While nobody would argue that the Oscars are a fair representation of the best movies of any particular year (and are a white male heavy bunch), many of the less-publicized categories still have the capacity to inspire and surprise. Yes, Boyhood is important. But so are the foreign language nominees, the documentaries, and of course, the shorts, separated in three categories: Animation, Live Action and now Documentary. Last year I had the pleasure of ranking the Oscar nominated short films, and I’m taking another shot at the impossible task this year.

I spent an inordinate amount of time discussing how “sad” movies shouldn’t be avoided in my review of the Oscar nominated Timbuktu, and these Documentary shorts challenged my resolve. Every single one of these short films are tough to watch, providing snapshots of systemic inequity, illness (ranging from PTSD and cancer to an incurable disease that effects babies) to animal brutality. Many of these documentaries are great, and they’re all important. You’ll feel (justly) like an asshole for being upset about anything in your life; everything is put into perspective.

5. Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

Country of Origin: USA

Director: Ellen Goosenberg Kent

Synopsis: The timely documentary spotlights the traumas endured by America’s veterans, as seen through the work of the hotline’s trained responders, who provide immediate intervention and support in hopes of saving the lives of service members.

You know it’s a bleak year at the Oscars when not one, but two films are nominated concerning suicide prevention hotlines. On the live action side, The Phone Call proved to be gripping and emotional, while Crisis Hotline cuts into you further, showing us an array of literal life or death phone calls and the men and women who handle them.

I came away in awe of the men and women working what has to be a miserable job, yet it’s one of the few out there that has tangible evidence of saving lives. The Canandaigua suicide prevention call center for veterans is the only one of its kind in America, and they receive 22,000 calls a month (we learn, in a sobering title sequence, that 22 vets commit suicide a day). They talk to people when they’re at their lowest, when contemplating suicide, when they’ve already started the process, or with the weapon in their hand. The stakes can’t be higher, and even with mental health training, I find it unfathomable to be able to command and help in these situations. It made me want to join the fight, which is exactly the kind of call to action a good documentary possesses.

Learning how the center works is fascinating: there are responders, who speak with the veterans, and listening in and to their side are emergency response coordinators working logistics with the police and ambulances, while a supervisor is oftentimes a responder’s therapist, talking people through the phone calls after the fact.

We flit from call to call, seeing these workers in action, and the toll it exacts on them. As one of them states, you “take some of that with you.” That’s an apt description of Crisis Hotline. You take some of it with you, and that is left festering. The documentary focuses on how we should feel about these operators, who certainly deserve our sympathy and gratitude, but the plight of veterans in our country is the far more pressing matter. We glimpse the problem through the call center, and we see rousing successes, but the problems of veterans can’t be combatted by a phone call on a case by case basis. You can’t fight or change the system this way; it hardly slows the bleeding.  That’s perhaps the most troubling thought of all, and the shadow that hangs over (and nearly submerges) Kent’s film.

Soul Crushing Statistic: Since 2001, more service veterans have died taking their own lives than those that are lost on the battlefield.

4. The Reaper (La Parka)

Country of Origin: Mexico

Director: Gabriel Serra Argüello

Synopsis: Efrain, known as the Reaper, has worked at a slaughterhouse for 25 years. We will discover his deep relationship with death and his struggle to live.

Efrain, looking for work, saw a “Help Wanted” sign outside of a slaughterhouse. He inquired, and for six days a week over the next 25 years, he’s been “La Parka” (The Reaper). Over a half hour, we glimpse his unbearably haunting work life, a slaughterhouse awash with blood, slippery organs sliding down a faded silver assembly line, corpses on meat hooks…

…We’re voyeurs, spying on an ugly process, on infinite counts of murder, watching the bulls stumble toward their deaths, panicked looks in their eyes. Efrain narrates the footage with remarkably frank discussions of life and death that will floor you. To hammer us with guilt even further, the film is shot beautifully, practically reveling in its disturbing gruesome imagery. The colors are lush, overexposed, exaggerated, impossibly red.

The Reaper will make your flesh crawl. Efrain is fascinating; he’s endured the world’s worst job to provide for his family. Cinch up your eyes and ignore everything else about the unsavory situation and Efrain’s a hero. And that’s the very, very thin silver lining: his family gets to play soccer, they get to have dinner, Efrain sacrificing his humanity…by sacrificing millions of animals. But Efrain is merely the triggerman, one of many men and women forced to kill by an inhumane, brutal higher power too cowardly to pull the trigger themselves. As Ned Stark once said, “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.” Saying that The Reaper will convert people to vegetarianism seems entirely too…meaningless? Flimsy? But it’s a start, and so is this documentary, even if it’s another spotlight on an individual rather than the corrupt system.

Soul Crushing Quote 1: “If I didn’t kill them [bulls], my kids would have nothing to eat.”

Soul Crushing Quote 2: “I think everybody can kill. You just need experience.”

3. White Earth

Country of Origin: USA

Director: J. Christian Jensen

Synopsis: Thousands of souls flock to America’s Northern Plains seeking work in the oil fields. “White Earth” is the tale of an oil boom seen through unexpected eyes. Three children and an immigrant mother brave a cruel winter and explore themes of innocence, home and the American Dream.

White Earth is an anonymous town in North Dakota, one of many small towns just like it scattered across the country. White Earth gives a voice to three kids and an immigrant mother living in these desolate North Plains because of a recent oil boom, their fathers noticeably absent from the proceedings, working endless hours on the rig, as we see the humbling day to day life of those left in their wake.

