{"id":10855,"date":"2024-02-21T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10855"},"modified":"2026-01-04T13:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T18:26:11","slug":"oscar-shorts-are-back-live-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10855","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Shorts Are Back: Live Action"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"195\" height=\"322\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/5491246926_770af0a4ff_z.jpg?resize=195%2C322&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Academy Award, Oscar\" class=\"wp-image-5339\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/5491246926_770af0a4ff_z.jpg?w=195&amp;ssl=1 195w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/5491246926_770af0a4ff_z.jpg?resize=182%2C300&amp;ssl=1 182w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oscar Shorts are Back!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year\u2019s nominees for best live action shorts are playing in theaters. This year\u2019s nominees seemed to trend a little longer than usual overall  Only one was under 20 minutes, and the longest was 37 minutes (total, 2.5 hours). I&#8217;ll write about the Oscar-nominated short documentaries tomorrow.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Invincible<\/em> (US) \u2013 directed by Vincent Rene-Lortie. Based on a true story of a 14-year-old boy whose behavior problems have separated him from a loving family. The staff of the facility where he lives is trying to work with him, but neither they nor his family influences the choices he makes (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=j17o_Of4zEQ\">trailer<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Knight of Fortune<\/em> (Denmark) \u2013 directed by Lasse Lyskjaer Noer, <em>Knight of Fortune<\/em> tells how, Karl (played by Leif Andr\u00e9e), in a visit to the morgue to view the body of his long-time wife, finds he cannot bring himself to open her coffin. An unlikely alliance between Karl and another widower, Torben (Jens J\u00f8rn Spottag), helps him face her death. Though the overall tone is bittersweet, there are darkly humorous moments and a strong sense of shared humanity (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/video\/watch\/the-new-yorker-shorts-knight-of-fortune\">trailer<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Red, White and Blue<\/em> (US) \u2013 directed by Nazrin Choudhury. A positive pregnancy test forces a single mother of two (played by Brittany Snow), working as a waitress and living paycheck-to-paycheck to make difficult decisions, as she and her ten-year-old daughter go on a road trip across several states in search of an abortion (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4MgezVJ-WZc\">trailer<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The After<\/em> (UK) \u2013 Misan Harriman directed. Acclaimed British actor David Oyelowo plays a London man who must try to rebuild his life after a devastating street assault. Taking a job as a taxi driver, he meets all sorts, but cannot outrun his trauma (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fV8kGLfv_nc\">trailer<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar<\/em> (UK\/US) \u2013 Wes Anderson\u2019s version of the Roald Dahl short story about a wealthy Englishman (Benedict Cumberbatch) who learns a Guru\u2019s way \u201cto see without his eyes,\u201d so that he can cheat at blackjack. Also in the cast: Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, and Richard Ayoade. With its big-budget production values and stellar cast, it\u2019s quite an oddball (as is anything Wes Anderson produces) in this collection, which is more typically where up-and-coming filmmakers with limited budgets cut their teeth (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4RdncisZ_QA\">trailer<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our local moviehouse shows the shorts on three nights (live action, animated, documentary). See the schedule for your area, and <a href=\"https:\/\/shorts.tv\/theoscarshorts\/tickets\/\">get tickets from Shorts TV here<\/a>. Some may be available on YouTube too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oscar Shorts are Back! This year\u2019s nominees for best live action shorts are playing in theaters. This year\u2019s nominees seemed to trend a little longer than usual overall Only one was under 20 minutes, and the longest was 37 minutes &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10855\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The inventiveness of the creators of the Oscar shorts never fails to amaze me. They tell such riveting, memorable stories in such a small space of time!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[59,56,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academy-awards","category-film","category-the-morgue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2P5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10856,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10855\/revisions\/10856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}