Brookline | The Sleepless Critic

REVIEW: Oscar nominated documentary shorts ‘Instruments of a Beating Heart,’ ‘Death by Numbers’ and ‘I am Ready, Warden’ at Coolidge Corner Theatre for a limited time

Posted on March 4, 2025 by The Sleepless Critic

The repercussions of two horrific and devastating crimes and a quiet lesson in discipline are just a few of the 2025 documentary shorts nominated for the 97^th annual Academy Awards which took place on Sunday, March 2. All of these shorts are available online and now playing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts through Thursday, March 6. Click here for more information and for tickets.

Please note that this review does not include Netflix’s The Only Girl in the Orchestra who took home Best Documentary Short or the New Yorker’s Oscar nominated documentary short Incident.

A beautifully engaging documentary from the start, Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s 23 minute Japanese short film Instruments of a Beating Heart, presented by Op-Docs, is a tender and endearing piece about an audition held for first graders for a part in a musical performance Ode to Joy in Tokyo 2022. The film’s cinematography is bright and inviting offering an inside look at these adorable, excitable and impressionable children learning about discipline amid competition. Their teacher is wise and firm with the students to help them grow. The film specifically focuses on intimidated Ayame who longs to play a particular instrument in the performance. The hidden meaning behind the title will not revealed here, but it is worth seeing this wonderful and tender film.

Ayame in ‘Instruments of a Beating Heart’

“Forever will always be yesterday.”

The classroom frozen in time, the warning signs and so much more encapsulate Parkland School horrific school shooting.

Written by Sam Fuentes and directed by Kim A Snyder, Death by Numbers dives deep inside case #26 from the perspective of traumatized survivor Sam Fuentes and the nature of what it is to live through this unimaginable loss.

The numbers represent not only the facts of the case, but what they know about the shooter through evidence of his mindset and sticks to Sam’s exclusive outlook on the case while tracing a fraction of her long and incalculable road to healing.

Death by Numbers also examines the unimaginable loss, guilt, forgiveness, grief, death, and mortality as well as an agonizing and riveting encounter with the shooter. It is a unique and chilling film that is humanized by Sam’s dynamic perspective.

In 2022, Texas Inmate John Henry Ramirez counts down the days until his execution after being convicted of the murder of Pablo Castro in 2004.

MTV Documentary Films presents I am Ready, Warden, a stirring 37 minute documentary set in Livingston, Texas that impressively covers just about every perspective of this heinous and unplanned act, its aftermath, and a snapshot into Ramirez’s background. It is mainly told from Ramirez’s perspective, but contains interviews with the godmother who supported Ramirez when his family left, the victim’s family, Ramirez’s son born when Ramirez was on the run, and takes a deeper look at Texas’s death penalty. I am Ready, Warden also examines the complicated emotions of everyone involved in this case including what results when Ramirez tries to reach out to the victim’s son, Aaron.

All of these shorts are available online and now playing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts through Thursday, March 6. Click here for more information and for tickets.

REVIEW: From loneliness to lovestruck: Oscar Animated Short films Nina Gantz’s ‘Wander to Wonder’, Loïc Espuche’s ‘Yuck (Beurk)’, Nicolas Keppens’s ‘Beautiful Men,’ ‘In the Shadow of the Cypress’ and Daisuke Nishio’s ‘Magic Candies’

Posted on March 3, 2025 by The Sleepless Critic

Please note that the Academy Award for Best Animated Short film winner was In the Shadow of the Cypress announced at the 97^th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 2. All the Academy Award nominated films including the winner are available online and now playing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts through Thursday, March 6. Click here for more information and for tickets.

From loneliness to love struck, this year’s Oscar nominated Animated shorts mixed lighthearted comedy and tragedy covering a wide range of issues including the effects of trauma, bullying, and PTSD.

Nina Gantz’s dutch and international stop motion animated short Wander to Wonder is a poignant and strange reflection of days past. It runs 14 minutes.

Though the short is about a children’s show, it is not for young children and features some disturbing content.

Flies swarm as a group of tiny performers are trapped inside an old studio and fighting for survival where 80s Belgium children program Wander to Wonder was filmed after its originator Uncle Gilly, depicted by Neil Savage, passes away. Wander to Wonder has a sorrowful and dank feel to reflect how much time has passed since the gleam of this beautiful and eccentric, if not widely watched children’s show was on the air. Delivering moments of wacky humor, Toby Jones as Fumbleton, Amanda Lawrence as Mary and Terrance Dunn as Billybud express an inherent yearning as they reflect upon the fond memories of the program and make an awkward attempt to recreate some of them while trying to survive which can be bereft, odd and gruesome. I felt for their sad situation, but didn’t find myself invested enough in the characters as they struggle to adapt.

