Not Likely Coming to a Theater Near You!

Tonight we attended one of our must-see events of the year - the Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films, shown at our local art theater, the Loft Cinema. Now celebrating its tenth anniversary of the collected nominations, the last few years they've also expanded to include the live-action shorts and documentary short subjects. One normally doesn't get to see these little gems of the film maker's art unless shown before Pixar movies, as often happens with their short features. Live-action and other animators are rarely seen except for these annual collections. Fortunately for us here in Tucson, the Loft excels in showing all that is not mainstream, as the marquee out front demonstrates. Besides the animated shorts, they are concentrating on Oscar nominations, including Boyhood (nominated for 6 Oscars), which was released way back in August! Two Days One Night got a nomination for Marion Cotillard for Best Actress, Whiplash (3 nominations), Inherent Vice (2 nominations), and Timbuktu, nominated for best foreign-language film.  Other than Boyhood, many are still on our list, as we like to see the critically acclaimed movies before the Oscars, but as our blog attests, we've been busy this Winter season...

Anyway, tonight's 5 animated shorts were great, and it was a sellout at about the biggest theater in town (500 seats)! We all have our favorites of the nominations, and since these were actually short (some as little as 2 minutes!) they rounded out the collection with 4 more "with merit", making the total running time 78 minutes. The Loft runs a contest where all get to vote on which they think will win (not necessarily their favorite!), the winners receiving loft memberships. My favorite was "Me and My Moulton", about the middle daughter of a trio, growing up in Norway wanting a bicycle and to be like everyone else, and things in the real world turning out differently.

While I've been going to the Loft for 35 years (since it was in an upstairs space on 6th Street, thus the name), I've never sprung for membership where you get discounts, invites to special events (including meeting film VIPs), and perhaps most importantly, free popcorn, we do go regularly and events like this one is why we hope they continue forever. Whether the shorts collections, film festivals, essential film showings for free, and special showings during the week (mondo Mondays for offbeat films, for example) it is always a great idea to grab a monthly guide or keep an eye on the papers to see what amazing offerings they have. If you have an "art house" in town, be sure to give them your support!

Blog Stats...

We went out to see "Julie and Julia" yesterday, the new movie about the lives of Julia Child - the woman who brought French cuisine to America 50 years ago, and blogger Julie Powell, who used Julia's tome "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" to add purpose and drive to her life. The movie is very good - I absolutely love ANYTHING Amy Adams is in (portraying Julie Powell), and Meryl Streep truly channels Julia Child's voice and mannerisms.

The story is a compilation of 3 books - Child's cookbook as well as her book "My Life in France" describing her postwar years in France while her husband works as a diplomatic envoy, in addition to the Powell book "Julie and Julia" based on her year-long blog cooking her way through Child's cookbook. Nora Ephron as screenwriter and director does a great job combining the women's stories yet provide strong roles for the movie husbands as well.

So after thoroughly enjoying the movie, I went looking for source material, reading the original New York Times article that publicized Powell's goal of cooking her way through Child's book in a year, as well as checking out her current blog. Now we've been doing this little blog thing too for 14 months, compared to the 6 year following Julie has built up, but it was still a little depressing to look at her comment totals - two of her last 3 posts have garnered an average of over 350 comments! We're lucky to get a couple per week... Oh well, as long as we are having fun, and our sparse readership does the same!

More Shorts!

Tonight featured a return to the Loft Theater , where the Academy-nominated animated shorts were shown. Last year, they showed both live-action and animated shorts on one night and it turned into a 4.5 hour marathon. This year, it would have been just over 2 hours total, but they scheduled it over 2 nights before the nominations were announced, so tonight's animated shorts, instead of featuring the 35 minutes of nominated animations, also showed another 4 or 5 that were deemed exemplary, rounding out the program to about 100 minutes.

Those of you who think "cartoons" are limited to funny stories would likely be disappointed. While there were some slapstick (including "Presto" which was shown with Wall-E last summer) there were also some poignant stories, love stories, and a preachy environmental animation as well. My favorite was "La Maison en petits cubes" (The House of Small Cubes) which, despite the French name was a Japanese submission. An old man fights the rising ocean levels, building room upon room as the sea drives him upwards with time. Dropping his favorite pipe, he rents a scuba outfit to retrieve it, each descent to the next level bringing with it a flood of memories of family and past love. The hand drawn animation and music were a perfect match for the nostalgic mood of the 12 minute animated short.