The first kid is fascinating, hilarious (he argues convincingly that methane comes from pig farts), depressing. He doesn’t go to school, hanging around the RV, fielding “6-7, maybe 10 calls a day” from his Dad, checking in on him. He’s keenly aware of his situation, and cuts to the heartbreaking truth of the matter in a way only a child can. He bemoans that the oil rigs rob the beauty of the land, knowing that all everyone wants is money. He wishes the oil would go away…except it’s the only job his Dad has ever worked in. He hints at the trap he’s in (that they’re all in), the inexorable cycle of societal strife: “At 18, I will have to get an oil job. But I don’t care about it. I don’t want to. At 18, I will have to worry about the money in my pockets.”

Another narrator is a girl born in White Earth, a local, who’s upset at how crowded her town has become. She’s unable to go places by herself anymore. The newcomers are “scary.” Despite the local perspective, she seems like a superfluous interview subject.

The third is a Spanish speaking immigrant mother and her daughter (she has two other kids), who moved across the country on the promise of work. Frustratingly, she sees the industry as “good…for those willing to work at it.” Like in The Reaper, they are scrounging together a meager living, cogs in a machine.

In school, the teacher asks his students to complete the sentence: “Oil is…” and their answers reveal how completely oil dominates their existence. We know White Earth isn’t unique. That this is happening all across the country where oil is drilled, that oil companies and our country are profiting at the expense of these hardworking and desperate families. Anyone who somehow still believes in the American Dream should stop lying themselves and watch this movie. Awareness is the first step.

Soul Crushing Quote: “I don’t go to school…I sit at home, trying to find something to do.”

Soul Crushing Sentiment: A mother explaining her version of the American Dream: 1) to see her kids graduate from university 2) for her kids “to be better than me and my husband” and 3) hope they “never have to uproot their family.”

2. Our Curse

Country of Origin: Poland

Director: Tomasz Sliwinski

Synopsis: The film is a personal statement of the director and his wife, who have to deal with a very rare and incurable disease of their newborn child – the Ondine’s Curse (also known as CCHS, congenital central hypoventilation syndrome). People affected with this disease stop breathing during sleep and require lifetime mechanical ventilation on a ventilator.

When a man and woman become parents, they’re ready to give their lives for their child. But sometimes that’s not enough. Our Curse displays that unreal capacity to love and sacrifice, an indelible portrait of a couple thrown into any parent’s worst nightmare.

Most new parent’s survival hinges upon their baby falling asleep. In a cruel twist of fate, this Mom and Dad’s greatest worry is that their baby won’t survive falling asleep. Their baby has Ondine’s Curse, a disease that requires a lifetime of mechanical ventilation during sleep. Much of the film feels like a confessional, with the husband and wife sitting together on a couch, fighting an exhaustion few of us can comprehend, revealing their hopes and fear, constantly second guessing themselves.

They don’t know their baby. He hasn’t come home since he was born. They missed his first smile. Our Curse begins before their son comes home for the first time and takes us through his first year in their exhaustive care. Their day, schedule and lives are dictated by doctor visits. There’s no room for work. I have no idea how they can afford his medical expenses, or their own living expenses (there’s a draining phone call when the mother complains that the hospital hasn’t sent them batteries for the machine, that pieces of their equipment are malfunctioning, while bemoaning a new law that gives families free machines, a law that went into place AFTER they had to pay for theirs). They don’t have time for anything else but taking care of their child.

They search for meaning, for a reason why. The mother blames her own doubts and fears during pregnancy, as if completely normal emotions caused the curse. They flit from optimism to pessimism in a blink. They obviously want him to survive, to grow up, but the father admits that he’s most afraid of when his son gets old enough to become aware of his situation.

But love endures. The parents go from being terrified of his raspy breathing to referring it to “beautiful gasps” by their “little mouse.” The boy survives. They take him outside, in a stroller, on walks. He has his first birthday. We don’t know what happens next, but in many ways, his life thus far feels like a victory. Our Curse is intimate, smaller compared to the institutional problems hinted at (or ignored) in three of the other shorts, but that’s also why it feels that much more complete.

Soul Crushing Quote: “How do you tell your child he could die every night?”

1. Joanna

Country of Origin: Poland

Director: Aneta Kopacz

Synopsis:  With great visual poetry, ‘Joanna’ portrays the simple and meaningful moments in the life of her family. Diagnosed with an untreatable illness, Joanna promises her son that she will do her best to live for as long as possible. It is a story of close relationships, tenderness, love and thoughtfulness.

The soul and purpose and vitality of this beautifully sad, revelatory documentary are expressed in the final moments: “For My Son & Husband.” Joanna is a home video, capturing the last moments of a Mother taking care of her son. It’s a collection of seemingly random every day sequences: Joanna and Johnny on a picnic, the pair of them bickering over Legos, the two engaging in astounding vocabulary lessons. Some are hilarious, like when Johnny explains that seeing his Mom’s bra “is a very significant experience for me.” Johnny is magic; he’s extremely smart, foul-mouthed (he explains that his Legos are “fucked up” at one point), and full of questions. With one look, we know Joanna feels that magic in every fiber of her being. Over forty minutes, Joanna gives her son an infinite number of these looks, hoping that they reach him on film, when she can’t be there in person.

