Oscar's Unheralded Stars Hit Chicago

By Marcus Gilmer in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 18, 2008 5:45PM

Ah, the Academy Award "Shorts." Largely ignored in favor of the races focusing on acting accomplishments and what movie had the saddest/more politically controversial/historically momentous ending, the Short Subject categories often offer a hodgepodge of achievements actually more worthy of your time than most of the feature length tripe that hits theaters these days. They're also full of fun trivia: did you know Billy Zabka, a.k.a the fantastic villain Johnny Lawrence from one of our favorite films of all time, was actually nominated for an Academy Award in the Live Action Short category in 2004? And have you ever seen Don Hertzfeldt's excellent 2001 nominated animated short, "Rejected"? Wacky stuff.

So with the big show coming up Sunday, this week is the perfect time to skip that third viewing of "Juno" and go instead to Landmark's Century Center Cinema and check out their special screenings of this year's nominated Short Films (both Animated and Live Action).

The Landmark's Century Centre Cinema is located at 2828 N. Clark St. The animated shorts show daily at 1:30pm and 7:00pm while the Live Action shorts screen daily at 4:10pm and 9:30pm. We think it'll be worth your while.

Image from the Oscar-nominated Animated Short Film "Peter & The Wolf", taken from the Academy Awards website.