Oscar-nominated Live Action Short Films

The Oscar-nominated short films are playing in select cities around the country. In New York I saw them at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village.

The first of the Oscar-nominated live action short films was Pentecost, a light Irish comedy about an altar boy who just can’t resist the urge to ruin Sunday mass. After a supposed accident in which he caused the priest to fall by swinging the incense ball too close to his face, he’s given a second chance by default to be part of the altar boy elite ‘squad’ to perform a mass given by the Archbishop upon his return to this small town. Taking place in the late 70s, the boy is threatened with never being permitted to watch or listen to football again (and Liverpool has the European Cup final coming up!) The boys are given a pre-game talk that amounts to a sports team pep talk. Directed by Peter McDonald, it’s light, amusing and somehow distinctly Irish.

Albert Nobbs Movie Review

Did anyone notice while making Albert Nobbs that the title character is just not that interesting? Didn’t it occur to anyone that a supporting character, one in a very similar life situation as Albert is not only portrayed in a far better performance but he is more vividly drawn with a more compelling history. Is this a fault of the screenplay by Glenn Close and John Banville or the short story “The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs” by George Moore?

Close plays Albert Nobbs. This is not a Linda Hunt case of a female actor playing a male character. Albert is a woman who has been disguised as a man for an undetermined number of years, but it’s certainly long enough that his entire identity is essentially male. For that reason I refer to Albert with masculine pronouns. Only at two moments in the film did his actual gender come to the fore. Set in the late 19^th century, Albert makes his living as a waiter at Morrison’s Hotel in Dublin.

The Guard Movie Review: Irish Garda Meets FBI

“I’m not sure if you’re really dumb or really smart.” So says the FBI man played by Don Cheadle to Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleason), a sergeant in the Irish Garda stationed in Galway on the west coast of Ireland where the people have surly attitudes toward outsiders (particularly Dubliners) and sometimes they insist on speaking only Irish. Gleeson, a bulky bear of a man, is just the right actor to pull off the delicate balance between stupid and clever. His character might be equal parts ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody from the Harry Potter films and Martin Cahill, his character in The General.

The Guard, written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, has a darkly sinister comic sensibility akin to In Bruges, also starring Gleeson and written and directed by McDonagh’s brother Martin. The film opens with a car careering along the country roads of Galway, going just off camera as we see Gerry in his patrol car and then hear the screeching tires and crash of metal on the soundtrack. Gerry’s expression doesn’t change as he witnesses and then approaches the scene to find an overturned car and several bodies strewn about the road. He then rummages through a dead man’s pockets for the drugs he knows he’ll find – not as evidence but for personal recreational use. This scene plays as black comedy, setting the tone for the rest of the film, mainly because of the complete absence of blood and gore that should be present on the road.

Ondine Movie Review: Colin Farrell finds love with a mysterious woman from the sea

Irish director Neil Jordan was at his best when he was focused on making distinctly Irish stories. The triple punch through the middle part of the 1990s of The Crying Game, Michael Collins and The Butcher Boy (we’ll conveniently ignore 1994’s Interview with the Vampire) helped establish him as an important filmmaker capable of crafting intimate character studies within the grander scope of the Irish Revolution and The Troubles in Northern Ireland. After steering off course for more than a decade, I wondered if Ondine, his return to his native country, would provide a welcome repose from the astounding mediocrity of everything from the psychological horror film In Dreams to the Graham Greene adaptation The End of the Affair. That and the inevitable pairing of one of Ireland’s best working directors with Colin Farrell, probably its best working screen actor, gave me some hope.