This will just take a second...Oscar-nominated shorts and Momofuku Milk Bar

One of the treats of big city living is the opportunity to check out films that don't make the rounds at the mall megaplex. You can only see Paul Bart so many times... The Oscar shorts are a handful of films live-action, documentary, and animated under forty minutes gathered from all over the world. Only Academy members who have attended special shorts screenings get to cast their vote. Too bad democracy doesn't work like that. What is so fascinating about these films is they really are the only "Films" with a capital F in statue contention. They are non-linear (sometimes), culturally-specific, non-commercial, driven by technique sans star wattage, big budgets or major studio backing. Until Itunes movie rental, you couldn't see them at home legally. So why make them? They offer the directors and creative teams to really showcase their craft. I don't think you could get a better demo reel.

This year I caught the live-action and animated shorts at the IFC in the West Village. The live action contenders came to us from Ireland, Germany, France, and Denmark. Topics ranging from genocide in two cases, gang violence in two cases, a bicycle crash, and a funny-looking painting of a pig. Death is a very popular plotline in the live action short as it quickly establishes (or hopes to) an emotional connection to the proceedings. How else to convey a communal sense of loss with characters you met two minutes ago? Show them losing a loved one. Or re-visit a harrowing historical period (holocaust, African civil unrest) for which the audience has an educated pre-text. While none of the films were without flaws, I think I enjoyed The New Boy (Ireland) and Manon on the Asphalt (France) the best, though according to predictions at Entertainment Weekly, neither stand a chance against the token holocaust film. The New Boy focused on the new kid in an Irish classroom who is immediately targeted by the class bullies. Meanwhile he remembers his school life before, with his father as a teacher in a one-room African school house. Manon on the Asphalt finds the title character in a bike crash imagining her closest friends' reactions to her death. What I liked about both these films was the opportunity to explore or to be given access to characters' thoughts in a magical way a la The Lovely Bones. Both heightened the everyday with almost supernatural fantastical elements. In this way, regardless of the cultural milieu the films came out of, they achieve a universality that allows audiences from all backgrounds to feel for the characters.
The animated films were, in a word, bizarre. While the American entries all seemed to follow the same plotline -- under-appreciated animal wants food, goes to absurd lengths to get it, the foreign nominees were a bit more existential. We had dancing corpses, a man who lives 91 cm from himself, domestic strife between a polar bear and a penguin, and some French flick that I think I nodded off during (does not bode well for a 19 minute film). Note -- not all these films were nominated though they are part of the screening. Pixar's Presto (rabbit wants a carrot) only run for its money would be the French 2-minute Oktopi. Two octopi fight for their lives on a Greek Isle. Clever animation and very engaging. It also marks the third movie this year that has made me want to relocate to Greece (the first two: Mamma Mia and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants-- in my defense, on a plane). Although not entirely. Because I bet Greece doesn't get the Oscar shorts. Or more importantly, Greece doesn't have David Chang's Momofuku Milk Bar in the East Village. Salivate over this list: http://www.momofuku.com/bakery/bakery%20menu.asp

Bring your spoon to this festival of wonderful menu items. Snickerdoodle soft serve topped with pistachio...or how about a slice of blue cheese polenta or crack pie. Sure they'll be gone in a moment, but it was good while it lasted.

Get Ready for the Oscar Drinking Game

Burst out the bubbly (in these recessionary times, pink Andre) and get ready for Bean Screen's first annual Oscar drinking game. The rules are simple:
Take a sip each time the following things inevitably occur at this year's award ceremony (commences when Hugh Jackman steps on stage). Winner is determined by greatest number of sips.

-Someone mentions the bailout, the recession, or an opening for a commerce secretary
-Presenters are paired oldest to youngest, a la Benjamin Button
-Presenters are paired potentially gay to obviously gay, a la Milk
-Winner thanks India or Harvey Weinstein
-Winner's speech is interrupted by music swell prompting winner to blurt out unintelligible list of names
-Someone remarks at length of ceremony
-Or length of "Australia"
-A gown inspired by Michelle Obama
-A hairdo inspired by Sarah Palin (or worse, Blagojevich)
-Amy Adams wears a strapless dress
-Mickey Rourke forgot to do laundry
-Close-up on smug couple Pitt/Jolie
-Phillip Seymour Hoffman brings his mom
-Riff on classic line, "I see a lot of new faces tonight. New faces on old faces."
-Paul Newman is the last frame in "in memory"
-Someone answers a cell phone or seems to be fiddling with a blackberry
-Boring clip montage
-Bollywood dance number
-Wall-E wheels on stage
-Dick Cheney wheels on stage
-Meryl Streep is wearing pants
-Kate Winslet is holding index cards
-Richard Jenkins is mistaken for a seatfiller
-Wins for Slumdog
-Losses for Button
-Cheers for our new president
-Boos for Prop 8
-Dress weighs more than actress
-Statue weighs more than actress
-Appearance by nerdy Pricewaterhouse accountants
-bellkicks by Hugh Jackman

He's Just Not That Into You and Riposo 72

I quote the contemporary sage Beyonce, "If you liked it then you shoulda putta ring on it." This truism and others are explored through the Baltimore dating scene, an ode to the confused state of modern male-female relationships.

Parts of this chick flick made me want to jump out a window (or more realistically, grab my face to cover my eyes, as if this gesture could save the character on screen from their own awkwardness). Sure the situations were somewhat exaggerated (the dentist's pen, really?), but there was just enough realism to make me feel as if I was watching a horror movie based on my friends' lives (My Bloody Valentine?). I saw the embarassing missteps and wanted to scream "Don't go in there!!" to the troubled heroines. But instead, I held my cynical tongue. After all, these characters, like your girlfriends, don't want your real advice, they want you to soothe their wounded hearts and egoes. They want you to google destination weddings for them and the dude they just met on the elevator.

The film assesses these situations pretty fairly, albeit glossily (appropriate that the ladies work in marketing as isn't that what these relationships have become? Clever branding. I have also never seen the city of BMore look so white. Apparently yoga mats come compliments of your city taxes). Even Scarlett Johansson doesn't get want she is after. And she's freakin ScarJo!

When it comes to love, we behave irrationally no matter what people advise us. But as Ginnifer Godwin tells Justin Long, the drama of the pursuit is way better (questionably?) than the isolated alternative. You have to give to get. And if you build it (become a whole, interesting, fun person), they will come. And as clever film execs say, if you cast it with hip Gen-Xers, adapt a popular chick lit title, target the V-Day girl power demographic, and hand out free Crest Whitnening strips, they will come...and buy overpriced popcorn while frenetically checking their blackberries to see if he facebook messaged them.

As for the other pearls of wisdom, I think I will start taking dating advice from Hollywood when Ben Affleck proposes to me.

Until then, big girls don't cry. They drink. Forget the Joe (and the Steve, the Justin, the Giles...) and share a bottle of Pinot with your gal pals at Riposo 72, my favorite wine bar on the upper west side.