News

The Academy skewed dark in its choice of live-action shorts this year, selecting four films to slit your wrists by — each one featuring child endangerment in a different form — and a fifth, about a diabetic on her death bed, that finds a glimmer of uplift at the other end of life. If that sounds like a complaint, think again: All too often, the Academy falls for either lightweight comedic shorts or over-earnest social-issue dramas, whereas this lot consists of several genuinely well-tooled micro-thrillers. It’s just a lot to stomach in a single, two-hour sitting.

The theatrical program opens with Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Goya-winning “Madre,” which begins with a slow pan of an empty beach — meaningless at first, but setting the stage for a parental nightmare that plays out entirely in the audience’s imagination. Like Gustav Möller’s nail-biting Danish feature “The Guilty,” this short conjures an...

While most movies in the Oscar race generate attention for months, the short film contenders generally don’t receive much notice until they’re nominated. However, the live-action shorts often deserve as much attention as the higher-profile contenders, in part because they’re so different from the rest of the pack.

The 2019 nominees are a perfect example: The five contenders hail from four countries, and tackle a range of heavy subject matters, from racism to repressed sexuality. Collectively, they speak to the clash of innocence with troubled times, as the majority of the shorts deal with children in dark situations. And while the Best Director category is loaded with veterans ranging from Spike Lee to Alfonso Cuarón, the filmmakers nominated in the Short Film (Live Action) category are largely newcomers from around the world.

Many of the winners in this category often go on to craft memorable features, from Andrea Arnold to Martin McDonagh.

Ahead of the Academy Awards, we’re reviewing each short category. See the Live Action section below and the other shorts sections here.

Detainment – Ireland – 30 minutes

Two ten-year-old boys were placed into police custody in 1993 on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering the not-yet three-year-old James Bulger in Merseyside, England. They were interrogated separately with parents present about their whereabouts on that fateful day and whether or not they were guilty of the crime. It’s unfathomable to believe children so young could have done what they did, but it’s even harder to comprehend them lying about it when the truth starts to spill out. These interviews were recorded and eventually released as a matter of public record with certain tapes remaining sealed due to the graphic nature of what was described. The pair served eight years with appeals of fair trial violations reducing their sentences before receiving new identities in the aftermath.

Title: The Man Who Invented Christmas Director: Bharat Nalluri Cast: Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Pryce, Simon Callow, Donald Sumpter, Miriam Margolyes, Morfydd Clark, Justin Edwards, Ian McNeice, Bill Paterson, Anna Murphy, Eddie Jackson, Neil Slevin, Paul Kealyn, Aleah Lennon, Ger Ryan, Ely Solan. Charles Dickens is synonymous with Yuletide, as attested by his ‘A […]

The post The Man Who Invented Christmas Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.