In the opening scene, Joanna explains this video is to show Johnny what he’s like. But we know that when the infant Johnny grows up, Joanna will show what his mother is like. And that’s important. It’s the best gift Joanna can give her son, and we’re lucky she was willing to share this personal gift with all of us.

Soul Crushing Quote: “I’m not afraid to die…I’m afraid to leave you by yourselves.”

Wrong Prediction: Joanna wins the Oscar.

For my Live Action Rankings, click here.

For my Animation Rankings, click here.

The Oscar Shorts arrive in theaters Friday, January 30, 2015 and on VOD February 2015. For a full list of theaters the short films are playing in, check out the Shorts website. If you find yourself in the LA area, the Live Action and Animated shorts will open in Los Angeles at The Nuart in West L.A. and the Documentary shorts will open at the Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills. All three programs will open in Orange County at the Regency South Coast Village.

5. Butter Lamp (La Lampe Au Beurre De Yak)

Country of Origin: France & China

Director: Hu Wei

Synopsis: A young itinerant photographer and his assistant offer to photograph some Tibetan nomads in front of various backgrounds.

Despite being blessed with the kind of picturesque backdrop that’d fit right in as your desktop wallpaper or on a calendar, or as an advertisement for a Chinese travel agency, a photographer swaps out backgrounds for various seemingly disinterested Tibetan travelers. The interactions with his “customers” are great; as he rearranges family members, gives them different clothes, etc. Every click of the camera transitions to a new scene, and a new group, a new fake setting. It’s a cute conceit, but hints at greater significance, when the mayor of a nearby town alerts everyone that their houses will be searched, or when a religious woman begins praying, because a temple background was selected.

If Hollywood remade this film…A bidding war erupts over Butter Lamp, as American studios see the massive global box office potential of such a majestic Chinese backdrop. Two competing emerge. The first, I Can’t Believe It’s Not (A) Butter Lamp!, directed by Ang Lee, stars Chow-Yun Fat’s son (if he has one), as an intrepid, ambitious young photographer who comes into the possession of what he believes is a normal ole butter lamp (a glowing feature ubiquitous to Buddhist temples, which burn yak butter), when a mysterious femme fatale (Fan Bingbing) gifts it to him, ordering him to deliver it to the Lingyin Temple. Of course, he didn’t realize that the lamp was actually…a magic one (genie played by Jackie Chan that kicks off an inspired comeback), and several top secret organizations are out to steal it (with a villainous and mustachioed Brendan Fraser subverting all expectations as Evil White Man), and to use its power to control China, and then the world.

Knowing his career was never as satisfying or impressive after the 1997 classic Seven Years in Tibet, Brad Pitt returns to Tibet in Ridley Scott’s butter farmer epic, titled The Butter Farmer. Pitt, an ex-pat adopted by a Chinese family (all played by famous white actors), just wants to be one thing: China’s best butter farmer. But, he’s white! And maybe not even Buddhist, the villagers shout. But Pitt (or Ned Butterman) perseveres, calcifying the best Yak butter in China, turning his workshop into the most highly touted and sought after in the world, providing butter for the finest Butter Lamps in all the land. It wins 14 Oscars, and/or gets widely panned.

4. Boogaloo and Graham

Country of Origin: UK

Director: Michael Lennox

Synopsis: Jamesy and Malachy are over the moon when their soft-hearted dad presents them with two baby chicks to care for. Raising their tiny charges, declaring themselves vegetarian and dreaming of running a chicken farm, the two boys are in for a shock when their parents announce that big changes are coming to the family.

This movie almost gave me several heart attacks. While watching these shorts, I always expect the worst to happen, that we’re fated for suffering. It just seems inevitable; I was clearly in a dark place, because you could make the argument that all five of these had a happy ending (if not a happy journey).

But Boogaloo and Graham is delightful, despite scaring me half to death. Belfast in 1978 was not a delightful place, in the midst of The Troubles, a conflict between Ireland and England, but when their father gives two brothers a chick to care for, we’re all smitten. This movie could’ve been about nothing and it would’ve been a pleasure to hear these kids talk in their Yak butter thick accents (“Is Mom a whore?”). Plus, it has a doo wop soundtrack, with Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers’ “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” book-ending the film (and I LOVE doo wop). But the fun chicken montage comes to a halt when Mom lays down the law: they have to get rid of the chickens. Jamesy and Malachy (love these names) don’t take it well, leading to a climactic scene that had my heart in my throat.

If Hollywood remade this film…The kids (Song of the Sea’s David Rawle and Joffrey) get murdered by soldiers, lending new meaning to the term “Troubles,” spurring what had been their “soft-hearted” Dad to become an Irish Punisher (played by Michael Fassbender) donning a Chicken moniker in honor of his fallen children. The vigilante, AKA Boogaloo (the name of one of the chickens), fights valiantly for the Irish side in a desperate attempt for independence from the British. It’s bloody, fucked up, extremely controversial, but features an Act III battle between Fassbender and Liam Neeson (as an Irishman fighting for the Queen, a divisive, complex and rich character). So it makes $400 million and spawns a franchise.

3. Parvaneh

Country of Origin: Switzerland

Director: Talkhon Hamzavi

Synopsis: A young Afghan immigrant travels to Zurich where she encounters a punk named Emily.

Parvaneh lives, obviously illegally, in Switzerland, scraping together money to send to her family in Afghanistan. She sobs after talking to her Mother on the phone. She gets stiffed at work, because she is illegal, and isn’t in a position to fight back. She lives somewhere miserable, hiding her money under her pillow, or on her person, at all times.

