Entertainment

A-Listers Star in 11 Amazing Short Films

by Rachel Semigran

As Award-season fast approaches we're all a little overwhelmed by all of the "must-see" lists and performances-you-just-can't-miss unless you want your consignment shop clad friends to totally disown you. Thankfully The New York Times Magazine has made the process of weeding out and watching the year's best performances, writing, and directing a heck of a lot easier for their annual Hollywood special issue. In the series dubbed Making a Scene, the magazine has produced 11 short (and I mean SHORT) films starring the best actors in the business, written by the most brilliant minds, and directed by the Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski.

The minute-long pieces are all dazzling films inspired and created wholly by a single line of dialogue provided by screenwriters like Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater, Greta Gerwig, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen,Spike Jonze, and Sarah Polley. Not only do you get short, sweet, hilarious, heartbreaking, and diabolical performances by actors like Oprah Winfrey, Chewetel Ejiofor and Forrest Whitaker, you get to delve into nearly a dozen genres. French New Wave, Film Noir, Horror, Comedy, Mystery, they're all there.

The films are so enchanting and powerful we decided they deserved their own Academy Awards. May I have the envelope, please:

Best Accusation of a Taxidermied Animal: Greta Gerwig

Sexiest Dancing In the Rain Sequence/Sexiest Sequence that Makes Us Have to Pee a Little: Bradley Cooper

Best Delivery of A Single Line of Dialogue in Cinematic History: Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Dreamiest Reason to Bring Back Spaghetti Westerns: Michael B. Jordan

Best Acting Alongside a Dead Fish: Cate Blanchett

Most Honest Interpretation of Mankind's Relationship to Carbohydrates: Robert Redford