Movie review: Oscar-nominated animated short films, playing at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art

"Paperman"

"Fresh Guacamole"

A version of this review appears in Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. 4 of 4 stars. To read my review of the Oscar-nominated live-action short films, click here.

Movie review: Oscar-nominated animated short films
All five nominees in this year’s race tell their tales without words — and none are needed to make them compelling cinema.

Once again, silence is golden among the Oscar-nominated animated short films.

After four of the five contenders on last year’s slate were dialogue-free affairs, all five nominees in this year’s race tell their tales without words — and none are needed to make them compelling cinema.

Although none of this year’s Academy Award short-film candidates are as transcendent as 2012 winner “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” or last year’s Pixar effort “La Luna,” the overall field for 2013 is the strongest in years.

As usual, the diversity of the nominees is striking. Although Pixar is noticeably absent from the race — while “La Luna” competed in 2012’s animated short category, it didn’t make it into theaters until last summer’s bow of the Academy Award-nominated feature “Brave” — “Paperman” provides plenty of old-school Disney magic.

Set in the mid-20^th century, the black-and-white story of two office workers who meet-cute on a train platform and reconnect through a flock of paper airplanes folds more romance, charm and imagination into seven minutes than can be found in a whole herd of humdrum feature-length romantic comedies. “Paperman” previously showed in theaters with Disney’s Oscar-nominated animated feature “Wreck-It Ralph.”