Yeah.

She heads to Zurich to wire money, with no concept on how to do that. I’d bet that many of us have never wired money, or know how to do it, in our own countries, let alone a foreign land with a foreign language. It feels like a more terrifying concept than most horror films. When I worked at a bank, it just broke my heart to see anyone come up without a bank account, showing me a meager check from Western Union. Parvaneh finds a Western Union, but can’t send money, because she doesn’t have a valid ID and/or is under 18. Take your pick. It gets worse: she approaches strangers on the street, asking for help to send money…and I wanted to scream, to turn away. Parvaneh happens upon a young punk named Emily, who will help, but only if she gets a 10% cut, because everything’s awful, or so it would seem. Can Emily be trusted at her word? Can anyone? Thankfully, the two lonely souls needed each other. Afterwards, I was convinced: there is good in the world. It’s just extremely hard to find.

If Hollywood remade this film…Parvaneh would quickly become a festival darling, the indie that could, starring an unknown Middle Eastern actress who becomes a revelation, a star and a hero, acting opposite Emma Roberts as the punky brat Emily in an Oscar nominated performance that silences her critics forever. Its odd couple story of friendship charms everyone, the rare case when an adaptation works.

2. The Phone Call

Country of Origin: UK

Director: Mat Kirkby

Synopsis: “THE PHONE CALL” follows Heather, a shy lady who works at a helpline call centre. When she receives a phone call from a mystery man she has no idea that the encounter will change her life forever.

It’s almost unfair to have Oscar nominated actors Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent in this category, and they both give tremendous performances in The Phone Call. Heather’s first call of the day at her crisis centre help line is from a broken, shattered, sobbing man, scared but ready for death. Heather tries to get more information from him, to save him, while also being there for him, a friend, a voice before the void, his last company. The Phone Call is an emotional tornado that could’ve felt manipulative, but it’s so well done, and features a complicated but ultimately reassuring message.

If Hollywood remade this film…Heather (Natalie Portman) walks into work, excited about her first date with her cute and quirky co-worker Daniel (Radcliffe) when she gets off. BUT WILL SHE EVER MAKE IT? OR HAS SHE ALREADY? In Verizon’s Last Phone Call, Heather learns the power of telecommunication when she picks up her first call of the day, AND WHAT MAY BE HER LAST, and a mysterious, unstable man on the line describes impossible things in her ear (voiced by Johnny Depp). He claims to be Daniel from the future, revealing things about her that he can’t know. The conspiracy mind-#@%! is Wally Pfister’s first feature after the dreck that was Transcendance, and it’s arguably not much of an improvement.

1. Aya

Country of Origin: Israel & France

Directors: Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun

Synopsis: Two strangers unexpectedly meet at an airport. He mistakenly assumes her to be his assigned driver. She, enchanted by the random encounter, does not hurry to prove him wrong.

This Israeli Academy Award winning best short film is tense, weird, mysterious, uncomfortable, funny, cute and dripping with possibility. It begins, like too many films, in an airport. Yet its opening shot, lingering over the myriad balloons that have floated to the ceiling, let go by hugging families, displays the patience and vision of two filmmakers completely in control. Aya (a mesmerizing Sarah Adler) is asked to hold up a sign for an arriving passenger, and when Mr. Overby (Ulrich Thomsen) arrives, she doesn’t reveal her mistaken identity. Instead, she drives him to his destination, in one of the most awkward drives ever. Aya plays with our expectations; when will she confess? What will Mr. Overby think? Does Aya have malice intentions—is this a serial killer’s routine? Is Mr. Overby as innocent as he appears? There are so many questions, but sometimes things just are, and that’s why I like Aya so much. It’s unafraid to stay the course, to resist temptation to shock or surprise, introducing us to a fascinating woman who feels closer to people she doesn’t know than her family and friends.

If Hollywood remade this film…The two would have sex and/or murder each other in Insane Awkward Sex Bus. The blockbuster, aptly described as Basic Instinct meets Speed, stars Rooney Mara as a maybe crazed fake bus driver, a bus load of quirky passengers at her whims, including love interest Mads Mikkelsen, in the role of a lifetime.

For my Documentary Rankings, click here.

For my Animation Rankings, click here.

The Oscar Shorts arrive in theaters Friday, January 30, 2015 and on VOD February 2015. For a full list of theaters the short films are playing in, check out the Shorts website. If you find yourself in the LA area, the Live Action and Animated shorts will open in Los Angeles at The Nuart in West L.A. and the Documentary shorts will open at the Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills. All three programs will open in Orange County at the Regency South Coast Village.

While nobody would argue that the Oscars are a fair representation of the best movies of any particular year (and are a white male heavy bunch), many of the less-publicized categories still have the capacity to inspire and surprise. Yes, Boyhood is important. But so are the foreign language nominees, like Timbuktu, the documentaries, and of course, the shorts, separated in three categories: Animation, Live Action and Documentary. Last year I had the pleasure of ranking the Oscar nominated short films, and I’m taking another shot at the impossible task this year, starting with an animated crop that’s even better than last year. Any of the following five made me wonder if they should get the top spot, and are all worth discovering for yourself.

5. “A Single Life”

Country of Origin: Netherlands

Director: Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen

Synopsis: When playing a mysterious vinyl single, Pia is suddenly able to travel through her life.

