Shopping for shorts? Then head for the Magnolia Theater

By PHILIP WUNTCH
Film Critic Emeritus

Want to broaden your horizons? Want to be entertained while you're being enlightened? Most important, want to win your annual office Oscar pool?

Then head for the Magnolia Theater as quickly as possible. The collection of Oscar-nominated shorts, both live action and animated, is on view at least through Thursday night and may be held over beyond Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony.

The visual cavalcade amounts to a lengthy, often delightful evening at the movies, but if you must choose between live action and animated selections, I'd go with live action. Although the animated flicks represent the top tier of stop-motion, traditional and claymation techniques, the story lines, perhaps inevitably, are sometimes fuzzily developed and pretentiously symbolic. All are worth seeing, but the live action shorts are more consistent in quality.

Belgium's "Tanghi Argentini" is a live-action highlight, telling a warm and ultimately surprising story of a nerdy office worker who hopes to impress a woman he's met online. He asks a cool colleague to teach him to "slink like a panther" when dancing the tango. The film ends with a charming twist that suits its holiday setting.

Denmark's "At Night" focuses on three young women in a cancer ward. Earnestly acted and directed, it's also a mite too predictable. But you will definitely find it poignant. "The Substitute," from Italy, is erratic in tone but ultimately rewarding. A substitute teacher finds satisfaction in demeaning his high-school class. Even after we discover his personal agenda, the film leaves a slightly bitter taste. But the ending is satisfying, and the vision of a student poetess's soulful face will linger in your memory.

The UK's "The Tonto Woman" will likely divide audiences. Adapted from an Elmore Leonard story, it tells of the friendship between a less-than-honorable drifter and an outcast woman, both of whom benefit from their relationship. Its desert vistas are exquisite, and the drifter is well-played by Francesco Quinn, who has a more accessible style than his Oscar-winning poppa Anthony. But the overall mood is frequently ponderous and self-important.

France's "The Mozart of Pickpockets" rivals "Tanghi Argentini" for the Most Charming Nominee Award. It's a lovable tale of accident-prone Parisian pickpockets whose luck changes when they're forced to unofficially adopt a deafmute urchin. It's a sprightly, engaging little film that never makes the mistake of seeming too confident of its own charm.

Among the animated entries, France's "Even Pigeons Go to Heaven" has a narrative charm that matches its delightful technical creativity. A priest, who may be just a wee bit of a con artist, confers with a miserly old man and uses unorthodox methods to convince him to buy his way into heaven. The film abounds with verbal and visual wit.

If Federico Fellini had ever made a stop-motion animated film, it would resemble Canada's "Madame Tutli-Putli," which in fact resembles Fellini's "Juliet of the Spirits." The titular protagonist arrives at a train station with excessive physical and emotional baggage. The other passengers resemble demons from her past. Will she exorcise her demons or succumb to them? Although never as meaningful as it strives to be, the film creates a stunning visual dreamland, simultaneously ominous and optimistic.

Russia's "My Love" is technically brilliant but dramatically cumbersome. It tells of a 16-year-old 19th-century aristocrat who, fresh from reading Ivan Turgenev's novella "First Love," falls in love with two women, a bubbly servant girl and an enigmatic "shady lady." Their dilemmas begins to mirror those of Turgenov's characters. However, the complex storyline is not the equal of the exquisite visuals.

For sheer minute-by-minute pleasure, "I Met the Walrus" can't be topped. In less than six minutes, it recreates the mood of the lamented 1960s, recreating the true incident of 14-year-old Jerry Levitan sneaking into John Lennon's hotel suite and interviewing him. Despite its brevity, this one has long-lasting impact.

"Peter & the Wolf" could capture the Oscar. This Polish-UK co-production oozes class from every pore, matching beautiful visuals with Sergei Prokofiev's enchanting, classic music. The film's characters are almost balletic in movement, while the beautifully textured atmosphere seems a timeless hybrid of contemporary and ancient Russia. Peter is a pallid youth who, after witnessing a wolf's slaying of his beloved duck, seeks vengeance from the alpha wolf. The film is too long, but class carries clout with Oscar voters.

Then again, Sunday night can bring plentiful surprises.