Isobel Crawley has posted a new soup photo to the website Soupwrecks.com

For those who have asked, the Oscar recap is on it's way. Until then, enjoy this hilarious depiction of what a Downton Abbey episode would look like if it were a Facebook interaction.

Tom Branson has posted a new photo in the album Sybil (the baby, not my dead wife).

Ha! This is brilliant. I'm going to read them all.

Documentary Shorts!

So, a couple weekends ago I went to see the Oscar nominated Documentary Short Films. I had a ball.

It's such a great crop of films, I hope they become available on Netflix because it's tough to find them outside of a major city. I managed to find a little independent theater downtown that was showing them. The whole screening, including a 15 minute intermission, ran about four hours. I was concerned that it was going to be a long slog, but the films were so good that the time just flew by. It seemed way shorter than my viewing of, say, Les Mis or Amour.

My two favorites were Inocente and Redemption. Inocente is the story of a 15-year-old homeless girl named Inocente, who is also a great artist. She, her mother, and her little brothers move about, sometimes renting a small room until they can't afford the rent anymore and get evicted, sometimes sleeping in parks or shelters. Inocente attends a summer arts program and, of the more than 5,000 students, two are chosen to put on their own art show. Inocente is chosen and we watch her create her pieces for the show as we learn about her life. It was fascinating. She has so much poise for a 15-year-old and so much hope and such awesome eye make-up. You really root for her.

Redemption is the story of people in New York City who participate in "canning," a practice that has become very common in Manhattan. These are people who collect cans and bottles from the street and trash to redeem them for the 5 cent refund at one of New York's many redemption stations. You'd think this would be the purview of the homeless, but most of the people featured were those who had just lost their jobs or couldn't make ends meet even with their jobs. One woman was a retired sales rep for IBM who found her social security and pension weren't enough to live on, so she started collecting cans. It was a really interesting look into their situations.

Other documentaries were Kings Point, a portrait of a Florida retirement community where we see that gossip and jealousy and relationship drama never stops, even at age 80, and Open Heart, the story of a group of Rwandan children who travel to Sudan for open heart surgery. Millions of children in Africa are stricken with heart disease, often because some infection such as strep throat was not properly treated and it developed into heart disease. There is one clinic in Africa that provides free open heart surgery, and children must rely on aid organizations to fly them to Sudan for life saving surgery. Finally, Mondays at Racine, the story of two sisters who lost their mother to cancer and now open their Long Island beauty salon one Monday a month to cancer patients for free beauty treatments. The women, most undergoing chemotherapy, find friendship and support in addition to the manicures and hair styling that make them feel more alive.

Ooh, these movies were all so good. Try to see them if you can.

Well, this just makes me sad.

Thrift store shoppers, hoard your irons. Production has ceased.

Apparently the iron is out and the cat is in.

RIP, iron. Also, a little bit of my childhood.

Shorts!

So, this weekend I went to see the Oscar nominated short films. I just love shorts. They are tiny, little delights. And let me tell you, the people of DC agree with me. The E Street Cinema was packed, the line for concessions snaked around the lobby, several showings sold out and people were asking around if anyone had any extra tickets. It was mayhem.

The Animated shorts were hosted by the guys who won last year for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, which you may remember me mentioning. In between the shorts they talked about making their film and how shorts are such a different creative experience because they're the total vision of one or two people as opposed to a feature which is a collaboration of thousands.

My favorite animated short was Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare."  I don't watch The Simpsons, but this was a delight, very clever and funny. I also really liked Fresh Guacamole, which clocked in at 2 minutes and was a stop-motion (oh, how I love stop-motion) visual treat. You can check it out here.

The Live Action shorts were hosted by Luke Matheny, who won two years ago for God of Love, which you may recall me telling you was utterly delightful and well worth your time. It's still on my iPad if anyone wants to see it.

There were two standouts in the Live Action shorts: Curfew and Death of a Shadow. Both will soon be available on iTunes.

Death of a Shadow had a really interesting premise that I think could have been served well in a feature-length film. A WWI soldier, who died tragically, now works for a spooky "collector" of shadow deaths. The soldier time travels to the moment of a death and captures it on a special camera that allows him to view it. He then returns to the Collector and places the shadow death in the Collector's gallery. When the soldier has collected 10,000 deaths, he will be free and his own shadow released from the gallery. The art direction is great and supremely creepy. Both the story and the characters are under-developed, but in a feature-length film much could be done about that.

The one I'm rooting for is Curfew, which takes a tired premise (messed up adult + precocious child) and turns it into something heartfelt and fresh. The lead actor, Shawn Christensen, also wrote, directed, and did the music for the film. He was probably cooking lunch for everyone as well. Keep an eye out for him. I think he'll do great things in the future.