APOLLO CINEMA PRESENTS . . . OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORTS 2004 — *** — Compilation of Academy Award-nominated short films, live-action and animated; in English, French, German and Serbian, with English subtitles; not rated, probable PG-13 (violence, profanity, vulgarity, brief nudity, brief sex, gore, brief drugs).
The inability of so many of today's filmmakers to tell a coherent story over the course of a two-hour movie makes "Apollo Cinema Presents . . . Oscar-Nominated Shorts 2004" all the more astonishing.
Most of the films showcased in this 90-minute compilation have reasonably complete stories.
The collection features five of the 10 shorter-length films (each is under 30 minutes) — both live-action and animated — that were nominated for Oscars this year.
As you'd expect, it is a mixed bag. And at least one of the shorts — the intense, French-made drama "Squash" — does sort of push this compilation toward R-rated territory. It does stop short of going too far, but its subject matter remains fairly adult.
The obvious selling point is the presence of "Harvie Krumpet," the delightful tale from Australia that won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. While the humor in this clay-animated piece about a man with chronic bad luck is very odd, its message about accepting the disabled is a worthy one. (And kudos to Geoffrey Rush's deadpan narration.)
Interestingly, two of the live-action shorts — "The Red Jacket," about a deceased boy's jacket that finds an unlikely recipient, and "(A) Torsion," about a choir that sings to calm an injured cow — are set in war-torn Sarajevo.
The aforementioned "Squash" is a tense piece about a man playing a game to save his job.
Also featured is "Perpetual Motion," a clever and all-too-brief animated short about the effects of gravity, which won the 2003 Student Academy Award for Animation.
"Apollo Cinema Presents . . . Oscar-Nominated Shorts 2004" is not rated, but would probably receive a PG-13 for scenes of violence (war violence and some cartoon slapstick), scattered use of strong profanity, some crude humor and references, brief animated nudity (done for laughs), brief sex (ditto), gore and brief drug content. Total running time: 90 minutes.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com