By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
The three short-film categories often stump those who are fascinated by the Academy Awards: Live Action, Documentary and Animated. Now you can view these mini-contenders for the price of one feature-length film.
The Live Action are usually the most dramatic. Vincent Lambe’s “Detainment” recreates a harrowing ‘90s murder involving two 10-year-old Irish boys who were tried as adults for killing a toddler. Two different boys are featured in Jeremy Comte’s “Fauve” as they struggle in the Canadian wilderness.
From Canada, Marianne Farley’s “Marguerite” focuses on an ailing elderly woman and her caregiver. Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Spanish psychological thriller “Madre” records a frantic phone call between a mother and her lost son as a stranger approaches him. And Guy Nattiv’s “Skin” is about race, hate crimes and how violence is passed down to children.
The Documentary nominees include Marshall Curry’s timely “A Night at the Garden,” as history seems to be repeating itself. Rayka Zehtabchi’s “Period: End of Sentence” chronicles how young women in India become empowered to make and sell sanitary products.
Skye Fitzgerald’s “Lifeboat” relates how the German NGO Seawatch saved the lives of refugees stranded on sinking rafts in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya. Ed Perkins cites Cornelius Walker’s experience of racial prejudice in “Black Sheep.” And Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman deliver “End Game,” an empathetic exploration of end-of-life care.
Among the Animation entries are Louise Bagnall’s nostalgic “Late Afternoon” and Pixar’s surrealistic “Bao” about a doting mother and her anthropomorphized “baozi” dumpling (which played in theaters alongside “Incredibles 2”).
Andrew Chjesworth & Bobby Pontillas’ “One Small Step” follows a Chinese American girl who dreams of going into outer space, while Taylor Jimenez’s “Weekends” reveals the dilemma of a boy trundled between his divorced parents’ homes in Toronto. Last-but-not-least, Alison Snowden & Davi Fine’s “Animal Behavior” examines their natural instincts.
Pick your favorites to take home the coveted Oscar.
If you threw a lasso at six 19th century Western mini-sketches and tied them together, like an old, clothbound anthology, they’d resemble Ethan and Joel Coen’s latest cinematic diversion “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” Oscar-nominated as Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design and Best Original Song.
Diminutive baritone Tim Blake Nelson plays the titular singing sharpshooter, “The Kid,” a white-clad psychopath who lives by his own ethical code, meaning: he doesn’t use his gun unless he’s provoked — wryly evoking the guitar-strumming era of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.
In the second episode, “Near Algodones,” a dimwitted cowboy (James Franco) robs a bank, faces a lynch mob and winds up under a cottonwood tree with his neck in a noose — twice.
Then there’s “Meal Ticket,” introducing Liam Neeson as the grizzled impresario of a touring show, starring Hamilton, the Wingless Thrush, a frail, legless, armless “artist” (Harry Melling) who dutifully recites from Shakespeare, Milton, Shelly, the Bible and the Gettysburg Address.
That’s followed by “All Gold Canyon,” based on a Jack London story, featuring a dogged old prospector (Tom Waits) who strikes gold in a remote valley with a river running through it.
“The Gal Who Got Rattled” revolves around Alice Longabaugh (Zoe Kazan), a lovely young pioneer whose brother has contracted to marry her off to a rich, old man but, while traveling West on the Oregon Trail, her plans are revised by a proposal from the handsome wagon master (Bill Heck), evoking resentment in his longtime partner (Grainger Hines).
Finally “The Mortal Remains” shows five passengers — Brendan Gleeson, Jonjo O’Neill, Saul Rubinek, Chelcie Ross and Tyne Daly — riding in a claustrophobic stagecoach on a cosmic plateau.
Superbly photographed in Colorado, New Mexico and Nebraska by Bruno Delbonnel, Carter Burwell’s beautiful score ties everything together.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” is a cynical, savvy 7, consisting of existential, bleakly humorous vignettes, now streaming on Netflix.
The alleged neo-noir thriller “Serenity” is beyond disappointing.
Chain-smoking Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) is a fishing boat captain, catering to tourists while obsessively pursuing an elusive, giant tuna off a Caribbean-like island called Plymouth, described as “the most beautiful island in this damn dirty world.”
Drinking rum from a “World’s Greatest Dad” mug, Dill lives alone, so you know he has family issues, although he’s dallying-for-dollars with Constance (Diane Lane), a hot-to-trot divorcee.
Suddenly his sultry ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway) — a beautiful blonde femme fatale, clad in white — struts into the only bar on the island. Karen offers Dill $10 million to take her obscenely rich, but mean, sadistic new husband, Frank Zariakas (Jason Clarke), fishing on his twin-engine cutter, dubbed Serenity, and throw him overboard, feeding him to the sharks.
Of course, Dill demurs — at first — until he realizes exactly how abusive Frank is, not only to Karen but to Dill’s teenage son Patrick (Rafael Sayegh).
While Dill’s dutiful first-mate (Djimon Hounsou) tries to steer him from temptation, there’s also the appearance of Reid Miller (Jeremy Strong), a nerdy fishing-supplies sales rep on a mission, proclaiming, ”Plymouth Island is a game.”
Then there’s this surreal, mind-bending twist.
Thanks to foreign financing, British writer/director Steven Knight (“Locke”) filmed in Mauritius and Matthew McConaughey has more cheesy nude scenes than either of his female co-stars.
On the Granger Gauge, “Serenity” sinks to a sleazy, sweaty, unsatisfying 3, a waterlogged potboiler.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
