IN FILM
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"The Saviour," a nominee in the live-action Oscar category, is about a Mormon missionary whose door-to-door outreach work gets a little too personal.
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And the nominees for short film are ...
It's tough for short films to find an audience. An Academy Award nomination provides recognition that can only help.
By grouping this year's animated and live-action nominees into two convenient showings, the Honolulu Academy of Arts gives audiences the chance to choose their favorites, then tune in on Oscar night, Feb. 25, to find out how they fared.
Oscar-nominated Short Films
Screens: At Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts
Animated shorts: 1 and 7:30 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Sunday and Feb. 21, and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20 and 23
Live-action shorts: 4 p.m. Friday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday and Feb. 21, and 1 p.m. Monday and Feb. 22 and 23
Admission: $7 general; $6 seniors, students and military, $5 academy members
Call: 532-8768
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YOU DEPEND on animation to take you places you've never been, and sometimes the distance is as close as your own heart.
"The Little Matchgirl" is surprisingly effective at limning Hans Christian Anderson's classic weeper of the girl trying to sell matches in the midst of a Russian winter. Since no one will buy, she is reduced to burning her matches to stay warm. The girl imagines scenes of happiness and comfort and joy in the dancing flames ... and then the match burns out and the cold sets in. There aren't enough matches and it's a long, dark, freezing night.
The film ends the way the original story does, appallingly sentimental, and the gentle touch here with the animation underscores the grimness of the tale. Surprise! It's a product of the Disney factory, and was originally appended onto the Platinum Edition DVD of "The Little Mermaid." But, still, it's likely the most affecting Disney animation in years.
There's also "The Danish Poet," a rambling shaggy-dog story about the chance encounters of ancestors, courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada, the fairy godfather of animation for the last half-century. It's narrated by Liv Ullmann and the animation is cartoonily effective, as you'd expect it to be.
At the other end of the rendering spectrum is "Maestro," from Szimplafilm, a CGI-animated minute out of a wooden bird's life. Explaining it would give away the punch line, but the rendering and art direction have a claustrophobic intimacy that's lovingly detailed. The POV moves in one-second jerks, which is initially annoying but turns out to be one of the in-jokes.
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"West Bank Story" is styled after "West Side Story," with the feud between Jews and Arabs.
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"Binta y la Gran Idea (Binta and the Grand Idea)" was a collaboration with UNICEF.
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(The other two nominees, Pixar's
"Lifted" and Blue Sky's
"No Time for Nuts" -- a 20th Century Fox "Ice Age" short -- were unavailable for preview.)
Check out all the animated Oscar nominees at www.awn.com/oscars07/.IN THE live-action category, the competition should be between "The Saviour" and "West Bank Story." The former is a production of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School; the latter a University of Southern California student thesis film.
Considering the low budget Ari Sandel worked with to make "West Bank Story," this is an amazingly ambitious and audacious spoof of the testy Jew-Arab relations in the Occupied Territories -- styled after the musical "West Side Story," no less.
The turf battle this time around is between fast-food eateries Kosher King and Hummus Hut. While employees on both sides sing and dance in mock battle, love blossoms between a young and handsome Israeli soldier and a comely Muslim girl who works at the Hut. This is a clever and hilarious take on a grave matter. The acting and orchestral music are very much in the mold of the classic musical. The ending, though, is a Hollywood in-joke and a bit of a cheat, but still, "West Bank Story" is great fun to watch.
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"The Danish Poet," narrated by Liv Ullmann, is about the chance encounters of ancestors.
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"Maestro" is a CGI-animated minute out of a wooden bird's life. The film comes from Szimplafilm.
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"The Saviour" is a well-told and gently humorous tale about a Mormon missionary whose door-to-door outreach work gets a little too personal. Thomas Campbell does an excellent job playing the wide-eyed, dough-faced Malcolm, who ultimately finds a place of peace between his love for a lonely married woman and a group of elders seeking converts.
"Binta y la Gran Idea (Binta and the Grand Idea)" is Spanish director Javier Fesser's collaboration with UNICEF. It's a remarkable film, made in the West African country of Senegal, and centers on a man's ambitious plan to bring humanity together. The film successfully captures the rural culture of the southern Senegalese, and the music from that country's superstars makes for an appealing soundtrack.
The remaining nominees, "Éramos Pocos (One Too Many)" from Spain and "Helmer & Son," a Dutch production, look at the subject of family with a cocked eyebrow. In the first, a lazy and hapless father and son scheme to get the dad's mother-in-law to take over the cooking and housework once his wife leaves in frustration. "Helmer & Son" shows how a son, in over his head when he takes over his father's business, can still get love and guidance from his old man -- even when he's in a care home, hiding from the staff and naked in his armoire with his graying paramour.
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A limning of Hans Christian Anderson's classic weeper about a girl trying to sell matches in the midst of a Russian winter, "The Little Matchgirl."
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The 79th Annual Academy Awards, with host Ellen DeGeneres, airs at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 25 on KITV/ABC. "Road to the Oscars 2007," a look at the celebrities walking the red carpet, precedes the show at 6 p.m.