This concept, more than any other, felt like the treatment for a full length animated feature, or something I could’ve watched a helluva lot more of. “A Single Life” is the name of a vinyl record that appears on Pia’s doorstep, and it allows her to travel through different periods of her life. The animation style is a goofy 3-D, with string cheese hair and a PBS Kids vibe. It’s probably my favorite idea of the lot, and in just two minutes, accomplishes a surprising amount, while packing in one of the most devastating (yet predictable) endings.

Most Disturbing Moment: Reaching the end of the record.

4. “Me and My Moulton”

Country of Origin: Canada & Norway

Director: Torill Kove

Synopsis: One summer in mid-’60s Norway, a seven-year-old girl asks her parents if she and her sisters can have a bicycle. Me and My Moulton provides a glimpse of its young protagonist’s thoughts as she struggles with her sense that her family is a little out of sync with what she perceives as “normal”.

Me and My Moulton’s (which is a type of bicycle; who knew?) tone and voice reminded me of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, without the adult content and dramatic complexity, as a middle child describes her upbringing and how her unique parents shape her identity. She’s jealous of her seemingly normal neighbors, even as their father leaves them for another woman. The girl’s POV is captured perfectly; she’s embarrassed that her Dad has the only mustache in town, and never gets quite what she wants or expects from her esoteric parents, who are both architects. Their job influences the style of the short, showing us the layout and blueprints of her house, and cool moments where she draws in the scenes. There’s a lot covered in this family portrait that admirably captures the peculiar voice of a child. The animation style is 2D and simplistic, like something out of a newspaper print, except it has vibrant colors (every tree or bush looks like stained glass).

Most Disturbing Moment: Grandma strips.

3. “The Bigger Picture”

Country of Origin: UK

Director: Daisy Jacobs

Synopsis: ‘You want to put her in a home; you tell her; tell her now!’ hisses one brother to the other. But Mother won’t go, and their own lives unravel as she clings on. Innovative life-size animated characters tell the stark and darkly humorous tale of caring for an elderly parent.

The Bigger Picture might’ve had my least favorite story, but had the coolest, craziest animation of the bunch. It was like watching a rippling 2-D stop-motion impressionistic painting that was being edited, smudged and layered in front of your eyes. It’s Wallace & Gromit on acid. The whole experience is trippy: water floods the apartment, and it looks like cellophane taking over. It’s pretty freaky, mirroring the startlingly dark theme of two brothers fighting over putting their mother in a home, and how torturous and long the process is. In part because of its gonzo animation, the story was hard to follow, and could’ve had more time to breathe. It’s easy to connect with the subject matter, but it was hard to connect with the shadowy, stilted characters.

Most Disturbing Moment: “I thought about sex every second before I was 40. Now all I think about is death.” Oof.

2. “Feast”

Country of Origin: USA

Director: Patrick Osborne

Synopsis: “FEAST”, a new short from first-time director Patrick Osborne (Head of Animation, “PAPERMAN”) and Walt Disney Animation Studios, is the story of one man’s love life as seen through the eyes of his best friend and dog, Winston, and revealed bite by bite through the meals they share.

You can describe this film in one word: Awwww. Feast is easily the most recognizable of the nominations, and undoubtedly the one that has been seen the most, considering it played in front of the delightful Big Hero 6 (which is probably the favorite to take home the Best Animated Film Oscar). Feast is moving, adorable and triumphant, as we see what appears to be a stirring romantic comedy from the lens of the man’s best friend Boston Terrier, Winston, and all the glorious food he eats (it’s like Marley & Meat with a happy ending). The animation is crisp, clean, beautiful and deceptively simple-looking: Feast combines hand-drawn 2D artwork with fluid 3D animation, a state of the art process that began with the Oscar-winning Paperman.

Most Disturbing Moment: Being forced to eat Brussel sprouts.

Prediction: This will win the Oscar. Cute dog, delicious food, Disney bias and a love story seem pretty tough to beat in this category and could lead to a sweep for the resurgent animation studio, who just restarted making shorts back in 2012. But it wasn’t my favorite…

1. “The Dam Keeper”

Country of Origin: USA

Director: Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi

Synopsis: Set in a desolate future, one small town’s survival is solely due to a large windmill dam that acts as a fan to keep out poisonous clouds. Despite bullying from classmates and an indifferent public, the dam’s operator, Pig, works tirelessly to keep the sails spinning in order to protect the town. When a new student, Fox, joins Pig’s class, everything begins to change.

For me, the animation style is almost more important than the story itself. I want to see different styles, worlds I’ve never seen before or couldn’t conceive of, and The Dam Keeper is mesmerizing. Its 2D animation is like a living storybook made of pastel and chalk, made from over 8,000 paintings drawn by Kondo and Tsutsumi, combining hand-drawn animation with brushstrokes.

It helps that the story got me too, The Dam Keeper the best blend of concept and artwork of the bunch. Here’s this Pig, a kid who’s bullied relentlessly at school and made fun of by all the other bastard animals, yet his one job (“to keep the darkness away”) is what saves the town day after day. The idea that anyone would make fun of the person/animal who’s saving your life is ridiculous, but kids suck, so I sadly completely bought it. When Fox arrives, seemingly as the one ally and friend to our poor dear Pig, things gain much-needed brevity, until it doesn’t (can you ever trust a Fox?). This is one of the few shorts that actually fooled me, and I was happy to be fooled, thanks to the charcoal grey hues that transform this fully realized town when the darkness comes. It’s gorgeous, heartfelt and dreary, a children’s book tinged with smog, narrated by one Lars Mikkelsen.

