Oscar Nominated Shorts
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2025 8:44 pm
Each year there's a bunch of shorts nominated for the Oscars in 3 categories: Documentary, Live Action, and Animated.
Last year my wife and I went to a showing of 5 shorts drawn from all of the categories (5 total to be clear). This year we went to see all 5 of the Live Action and 5 Animated shorts, skipping the documentary ones.
You can read about them here if interested: https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/
We watched the 5 Live Actions films first. And they were absolutely, universally depressing. One was a tribute to a man who was assassinated during ethnic cleansing I believe in Bosnia/Herzegovina showing how he was taken off a train and disappeared when he spoke out. One was about rhino poachers and based on the true story of a white rhino de-horned and left to die as a ranger was killed. One was about an ICE raid during a green card meeting, breaking up a family of many years in front of their 4 year old daughter. Another was about Indian sweat shop workers, all girls, and 2 in particular who parents were dead, and one had the opportunity to go to a boarding school, but the sweat shop manager said her sister would be punished if she went. And the final, light-hearted in comparison, was about humanity and a robot who doesn't know she's a robot who tries to kill herself when she finds out.
The animated shorts were positively uplifting by comparison, including the Iranian military office who had PTSD, watched his wife drown, and killed himself saving a whale. Magic Candies was positively cute, about a Japanese child who buys magical candies that allow him to talk to various entities. Yuck was a cute but simple short about kids and kissing ("Yuck!" is said a lot). Which leaves the 2 oddest. One was about men who wanted to get a hair transplant and flew to Turkey together to get it, but made a scheduling mistake, and then personal issues are revealed. It was "meh" but had a lot of peen for Cake and Gordon. The final one was interesting, but also a bit weird. Imagine a kids' TV show with a host (like Mister Rogers or whatnot), and there were 3 special dressed up characters who were tiny (like 8" tall). It's revealed soon that the host of the show is dead, and the 3 little people/creatures are trapped inside the house with his dead body. They are weird characters. Also, more penis.
The Live Action ones were just too depressing. I enjoyed the animated shorts more. Maybe if I had only watched 1 or 2 of the live action shorts at a time, but all together it was just overwhelming.
Last year my wife and I went to a showing of 5 shorts drawn from all of the categories (5 total to be clear). This year we went to see all 5 of the Live Action and 5 Animated shorts, skipping the documentary ones.
You can read about them here if interested: https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/
We watched the 5 Live Actions films first. And they were absolutely, universally depressing. One was a tribute to a man who was assassinated during ethnic cleansing I believe in Bosnia/Herzegovina showing how he was taken off a train and disappeared when he spoke out. One was about rhino poachers and based on the true story of a white rhino de-horned and left to die as a ranger was killed. One was about an ICE raid during a green card meeting, breaking up a family of many years in front of their 4 year old daughter. Another was about Indian sweat shop workers, all girls, and 2 in particular who parents were dead, and one had the opportunity to go to a boarding school, but the sweat shop manager said her sister would be punished if she went. And the final, light-hearted in comparison, was about humanity and a robot who doesn't know she's a robot who tries to kill herself when she finds out.
The animated shorts were positively uplifting by comparison, including the Iranian military office who had PTSD, watched his wife drown, and killed himself saving a whale. Magic Candies was positively cute, about a Japanese child who buys magical candies that allow him to talk to various entities. Yuck was a cute but simple short about kids and kissing ("Yuck!" is said a lot). Which leaves the 2 oddest. One was about men who wanted to get a hair transplant and flew to Turkey together to get it, but made a scheduling mistake, and then personal issues are revealed. It was "meh" but had a lot of peen for Cake and Gordon. The final one was interesting, but also a bit weird. Imagine a kids' TV show with a host (like Mister Rogers or whatnot), and there were 3 special dressed up characters who were tiny (like 8" tall). It's revealed soon that the host of the show is dead, and the 3 little people/creatures are trapped inside the house with his dead body. They are weird characters. Also, more penis.
The Live Action ones were just too depressing. I enjoyed the animated shorts more. Maybe if I had only watched 1 or 2 of the live action shorts at a time, but all together it was just overwhelming.