the adults should get a kick out of it if they pay attention.

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