Shorts

I just caught the five films nominated for Best Live Action Short Film for this year's Oscars. As usual, I liked them better than the five Best Picture nominees.

They played all five as a single show. If it comes around to your town, check it out.

While there was humor, a common theme was dead wives, who were featured in three of the shorts.

The Runaway (23 minutes), a German film, is a touching film about a kid who keeps bothering a man who claims not to know him. Their relationship gets more complex and more mysterious as the film goes along.

Cashback (18 minutes), a British entry, is about a grocery store's night shift, and how the employees deal with their boredom. It's perhaps the funniest of the five, as well as the best shot. It also features some stunning nude women.

In Our Time Is Up (12 minutes), Kevin Pollak is a psychologist who find he has six weeks to live and decides to tell his patients what he really thinks of them. It's probably the thinnest of the nominees, but still quite amusing.

The most depressing film, The Last Farm (17 minutes), comes from Iceland. An old man who lives far away from the big city has to deal with his wife's death.

Then there's the Oscar-winner, from Ireland, Six Shooter (27 minutes). It stars Brendan Gleeson as a man who's just lost his wife. He meets an odd companion on a train trip. To say more would give away the plot of this dark comedy. (To say almost anything about these shorts gives away the plot.)

It probably deserved to win, though I do feel it's a bit of a ringer, since it was made by Martin McDonagh, author of The Beauty Queen Of Leenane and The Pillowman, one of the best playwrights around.