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<\/p>\nThe nominated Oscar shorts come in three categories \u2014 and a lot of subjects, styles and temperaments. It\u2019s further proof that an award dictated by length needn\u2019t be bound by anything else.<\/p>\n
In the live-action category, a mixed bag of approaches \u2014 some inspired by classic literature \u2014 are burnished by inspired performances. Lee Knight\u2019s \u201cA Friend of Dorothy\u201d may be a tad on the nose about the cultural and emotional impact of a lonely London widow on a closeted teenaged boy. But leads Miriam Margolyes and Alistair Nwachukwu practically shimmer with humor and warmth. \u201cJane Austen\u2019s Period Drama,\u201d a loving tweak of the writer\u2019s oeuvre from Steve Pinder and Julia Aks (who also stars), is essentially a one-joke calling card to make feature comedies and it should do the job. Its cast is exactly the sprightly ensemble needed to land its what-if laughs.<\/p>\n
Two others just miss the mark in terms of bringing their tensions to powerful resolutions yet benefit from who the camera adores. Meyer Levinson-Blount\u2019s \u201cButcher\u2019s Stain,\u201d centered on a flimsy accusation against a friendly Palestinian butcher in an Israeli market, undercuts its gripping story with lackadaisical filmmaking and an unnecessary subplot, but lead Omar Sameer is commanding. The black-and-white future shock \u201cTwo People Exchanging Saliva,\u201d directed by Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh, is an uneven Euro-art bath of unrealized intimacy and casual violence \u2014 kissing is punishable by death, slapping is currency \u2014 but is given exquisite tautness by the elegant, unrequited swooniness of stars Zar Amir and Luana Bajrami.<\/p>\n
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A scene from \u201cJane Austen\u2019s Period Drama,\u201d nominated in the live-action short category.<\/p>\n
(Roadside Attractions)<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s my favorite, Sam A. Davis\u2019 likely winner \u201cThe Singers,\u201d from Ivan Turgenev\u2019s short story, which pays off handsomely in bites of soulful warbling that briefly turn a barroom\u2019s den of anesthesia into a temple of feeling.<\/p>\n
Most of this year\u2019s documentary nominees deal with the grimmest of tragedies, as in \u201cAll the Empty Rooms\u201d and \u201cChildren No More: Were and Are Gone,\u201d which address the remembrance of children brutally killed. The former film, from Joshua Seftel, follows CBS correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp on an essay project into the bedrooms of kids gunned down in school shootings, their private worlds heartbreakingly preserved by their families. The latter short, directed by Hilla Medalia, witnesses Tel Aviv\u2019s silent vigils for Gaza\u2019s children, protests marked by posters with beaming faces, and sometimes met with open scorn. These are dutiful, sobering acts of mourning \u2014 Seftel\u2019s is the probable awardee. You may wish they were more than that, however, considering the issues (guns, war, political intransigence) that created the devastation.<\/p>\n
Combat is what drove award-winning photojournalist Brent Renaud, killed in Ukraine in 2022. But his brother Craig\u2019s memorializing of him, \u201cArmed Only With a Camera,\u201d is oddly uninvolving, more an excerpted flipbook of Brent\u2019s far-flung assignments than a meaningful portrait of excelling at a dangerous job. A more affecting real-world dispatch (and my pick, if I could vote) is \u201cThe Devil Is Busy,\u201d directed by Christalyn Hampton and dual nominee Geeta Gandbhir, also up for the feature \u201cThe Perfect Neighbor.\u201d It observes a day in the operation of a carefully guarded, female-run Georgia abortion clinic as if it were a newly medieval world\u2019s last chance healthcare outpost, getting by on grit, compassion and prayer. You certainly won\u2019t forget security head Tracii, the clinic\u2019s heavyhearted knight and guide.<\/p>\n
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A scene from \u201cPerfectly a Strangeness,\u201d nominated in the documentary short category.<\/p>\n
(Roadside Attractions)<\/p>\n
Your chaser is Alison McAlpine\u2019s appealing, aptly titled \u201cPerfectly a Strangeness,\u201d sans humans, but starring three donkeys in an unnamed desert happening upon a cluster of hilltop observatories. The whir of science meets the wonder of nature and this charming, gorgeously shot ode to discovery (both on Earth and out there) makes one hope the motion picture academy sees fit to recognize more imaginative nonfiction works going forward.<\/p>\n
Animation, of course, thrives on the thrill of conjured worlds, like the one in Konstantin Bronzit\u2019s wordless (but not soundless) desert island farce \u201cThe Three Sisters.\u201d It owes nothing to Chekhov \u2014 though there are seagulls \u2014 but much to a classically Russian sense of humor and a Chaplinesque ingenuity. Elsewhere, you can watch the overly cute Christian homily \u201cForevergreen,\u201d from Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears, about a nurturing tree, a restless bear and the dangerous allure of potato chips. The message gets muddled but this eco-conscious journey is charming.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tough to predict a winner when the entrants are this strong, but John Kelly\u2019s \u201cRetirement Plan\u201d feasts on wry relatability, as Domhnall Gleeson narrates a paunchy middle-aged man\u2019s ambitious post-career goals, while the cascade of deadpan funny, thickly-lined and mundanely hued images stress a more poignant, finite reality. In its all-too-human view of life, this is, entertainingly, whatever the opposite of a cloying graduation speech is.<\/p>\n
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A scene from \u201cRetirement Plan,\u201d nominated in the animated short category.<\/p>\n
(Roadside Attractions)<\/p>\n
The spindly aged-doll puppetry in the stop-motion gem \u201cThe Girl Who Cried Pearls\u201d marks a sly fable of need, greed and destiny, centered on a wealthy grandfather\u2019s Dickensian fashioning of his poverty-stricken childhood in early 19th century Montreal. Filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski find an enchanting balance between storybook allure and adult trickery. Maybe this one steals it?<\/p>\n
Whichever the case, the animation that moved me the most is \u201cButterfly,\u201d from Florence Miailhe, imagining the last, memory-laden swim of Jewish French-Algerian athlete Alfred Nakache, who competed in the Olympics before and after the Holocaust. In the cocooning fluidity of an ocean-borne day, rendered with thick-brushed painterliness and splashes of sound, we travel across flashes of community, injustice, achievement, love and despair. The visual, thematic constant, though, is water as a haven and a poetic life force that feeds renewal.<\/p>\n
‘2026 Oscar Nominated Short Films’<\/p>\n
Not rated<\/p>\n
Running time: Animation program: 1 hour, 19 minutes; live-action program: 1 hour, 53 minutes; documentary program: 2 hours, 33 minutes<\/p>\n