Oscar's Short-Film Races Could Surprise

Nick Park leads ani category; doc, live-action harder to predict
By Gregg Kilday | February 9, 2010

Set aside the showdown between "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker" for a moment. Stop obsessing over whether Sandra or Meryl will take home the best actress trophy.

Further down the list of nominees for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, there are several other races brewing that could result in genuine Oscar Night surprises -- even if those surprises will be fully appreciated only by those aficionados who track the three short-film categories.

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Among the live-action shorts, "Kavi," a USC thesis film by Gregg Helvey, could serve as a companion piece to "Slumdog Millionaire": It looks at modern-day slavery through the eyes of an Indian boy working in a brick factory.

"The Door" follows at a family uprooted by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Set in Australia, "Miracle Fish" re-creates a school shooting as experienced by one boy. "Instead of Abracadabra" opts for laughs at the expense of an inept, would-be magician. And "The New Tenants," with a cast that includes Vincent D'Onofrio, Kevin Corrigan and David Rakoff, concerns two men who are met with a series of unsettling surprises when they move in to a New York apartment.

"Tenants" marks the fifth nom for Danish company M&M Prods., which has shown an affinity for this particular category since picking up wins for 1998's "Election Night" and 2002's "This Charming Man."

But the live-action category can be notoriously difficult to predict -- which is why office Oscar pools were born. Full article

Thanks Linda!