Oscar Shorts

After breakfast I worked on some files on my computer while Sue continued to read the Nelson Mandela “Long Road to Freedom” book. We had an early lunch and just before noon we headed to the V&A to see a couple of movies. They were showing 2 “packages” — the first was all 5 films (plus a couple of bonus films) nominated for Best Animated Short Film followed by the 5 “Best Live Action Short Films”. We’d never gone to see the short films before, so this was a first. Sue and I both are not really fans of animation, but most of the films we saw were at least interesting if not exactly life-changing. I was surprised at how many of the short films had very simple animation — like Family Guy or even ‘flatter’ than that — nothing like the Pixar Toy Story ‘realistic’ animations (or the silicone models used for the Oscar-nominated Animated FEATURE Film, “Anomilisa”. And plot was not the most important component in quite a few of the films. I’d say my favorite of the group was “We Can’t Live Without Cosmos”, a 16-minute Russian film.

We had a 20-minute break before the next film ‘package’ so we had a cappuccino in the theatre’s cafe. While sipping our coffee we got a text from Robert and Arlene — their flights were delayed and after a total of FIFTEEN flights for their visit to Africa, they ended up having to stay overnight in Toronto before getting an early flight to Winnipeg this morning!

The second set was completely the opposite of the first: each of the five short “live action” films was incredibly good — gripping stories and great acting and well worth the seven bucks we paid to see them. The films represent work from Germany, Kosovo, USA, UK, and Palestine — my favorites were the German “Everything Will Be OK (Alles Wird Gut)” and the film from Kosovo, “Shok (Friend)”.

Sue and I were both cold from sitting in the nearly empty theatre for 4 hours — so we went for a long walk along the coast in the late afternoon sunshine to warm ourselves up and to get a little exercise. We walked to the lighthouse and then through Green Point park, ending up at Rocomama’s hamburger restaurant near our apartment. We’d had an early lunch, so why not an early supper!

When we got home I Skyped with my parents. We sat out on the balcony and read until the sun set. More reading inside until after 8 o’clock, when I set up the TV and we watched another of our “Homeland” episodes. That was so good we watched another. A little CBC News and it’s time for bed!