Most Disturbing Moment: Getting humiliated by an alligator and a hippo in the bathroom. Been there, bro.

For my Live Action Rankings, click here.

For my Documentary Rankings, click here.

The Oscar shorts arrive in theaters this Friday, January 30, 2015 and on VOD February 2015. For a full list of theaters the short films are playing in, check out the Shorts website. If you find yourself in the LA area, the Live Action and Animated shorts will open in Los Angeles at The Nuart in West L.A. and the Documentary shorts will open at the Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills. All three programs will open in Orange County at the Regency South Coast Village.

If you, like me, spend any period of time (or way too much time) talking movies with your friends and peers, how “sad” a movie is tends to come up a lot. This is often seen as a detriment, a drawback, an excuse to avoid it. Life is miserable enough already, why do I need to subject myself to more unhappiness? I get it; and oftentimes movies are consumed by depression in a manipulative fashion: they want to make you sad; misery loves company and all that. It’s sad for no other sake than being a substitution for drama, conflict or feeling. Those movies should be avoided. Other movies that make you feel, and have depth of emotion, whatever emotion, should be sought out.

I was talking with a friend about our favorite movies this year, and he claimed Boyhood (my overwhelming favorite) was “too sad.” Why does that take anything away from how impactful, emotional and magical a movie like Boyhood is? My friend followed up his comment by saying that Whiplash and Birdman were his favorites. I couldn’t question the sentiment (I love both of those movies as well), but I wondered aloud about the premise of his argument. Aren’t Whiplash and Birdman just as sad, if not sadder, than Boyhood, which has a hopeful ending? I imagine this response stems from the fact that Boyhood is a universal story: its cuts to your core whether you’re a man, woman, inbetween, boy, girl, mother, father, step-father, brother and/or sister, whereas Whiplash couldbe seen as a story just about an obsessive drummer (it’s not) and Birdman is easier to distance oneself from because it actually has a hallucinatory “Birdman” following a pants less Michael Keaton-as-Willy-Loman around.

Unfortunately, it’s even easier to distance oneself from a movie like Timbuktu. Timbuktu makes the sadness and subject matter of the Best Picture nominated movies seem quaint by comparison. Timbuktu is nightmare fuel for the kind of moviegoers who simply go to the cinema to “escape.” But not seeing Timbuktu, a masterpiece from writer-director Abderrahmane Sissako, is even sadder.

Timbuktu is the first Academy Award nominated film submitted and nominated from Mauritania, landing in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The film opens and ends on a murky sky, with soldiers wasting innumerable bullets on a fleeing gazelle, hunting it. They have no hope of connecting with the animal, but their violence is unrelenting. While they can’t kill the gazelle, they can tire it, which has the same ending.

A small town outside of Timbuktu, in the Saharan country of Mali, has been taken over by jihadists. The Islamic fundamentalists have robbed these men and women of every liberty. If it wasn’t so heartbreaking, it’s almost laughable what these people are forbidden from doing. But, they can’t even laugh. Music is also banned. Cigarettes. Football. What else is there? Still, they uphold their dignity, and keep on living, hoping to keep running like the gazelle, that the jihadists will tire before they do. There’s a beautiful scene where a group, donning colorful uniforms and cleats, play “imaginary” soccer/football, without a ball, the entirely too real and haunting flip side of Hook.

If they rebel, or break any of these rules, “justice” is swift and painful, administered by an improvisational judge’s whims, who doles out ridiculously severe penalties, no matter the infraction. A group caught singing and playing music quietly in the comfort of their own home get 40 lashes a piece, and 40 more because their parents are in the court room. A couple gets stoned to death because they aren’t married in a sequence that made me turn away. The event is based on tragic real life circumstances that found its way on Youtube in 2012 but was generally met with indifference. This moved Sissako to make Timbuktu, a testament to what can be accomplished as a filmmaker.

Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed) and his family have found a way to avoid the violence and persecution, living simply but happily upon the sand dunes on the town’s outskirts. Kidane’s life and soul are fulfilled completely by his wife Satima (Toulou Kiki) and their twelve year old Toya (Layla Walet Mohamed), who is unfathomably adorable. Their meager eight bull herd is shepherded by Issan (Mehdi A.G. Mohamed), a young, eager and hardworking boy who loves his job and the animals he runs with. The family’s days are spent together, hiding in the shade, playing the guitar, singing and discussing the future of their flock.

Kidane has kept his family safe and alive by avoiding the violence that has consumed Mali. He’s a deeply peaceful and religious man; the only thing that outstrips his love of God is that of his wife and daughter. But soon, inevitably, violence comes for him, permanently twisting Kidane and his family’s fate. What’s so frustrating, almost incomprehensible, is how Kidane accepts this fate, knowingly following a tragic path. It’s already been written. These situations are so far removed from most of our lives that it’s hard to even understand. I couldn’t understand why or mostly, didn’t want to. Why this man would sacrifice everything he loves. But he doesn’t have a choice. In the end, violence consumes everyone in Mali. Your only chance to escape is to run. Run like the gazelle, and hope you don’t get tired, or that the soldiers run out of bullets. Sissako’s beautifully shot film is nonviolent ammunition for the gazelles of Africa.

Most people go to the movies to escape, but many people in Mali and elsewhere, there is no escape, the haunting point made by Timbuktu.

