Oscars 2013 Category Breakdown: Best Live-Action Short

Every year, leading up to the Oscars, I break down every single category. It’s essentially a precursor to my picks. I explain all the stuff that needs to be explained in detail, so when the time comes to make my picks, I can refer to it as a shorthand.

In the articles, I’ll go over each category’s history, show previous winners and nominees, then list the current year’s nominees, talk about the guild history, if it’s important, what the guilds went with this year, whether that means anything for that particular category — all the background you need to know to make an informed decision. And then, once that’s all done, I’ll rank the nominees in that category in order of their likelihood to win, based on how I see it at the present.

The only difference between this year and previous years is that this year, I’ll be doing only one category a day instead of multiple categories. This is so I can take more time with each category and not stuff a bunch into a single article for information overload, and, simply, so I don’t have to do as much work. Though it is also easier this way. One category, one day.

So anyway, we begin with our first category, which is the category we care about the least, Best Live-Action Short:

You’ll notice that I only listed previous winners and not previous nominees. This was for two reasons. First, who even cares about the previous nominees? It means nothing, and it’s not like we’re gonna seek them all out. Plus, it doesn’t matter what was nominated each year, only what won. We look at previous winners to try to make sense of the category, which is typically impossible to do anyhow. This is traditionally the most difficult category to pick and is the one the most people are likely to look at and pick randomly, because they don’t know what the nominees are and don’t care about the category at all.

This year’s category is:

Best Live-Action Short

Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?

Just Before Losing Everything

Helium

That Wasn’t Me

The Voorman Problem

To break down quickly:

Do I Have to Take Care of Everything is about a crazy morning where a mother tries to get her family ready for a wedding, trying to take care of everything herself.

Helium is about a dying boy who is told stories from the hospital’s eccentric janitor about Helium, a magical fantasy world. It allows him to retain joy and happiness in his life.

Just Before Losing Everything is about a woman who, during the day, escapes her abusive husband with her children, takes the kids out of school and brings them to the supermarket where she works to hide from him.

That Wasn’t Me is about an African child soldier in a Kony-like army. He encounters a Spanish aid worker who came to Africa with her boyfriend to help rescue the child soldiers. And apparently they bond.

The Voorman Problem is about a doctor who is called in to examine a prisoner who believes he is a god. He has to decide if the man is a fake or if he is crazy, and must be sent to an asylum.

Rankings:

5. Do I Have to Take Care of Everything? — It’s only eight minutes long and doesn’t seem substantial enough to get a lot of votes. I’d be pretty shocked it this won. Of course, it’s the Oscars, and nothing ever truly shocks me, but even so, I’d be pretty surprised if this beat the other four nominees.

4. That Wasn’t Me — It seems a bit too heavy for the win. In this category, they tend to like quirky shorts, or shorts with some sense of humor. Or even something, if it is heavy, that’s escapist in some way. There are two in the past few years that are somewhat heavy — but one’s a musical about Israel and Palestine, and the other is sort of a Life Is Beautiful thing. So, something like this just doesn’t seem their speed, based on what I know about it. I could be wrong, given that we know nothing about this category ever, but my gut tells me this isn’t the type of thing that wins this category. (He said, knowing full well that it’s probably going to win the second I discount it.)

3. Just Before Losing Everything — Another one that seems a bit too heavy to win. Then again, they went for The Shore. Though I wonder how much of that is them liking Terry George. But this seems like something that could theoretically win, since it has that kind of subject matter they could go for. Though it still feels like it’s trailing behind the next two. This or That Wasn’t Me could just as easily be your dark horse. I have no idea. This one just feels more likely to be embraced by more people.

2. Helium — This is exactly the type of thing they go for in this category. To the point where this should probably be considered the favorite. But I wanted to stay honest here, since it might just be a bit too obvious a choice. Plus, the other thing is that the other film on the list has star power. Which means it’s either the way to go or is a major red herring. For now, I’ll keep this second, even though it seems obviously like something they go for. (Then again, they might decide they’re off of that. Since last year, they went with something similar (ish). They might decide to do what they did two years ago and go more serious. There’s no real way of knowing.)

1. The Voorman Problem — It has the kind of story that makes for an interesting short. Not to mention, it stars Martin Freeman and Tom Hollander. That might be too good for them to pass up. Right now, I consider this and Helium the two most probable choices, and the two that most people will have going into the night. This will be one of those categories I flip flop about right up until the very end, where I have to decide to either play it “safe,” by going with a choice I think they might pick, or going with my gut. Either way, I can pretty much guarantee, barring some kind of revelation, my choice will most likely be either this or Helium.

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So that’s Live-Action Short.

Tomorrow, we continue with the second category the least amount of people care about, Best Documentary – Short Subject. At least that one is eminently pickable, and a lot of times, obvious.

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