Review by planktonrules

I am going to say something rather radical. Over the last several years, I've gone to the showings of both the animated and live-action short films that were Oscar nominated. For the first time ever, I went to a showing and didn't particularly like any of the films--as was the case with the live-action ones for 2010. I didn't think any of them were bad but i also didn't think any were Oscar-worthy--and most of them were amazingly unpleasant--like the Academy deliberately tried to pick the most unpleasant films they could this year. Perhaps 2008-9 was a poor year for live-action films or perhaps this just shows a bias of the people picking them. However, I can't see the public in general enjoying most of the films or wanting to see them.

The film is a comedy about a loser who insists on becoming a professional magician when he grows up. However, he is 25 and he never gets paid and doesn't seem particularly competent. To make things worse, he insists on doing very dangerous tricks--and they often seem to backfire.

"Instead of Abracadabra" is an odd choice for an Oscar nomination. It isn't a bad film at all, but it also seems very slight. Enjoyable but not especially memorable. I also didn't particularly think seeing such a creepy looking guy lying in be masturbating was pleasant or even necessary. It's like puking or peeing--things normal folks won't want to see in films, I can assure you! Overall, funny and clever but not especially deep or memorable.