MOVIES: Oscar catch-up

Yes, I've been a very bad blogger, and haven't kept up with posting about all of the movies I've seen this month. So, before, the Oscars show begins, a quick catch-up post about some of the nominees.

I didn't care for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I admired the technical accomplishments immensely, but was rarely emotionally engaged by the movie. Two exceptions: the scenes with Pitt and Tilda Swinton in that Russian hotel kitchen, and the meditation on coincidence leading up to Daisy's accident. And that shot of Pitt on the sailboat is the most stunning and iconic image of male beauty I've ever seen.

I was struck by the fact that the movie only allows Benjamin and Daisy to be happily united as a couple for that brief period when both are physically young and beautiful. As long as Benjamin still looks old, one or the other offers an excuse to keep them apart; once Daisy ages into her mid-40s, Benjamin's gone like a shot (and given a conveniently altruistic-sounding excuse for his departure).

I enjoyed The Reader much more, and I hadn't expected to. My cynicism meter was on high alert going on -- Winslet and Fiennes in a Holocaust movie produced by Harvey Weinstein? This was so obviously an Important Oscar Movie that it couldn't possibly be any good. But the movie works, largely on the strength of fine performances from Winslet and David Kross (who was sadly neglected during awards season). And the makeup -- good old-fashioned makeup -- that's used to age Winslet's character 30 years is far more convincing than all of the high-tech digital wizardry that's inflicted on Brad Pitt in Button.

And thanks to iTunes, I've seen 9 of the 10 nominated short films. The live-action shorts aren't a particularly strong field, but I did very much like "The Pig," which finds an interesting frame for its story of religious values in conflict. I'd bet on "Toyland" to win, though; it's set in WWII-era Germany, and "Toyland" is the answer of a young single mother to her son when he asks where all of his Jewish friends are disappearing to.

The animated films I've seen ("La Maison en Petits Cubes" isn't available for online viewing anywhere that I can find) are a very strong field. Even the slightest of the group, "Oktapodi," is an amusing bit of CGI about octopuses in love. "This Way Up" is the very British story of one coffin's difficult journey to a funeral; "Presto" is the rabbit-vs-magician short that played in theaters with WALL-E.

Best of the field, though, is "Lavatory/Lovestory," in which a men's room attendant finds her humdrum life interrupted by the unexpected possibility of romance. The animation is very simple -- black and white pencil drawings (with occasional well-timed bursts of color) that reminded of children's author Syd Hoff -- but extraordinarily communicative.