Animation puts live action in the shade at Oscar Shorts program

The nominees for Best Animated and Live Action Short Film tend to be the most obscure entries on Oscar night, not counting the documentary categories, of course. The relative obscurity of short subjects makes the Oscar Nominated Short Films 2009 program, divided into animated and live-action segments, so handy.

I guarantee, however, that most of you have already seen one of the animated shorts. Pixar’s “Presto,” about a pompous stage magician and his hungry bunny. It was attached to last summer’s WALL-E and received a bigger showcase than its competitors could have dreamed of. Although it’s one of Pixar’s best shorts, and a delightful tribute to the slapstick cartoons of past generations, “Presto” has garnered more than enough approbation, so it’d be nice if one of the other nominees won the statuette.