I don’t know about you, but most years when I fill out that entry form for the Oscar pool at this party or that, my selection for “Best Animated Short” is based on little more than which title sounds fun to me. Well, not this year! On Tuesday I caught a screening at the Academy’s theater of all of the animated and live action shorts nominated this year. (Thanks to my roommate who found out about the event, and thanks to the really nice lady who slipped me a ticket when I arrived two minutes late and discovered I couldn’t pay with plastic. Thanks, nice lady!)

The animated shorts were delightful, to a one. The nice thing about animation is that t requires more time and money than live action for every second of screen image, so the writing winds up tight, fully mature. This was certainly true of the selections nominated here.

Three of the pieces were side projects from big studios, with all the flash and sparkle you’d expect. “No Time For Nuts” was the FOX entry, featuring the Scrat character from the Ice Age franchise, yet again dragged through a series of misfortunes in pursuit of an acorn. It was quality in every way, but ultimately unremarkable among the offerings. “The Little Matchgirl” was a sentimental Disney entry. It was based on the Hans Christian Anderson tale, set to a piece of classical music. The character animation was the computer-assisted hand-drawn look we’ve come to expect from Disney over the last decade and a half, against lovely water color-like backgrounds of Czarist Russia. All-in-all, it was a beautiful short.  The funniest entry was “Lifted,” a Pixar piece about an alien abduction performed by a little green trainee undergoing the equivalent of extra-terrestrial driver’s ed. Much mileage was found in the abuse suffered by the would-be human abductee, but the director knew to cut it short well before it stopped being funny. “Lifted” wouldn’t be a dumb check-mark on your Oscar pool form.

The computer-animated “Maestro,” out of Hungary, was very original. It was four and a half minutes of entertaining set-up leading to one big punchline. I knew early in what was coming, but most of the audience seemingly didn’t, and I was entertained anyway.

However, my pick would have to be the unpretentious little hand-drawn entry called “The Danish Poet.” Maybe it stood out because it was so stylistically different than the rest. But then again, it came first, and it stayed my favorite as I watched the rest. I think the charming storytelling and gentle European sense of humor make it my pick. Simple, funny, heart-felt. That’s a winner to me.

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I have to say that the live action nominees were a disappointment, following the animated entries. Sure, they were all good. But every last one of them was less tight than it could have been. They all felt like projects you might see at any old festival, and neither would you think it was the best one there.Two were perhaps typical European short films, quality, humorous, but not mind-blowing. “Helmer & Son” was a Danish entry about a man called to a nursing home because his dad wouldn’t leave a walk-in closet. (The reason for which was a comical surprise.) “Éramos Pocos” was a Spanish short about father and son who try to get Grandma to do all the household chores after Mom leaves them. The writer-director said the idea was inspired by The Simpsons. That humor showed, but the premise didn’t last as long as the film did.

A piece from Australia called “The Saviour” featured perhaps the strongest acting. It was a dark, tongue-in-cheek comedy about a Mormon missionary having an affair with one of his potential converts, whom he learns is a devout atheist. It was an enjoyable movie, but also suffered from being long, and is perhaps too irreverent to ever win a statue.

The two that were very different from the rest–and EXTREMELY different from each other–were “Binta y la Gran Idea” and “West Bank Story.” In the first, a very young Senegalese girl narrates about her father’s journey up the local government’s chain of command as he presents a revolutionary idea. This storyline is intercut with a school play about a girl whose father won’t allow her to get an education, the play based on the lives of a family in the village. It was a very grassroots film, shot on location, in French, using almost all non-actors. By contrast, “West Bank Story” had overly high production values, shot in California as a USC MFA project. This was a musical comedy set in the rival falafel shops of an Israeli and a Palestinian family. True to its West Side Story influence, an Israeli soldier falls for the beautiful daughter of the Palestinian family. While it erred two or three notches too cheesy, this piece offered very genuine laughs and came darn close to saying something.

The winner? Kinda too close to call. I’d feel OK, but be surprised, to see “Helmer” or “Saviour” take it. “Pocos” was definitely cute, but pretty much the least memorable of the bunch. While “West Bank Story” was a stand-out and a crowd favorite, it’s poppy and cutesy. “Binta” might have to be the most obvious front runner. It’s the most artsy of the group, but is still whimsical. It feels like an Accomplishment with a capital A, and it has a message. That tends to be what wins awards. Personally, I thought it was a bit sloppy with its not-quite-documentary tone, leaving me to desire stronger performances. Too, its story (perhaps I should say stories) wandered. Still, this might have to be the obvious choice.

Tomorrow I’m off to attend AMC’s all-day marathon of Best Picture nominees, but if you don’t have ideas for what to pick for that category, you need more help than I can give you.

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