My second choice, but the crowd favorite was "Oktapodi" a computer-drawn animation very much in the style of Pixar Studios, this one created by a group of third-year French film students. The 2.5 minute film (shortest of tonight's features) showed the adventures of a pair of octopus lovers after one of them is hijacked from their blissful life in an aquarium to be turned into food(shades of Finding Nemo!). Given that it started out as a student project makes it even more amazing and a lot of fun.

The worse part of the shorts collection the last two nights was that Melinda was working and missed out on all of it! With only a single night showing of each collection, you are out of luck if you have a conflict. I feel fortunate to see them - the New York Times says they're only being shown in a couple dozen theaters. This is the 4th year The Loft has shown the short film collections, and with the crowds they drew, will likely continue the tradition.

The best part is that this coming Wednesday, (Melinda isn't working that night) The Loft is showing a program of French live-action short films, which will include my favorite from last night, "Manon Sur le Bitumen (Manon on the Asphalt)". Twist my arm!

Oscar Shorts!

We are exceedingly lucky in Tucson to have The Loft, an "art house movie theater" where you cannot see the latest Spiderman sequel, and, in fact, many of the movies are in a language that isn't even English! Tonight, case in point, some friends and I attended a screening of the 2008 Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Short Films (as opposed to animated).

It was an eye-opening experience - normally the"short" films (limited to 40 minutes or less) are the poor white trash of the movie world - there really isn't a venue to see them, alone or as a group. I've seen some on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) on cable, and I understand some film festivals show collections, but you really have to go out of your way to enjoy them. The 2008 collection includes shorts from Switzerland, Germany, France, Denmark and Ireland - the US didn't make the cut this year. My favorites were "New Boy", about an African refugee's first day of school in an Irish classroom (shown at left), and "Manon on the Asphalt" (Manon sur le bitume - the french entry) about how a woman's life affects the people around her.

The format of these "filmettes" force the makers to tell a story, develop characters and form an emotional response quickly. How involved can you get in New Boy's 11 minutes, or Manon's 15? A lot, it turns out. I was nearly sobbing at the end of the latter, and my friends had a similar response, though the consensus was that the odds-on favorite to win was likely the German entry "Toyland" (Spielzeugland) with it's Nazi/Holocaust theme (13 minutes!).

So how do you ever get to see these? It says they are available in iTunes, though when I just checked, only the 2007 and earlier were available. I've also seen previous collections for sale on Amazon and I suspect those DVDs would be available on Netflix or other sources - you should definitely look for them! The Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films are being shown tomorrow night - check for a report afterwards!

Harvey Milk

When Melinda and I started this blog last summer, I made up a set of personal rules that I try to follow. In an effort not to alienate anyone, a big one for me was not to blog about politics, even through the heart of the election season just past. My friends and relatives likely know I'm liberal, and generally they are all conservative. But we get along fine because I don't argue politics, or for that matter, religion, gun control, abortion rights, or gay rights. I don't preach my opinion because everyone is entitled to their own. I will clarify a misconception someone may have about something I know, and I try to be well-read on current events, but generally, I don't campaign for causes.

Today, with the Oscar buzz surrounding the new movie Milk, we caught a matinee. I've actually tried to see it twice, but for interesting reasons, this was the one that worked out... Anyway, I've been a bit of a Sean Penn fan - I've enjoyed many of his movies since he played Spicoli on "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" way back in '82. Here, he portrays Harvey Milk, America's first openly-gay man elected to public office.

The fact that the movie is about a gay character may keep some of you away but it shouldn't. Likely you know a homosexual. I've got gay friends and an acquaintance of mine died of AIDS in the early '80s. You cannot reject a portion of the population that may include 10% of us or more.

There have been many recent biographic movies that have been lauded with Academy Awards lately - the Ray Charles and Johnny Cash biopics come to mind immediately. But here in Milk is a life to be celebrated! Some of my memories of the '70s are fuzzy, particularly the narrative of current events of that age, and I don't recall ever seeing Harvey Milk on TV, though I do recall the gay rights battle with Anita Bryant and Milk's shooting along with San Fransisco Mayor Moscone in 1978. In this movie Penn portrays him as an ordinary man being at the right place at the right time to step up not only for gay rights, but for Blacks, Latinos, teachers and union workers. The performance is spectacular and as you can see from our movie reviews, it was the only movie that we both gave a "10" (Melinda didn't get to see "Bolt 3D", and I'm a stereo nut). We both agree that if Penn doesn't get the Best Actor Oscar, the AMPAS has lost all credibility! Please see it if you can - you may not be liberal or approve of the gay lifestyle, but if you enjoy movies and are interested in groundbreaking American stories, go see this movie!