Timbuktu opens in New York on January 28th, 2015, and in LA on Friday, January 30th. For more information, or to track down the film, check out its website.

This isn’t an easy movie. It’s not supposed to be, and more movies should be like Mommy, even if the experience is terrifying, uncomfortable and miserable. It’s also hilarious, heartbreaking and inspiring, sometimes in spite of yourself. The film itself is fearless, even if its characters are consumed by it.

Mommy was Canada’s official submission for foreign language film at the Oscars (but snubbed for nomination), winning the Jury Prize at Cannes, and is a disturbing family portrait of a mother and her extremely troubled, violent, ADHD riddled son. The film exists in an alternate future of 2015 where Canada has passed legislation where a parent has the right to commit their kid to a psychiatric hospital if they prove too troublesome to take care of.

That should clue you in right away: this movie is going to punch you in the gut. Diane (Anne Dorval) is a white trash-y, loud mouth and vulgar widowed mother (think a French Canadian Marisa Tomei). She’s called to a detention facility, where her 15 year old son Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon) has been kicked out again, this time for starting a fire that left a boy with third degree burns. This is his last chance before jail, and once we meet this enraged, volatile, possibly insane kid, we wonder how that hasn’t happened already. In fact, you kind of want him there, hating yourself for it, because he’s still just a kid. If you squint, you could see the crazed tyrant of a little kid in The Babadook growing up to be Steve, and just like in that incredible Australian horror film, Mommy forces you to contemplate the ultimate taboo: giving up on, or stop loving your son.

If you thought it was a minor accomplishment when you could start swearing in front of your mother and not get scolded for it, Diane and Steve’s relationship will blow you away. The two swap obscenities like they grew up on Deadwood, without the verbal poetry. There’s so much yelling and berating vitriol between the two of them, it makes you cower in your seat. Diane walks in on Steve masturbating, and there’s no embarrassment: they’re going to be late to work. It takes awhile, and I often wondered if I could stomach that journey, but it becomes clear the two do love each other, that they are a team, and that it’s them vs. the world, as they try to scrap together an existence in a world constantly beating them down.

They’re saved from each other by a neighbor who needs saving just as much as they do, a quiet, stuttering, and forlorn mother who lives next door, Kyla (Suzanne Clément). It’s clear something tragic has happened in Kyla’s recent past, but somehow, this family is a breath of fresh air; it helps her grieve to surround herself with people that are just as screwed up as she is. Kyla’s been on sabbatical for teaching, but tutoring and home schooling Steve helps her, the kid and Diane.

Writer-director Xavier Dolan shot Mommy on 35 mm film with a 1.1 aspect ratio, meaning you’re watching a perfect square. It’s like “thinscreen,” or watching video from a cell phone vertically, leaving a lot of black space in the theater. It’s jarring, but it’s effective; the theater is darker for it, practically drowning these characters in darkness; the camera often can only capture one character, and so often rests close on their face, revealing an uncomfortable portrait of the kind of family we’re afraid to make eye contact with at the supermarket, forcing us to do so.

But it’s not all darkness. In fact, it’s that much more triumphant when these characters are happy, when they’re improving, when they help each other, when they have crazy dance parties in the kitchen. There are few moments in cinema over the past year as inspiring as when Steve, on his skateboard, opens the curtains, pushing the 1.1 aspect ratio outward, spreading his wings and freeing the movie from its square prison, into a widescreen we’re familiar with, Oasis’ “Wonderwall” thumping in his headphones.

Of course, that freedom, like in life, doesn’t last. A lawsuit and the world’s worst karaoke scene follow, and ugly reality returns. Or does it? This movie is about love, and the wildly different definitions of such a foolish concept, and how stubborn it is. Love does prevail; Mommy is about hope, even if you’re lying to yourself, or dreaming about an alternate ending. Is false hope any less than the real thing? Mommy is a long, oftentimes torturous movie, but no doubt a worthwhile one, filled with three of the best performances of the past year. The film has several endings, letting you decide how you want this story to end, a blessing many people in this world don’t get.

MOMMY will be released in theaters January 23, 2015.

Most people don’t have a vesting interest in watching the Oscars, or don’t care beyond the opening intro, and haven’t seen any of the nominated films (I’ll give a tip ‘o the hat to anyone who has actually seen ERNEST AND CELESTINE). What better way to enliven the party, create your own, or forget the exhausting festivities than an OSCARS DRINKING GAME?

So put on your finest pajamas, pick up the cheapest bottle (or five) of champagne at the store (while supplies last), and let’s drink to the fact that we’re not as pretty, rich, successful and clever as 99% of the people on the Oscars telecast.

RED CARPET EDITION: One Rule Only.

1. Drink every time Ryan Seacrest asks, “Who are you wearing?” It’s the only time that question doesn’t imply that you’re Norman Bates wearing your mother’s skin as a face.

But if you want more…

2. If a star brings her Mother or Father along as their date…Awww. DRINK.

3. Any time you realize that you’re actually watching a slew of “fashionistas”/C-level celebrities talk about celebrities hair, makeup, jewelry and clothes and doing so un-ironically on E!, you probably deserve a drink.

THE OSCARS DRINKING GAME RULES:

1. Drink every time Ellen dances.

2. Drink every time one of these rules make you groan.

3. Drink every time the cut-off music is offensive and flusters a speaker.

4. Drink every time a winner cries during their speech.

5. Drink every time there’s an annoying new hashtag on the screen.

6. Drink every time someone swears and it gets past the censors.

7. Finish the bottle (collectively) if Jennifer Lawrence trips over her dress. Sorry.

8. Have a sip if someone cracks a joke about George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio’s playboy ways. Har har.

