Oscar-Nominated Shorts

This year’s Academy Award nominations were a bummer for everyone who prefers good old-fashioned entertainment to dramas about the Holocaust. It’s not too surprising that, like the Best Picture nominees, the little-seen nominees for Best Live Action Short Film also tend toward the lofty, telling bleak stories of alienation, moral confliction and religious despair. For the popcorn film lover, though, there is at least one reason to watch the Oscars aside from Heath Ledger’s Supporting Actor nomination: The Animated Short Film category, which this year celebrates five wondrously innovative, jocose stories about love, death and adorable octopi. The Times Cinema screens all the Oscar-nominated animated and live action shortswith a heaping helping of additional cartoon quickies, including a new one by Bill Plymptonthrough Thursday.