Notes (mostly) on shorts

• How in the world did Binta y la gran idea get a nomination? Leaving aside the fact that it was awful, it was released in 2004.
  
• You would think that, what with youtube and all, we would now be in the golden age of shorts. That doesn't really seem to be so. But I wonder: what are the chances that a great viral video could make it into the Oscar running?
  
• Relatedly, are there technical requirements for shorts? For example, do they have to be shot on film rather than, say, digital video? The shorts I saw this year were pretty obviously distributed in digital format rather than film, and the showings suffered in exactly the ways you'd expect.
  
• The film I saw last year that I liked the best was The Science of Sleep. I can understand why people didn't like the film, but it seems to me that it should have gotten at least some recognition based on the fact that it was visually stunning. Just the other day I was talking to some fully bonded film buffs who not only hadn't seen it, but expressed no interest in seeing it. What's up with that?
  
• Relatedly, you'd think that shorts, or possiblly animated shorts, would be the Oscar category where eye candy was most likely to be recognized, and yet none of the nominees in either category were particularly interesting to look at.
  
• If I had a vote I would have cast it for The Savior, but I'm not really surprised that it didn't win. At the showing I attended, I was falling out of my seat laughing, but nobody else seemed to find the film remotely funny.
  
• It seemed to me that Eramos Pocos was the richest text among the nominated films, but it suffered from being a shaggy dog joke.
  
• Come to think of it, West Bank Story might have been the only nominee with a plot that wasn't a shaggy dog joke. Maybe that's why it won.