9. Don’t drink for any Shia LeBeouf or Justin Bieber jokes.

10. Drink for every musical number. Sing along if you can, or especially if you can’t.

11. Sip whenever an old Hollywood luminary says something only a famous old guy/gal could get away with saying.

12. Drink for these lies: “I didn’t have a speech prepared” or “I am so shocked” or any variations thereof.

13. Any wigs, hairs or boob jokes about AMERICAN HUSTLE are made. Drink double if it’s in reference to Christian Bale’s rack.

14. If anyone makes a Steve McQueen joke, pout until the next time you can drink.

15. Drink any time a speaker uses the word “transformation” to describe someone’s performance, or a joke about weight loss, weight gain or Jared Leto is made.

TO SOBER UP: Waterfall water during the technical awards.

AFTER THE SHOW: Don’t drive, call a Lyft/Uber, or pass out on your friend’s couch.

Thanks to a few Hollywood screeners, a lot of gift cards and unemploymentmy independent nature, I’ve never watched more Oscar nominated films than this year (and I’ll pretend that matters). In this age of scrutiny, controversy and Twitter, every movie has been hated on, drug through the mud or found wanting (some more deservedly than others). In fact, each movie’s director, producers, stars, and DP’s all likely feel (DP’d) a lot like Rufus Sewell’s character at the end of (best movie of all-time contender) A KNIGHT’S TALE right now:

But for a few minutes, can we check our attitudes at the door, pump the brakes on our eternal desire to make callous judgments without knowing what the fuck we’re talking about, and just talk about the movies themselves? Can we be a mindless drone in THE LEGO MOVIE (here’s one prediction: Best Animated Film winner, 2015) and accept that everything is indeed, awesome, and relish in the fact that this was one of the best years for films in recent memory (says someone every year), and dig that people get so heated up about movies? Sit back, pop open the Andre, and I promise, I won’t say awesome again for the entirety of this post.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

5. Julia Roberts, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY: I almost feel bad for Julia (and her painfully obvious crowns in that awesome photo), and every other incredible actor (Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Ewan MacGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sam Shepard, Margo Martindale, Abigail Breslin and whatever Juliette Lewis is) that somehow got roped into the hate-filled, manipulative, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? wannabe that is AUGUST: somewhere in Oklahoma. But then I remember how unfortunate a movie-going experience the film was, and I can’t help but be mad at them. Julia Roberts was probably the best of the bunch in a role that potentially foreshadows the next act of her career in movies (should she choose to accept it) as a real, approachable, tortured (but no less pretty) woman, finding herself back where she started (after the OCEANS movies, preggers and EAT PRAY YUCK), as the every-woman.

4. Sally Hawkins, BLUE JASMINE: The next four are fairly interchangeable (because they’re all terrific), but I’ll snub Sally Hawkins just like Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine continually snubs Hawkins’ Ginger. BLUE JASMINE is an unholy cocktail of a bunch of awful people (kinda like AUGUST and nigh every other movie that came out this year), and while Ginger screws up just as often as any of them, and you’re constantly wondering why she puts up with the mess that is Jasmine, overbearing bf Chili (Bobby Canavale, future Oscar winner in 2018) and how she keeps kids, boyfriends and a working class job together, but you never doubt how real this character is. It could’ve been a caricature, but instead, she’s heartbreaking. When Louis C.K. even treats you like shit, it’s time for a good cry.

3. June Squibb, NEBRASKA: I love June Squibb to death in Alexander Payne’s underrated NEBRASKA. Squibb is hilarious as the cranky, tough-as-hell firecracker of an 80 year old housewife, and the idea that the scene where she flashes her knickers at former would-be flames at the cemetery could be HER Oscar clip is proof that the world rules in some respect. But, the thing is, any 84 year old woman supplied with her lines would get buzz because of how startling and refreshing an image it is to see on screen. But June’s charisma and scene stealing presence is all her own.

2. Lupita Nyong’o, 12 YEARS A SLAVE: And now I regret doing rankings entirely, because things like this will happen, where I automatically become an asshole. Probably one of the cooler stories that is impossible to get tired of is Lupita Nyong’o’s casting and how she got discovered for Patsey. She was absolutely fearless and mined new depths of sorrow, and like the movie as a whole, makes you want to kill yourself. For art.

1. Jennifer Lawrence, AMERICAN HUSTLE: You either loved or hated or didn’t get AMERICAN HUSTLE, but anyone who saw it HAD to be in awe of whatever the fuck J-Law was doing on screen. In my textual fellatio/review for PopInsomniacs, this is what I said about her performance as the lunatic Rosalyn:

“Jennifer Lawrence breaks acting. She summons new depths of sheer insanity…she’s manipulative, sexy, unpredictable, dangerously naive and stupid. I found myself giggling with glee at each of her scenes, or the opposite: just speechless and giddy with her surely Oscar nominated performance. The only thing scarier than her character is how talented this woman is, and she’s still just 23 years old. Watch her song-and-dance routine to Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” and try to keep your head from exploding.”

Without question, watching her performance was the most fun I had a movie theater in 2013, and sometimes, I like enjoying myself at the movies.

NEXT: Best Supporting Actor, ranked in order of attractiveness.