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Once again, Oscar night is upon us, and in just a few short hours, we will all be rapturously gazing upon Hugh Jackman throughout an evening of television sure to be at least one-tenth as suspenseful as the final act of Slumdog Millionaire. As a champion of both art and brief attention spans, ZipiNotes is proud to present a quick rundown of this year’s nominees for Best Animated Short. (For a refresher on the 2008 award contenders, check out our post from last year.)

**UPDATE**: La Maison en Petits Cubes won! Click here for the full list of winners.

La Maison en Petits Cubes (clip)
The most languid of the bunch, the melancholy La Maison en Petits Cubes is animator Kunio Kato’s first Oscar nod. Set in a steadily flooding world, the film follows an old man who tries to keep his head above water in a house built of memories. (And if you like what you see here, take a look at this YouTube user, who has a pretty extensive collection of Kato vids.)

Official site: http://kiteretsu.robot.co.jp/kunio/

Lavatory: Lovestory (full)
From Russian animator Konstantin Bronzit, Lavatory: Lovestory is a sweet, simple tale about a lonely washroom attendant and her secret admirer. Get a little more info (and a duplicate video clip) here: http://haha.nu/beautiful/lavatory-lovestory/

Official site: http://www.melnitsa.com

Oktapodi (full)
Put together by a crew of mighty talented film students, Oktapodi is a frenetic romp through windy Euro streets, as one very determined squid fights to save his leggy paramour from certain calamari doom. Oh, and as much as I love the lightweight convenience of YouTube, you really owe it to yourself to watch this one in high-res.

Official site: http://www.oktapodi.com

Presto (clip)
Backed by mighty Pixar muscle, Presto — a manic battle of wills between an uptight magician and his ornery rabbit — is an awfully promising contender in this competition. Actually, my favorite part of this film was the intro: a tip-o’-the-hat to classic Disney shorts. (See the full version here at Truveo.)

Official site: http://www.pixar.com/shorts/presto/index.html

This Way Up (clip)
I saw this BBC-produced short three times in theaters last year (thanks to the always-excellent Animation Show), and it only gets better with every viewing. Two undertakers — glowering dad and hapless son — end up going through a bizarre journey through hell and back when they let their latest corpse slip through their embalming-fluid-stained fingers.

Official site: http://www.thiswayupmovie.com/

Bonus Oscarificness

Let the Right One In

Recently, I polled a bunch of Boston film luminaries (i.e., theater directors, indie filmmakers, festival organizers, etc.) on their fantasy Oscar picks. Here are the results, as published in Stuff magazine (nee Stuff@night) last week.

http://stuffboston.com/get/archive/2009/02/09/oscar-wild.aspx

Their answers were all illuminating, but here are the major lessons I took away from this experience:

1) Everyone needs to watch Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In, pronto.
2) Someone decided to pair up Will Smith with a jellyfish.
3) Boston’s film elite have no problem dispensing the lulz.

Well, folks, there’s only a precious few hours left until Jon Stewart and his prehensile eyebrows ascend the Academy Awards podium. And with most of the Oscar coverage trained on the merciless scrum for Best Picture between No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton and, uh, Juno, it’s easy to lose sight of the littler guys — like this year’s animated short film nominees. Haven’t seen them yet? Here’s a sampler platter to whet your appetite. [Credit goes to the excellent illustration blog Drawn.ca for doing most of the legwork here; thumbnail pics courtesy Magnolia Pictures.]

Même les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)
Here’s a rather bonkers French film about shyster priests and cheating death, with a cute micro-twist sprinkled on at the end like visual bacon bits. (Knuckle-dragging philistine that I am, my favorite part was hearing them say “highway to hell” en français.)

Madame Tutli-Putli
Here we find a rheumy-eyed puppet maiden riding the night train to Sadsville, pursued by her own personal demons — and it’s just gorgeous. Canadian animators Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski spent two years either holed up in their studios (they report that “a 16-second shot would take maybe a week” to film) or gathering bits of smashed mirror off the road, which they used to create Madame Tutli-Putli’s ethereal lighting.

Part 2

I Met the Walrus
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatles fan barged into one of John Lennon’s hotel “bed-ins,” jammed a reel-to-reel tape recorder in his face and managed to nab a great interview. Forty years later, animators Alex Kurina and James Braithwaite have taken these clips and bathed them in splashy, frenetic, stream-of-consciousness imagery.

Moya Lyubov (My Love)
Backed by three previous Oscar nominations, animator Aleksandr Petrov wields a lovely technique that involves filming oil paints directly on glass — a tricky medium. The plot of this may love story set in 19th-century Russia might seem a little sterile (it’s not a huge surprise to learn that the majority of Petrov’s work consists of commercials), but never mind; there’s plenty of visual distraction here. (Note: A lot of the effect gets lost in YouTube’s pixel-squishing format. For a crisper vid, see the trailer at Studio Ghibli.)

Parts 2 and 3

Peter & The Wolf
Suzie Templeton breathes new life into Sergei Prokofiev’s musical tale with her mesmerizing stop-motion work — her sinewy wolf is disturbingly realistic, as it slinks through the forest, while scrawny little underdog Peter has an intriguingly dark tinge to him.

Parts 2 and 3

Bonus Oscarificness

MoviePosterAddict.com has put together a neat little collection of movie posters for (nearly) every single Best Picture winner since the Academy Awards kicked off its first awards ceremony 79 years ago. [via Neatorama]