Written and directed by Loïc Espuche featuring bright and inviting two dimension animation, French short film Yuck! (Beurk) is a 13 minute long sweet tale about discovering first love.

A group of children revel in spying on others at summer camp and are disgusted as they watch couples kiss. However, Leo discovers he has a crush on his friend Lucie. Yuck explores the discovery, joy, confusion and heartache of life through the eyes of a child. It is a brief and endearing tale that is worth every minute.

What if you can learn the truth about life around you?

Written by Baek Heena and directed by Daisuke Nishio, Magic Candies is an insightful 21 minute Japanese CGI animated short about a lonely boy named Dong Dong who purchases a pack of mysterious candies and runs 21 minutes. However, these colorful candies have a compelling and unexpected power that takes Dong-Dong by complete surprise.

With the exception of the distinctive characters, the settings are incredibly realistic. From Dong-Dong’s textured jeans to each detailed strand in the dog’s fur to the layered patterns in Dong-Dong’s wrapped blanket to sweeping fall foliage, Magic Candies unfolds is an aesthetically pleasing manner and is a must see film that is funny, moving, silly, clever and heartwarming.

Directed by Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi, Iranian short film In the Shadow of the Cypress, winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short, delves into the strained relationship between a father who suffers from PTSD as the result of war and his daughter which is nearing a breaking point.

Both live together in an isolated seaside house. The two dimensional 20 minute animated film boasts finely delicate details that enhance the rippling waves, the slender and stylized design of each of the characters right down to the father’s long striped beard. Its remarkable sound design embellishes a storm of seagulls, an alarming ship ablaze, and the subtle triggers that set the father off as he struggles with his harrowing conflict within. It can be slow at times, but it is worth watching for its captivating conclusion.

How far would you go to look your best?

Balding brothers Steven, Bart, and Koen travel to Istabul to have hair transplants. However, it is quickly discovered that only one appointment is available. It traces each character’s nature, insecurities, and how they handle the situation as this error becomes known.

Nicolas Keppens’s Beautiful Men is a two dimension 19 minute international comedy drama short which combines cut out stop motion and white board animation and contains some adult content and nudity. It is at times a candid short that explores just how far one would go for self improvement.

Each of Academy Award nominated films including the winner is available online and at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts through Thursday, March 6. Click here for more information and for tickets.

Designer and CEO Sara Campbell talks giving bigger as she hosts Boston Women in Media and Entertainment charitable event on Giving Tuesday

Posted on December 10, 2018 by The Sleepless Critic

Sara Campbell Ltd. knows about giving. They have donated to a long list of organizations nationwide over the years from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, GA to the Young Women’s League of Canaan in Caanan, CT. On Giving Tuesday on November 27, it was just another day for this shop to give back.

Dressed in a stylish blue and black dress is Sara Campbell, designer, founder and CEO of women’s clothing boutique shop, Sara Campbell Ltd. She hosted Boston Women in Media and Entertainment (BWME) for Giving Tuesday, opening up her shop for great deals on her fashion line with 20 percent of the proceeds benefiting Cradles to Crayons, a local non-profit that fights childhood poverty. On Giving Tuesday, attendees were encouraged to contribute a new coat for a child age 5 to 17 to be delivered to Cradles to Crayons.

This is Sara’s second time hosting BWME at this location and her sixth year hosting this event. Designed in the USA, Sara Campbell Ltd. has 25 locations nationwide. The Sleepless Critic and BWME co-founder and Magic 106.7’s Candy O’Terry spoke with this event and the act of giving. Click here to learn more about BWME, how to join, and the opportunities they offer all year. Click here to learn more about Sara Campbell, her collections, the company’s community involvement and much more.

Sleepless Critic: You work a lot with Cradles to Crayons. What does Giving Tuesday mean to you?

Sara Campbell: Giving Tuesday means nothing to me because I don’t believe it should be one day a year. As a shop owner, a manager to my employees, and all the people I am responsible for, our mission is to give back and serve our customers, our community, serve each other as a company, and everyone who works together. It’s service. I believe that is what small business is and should be. It’s delivering that act of kindness that makes a difference in somebody’s life today. Every day, I have my employees write up an act of kindness they did today in our stores. When I get a blank, I am not happy.

I raised my business knowing I was supposed to give back, whether it’s buying someone a cup of coffee or paying a toll which could be 25 cents at the meter. I was taught to give what you can and that’s your way of putting back what has been given to you. It is what feeds our business, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy. You have to have faith for whatever the journey is.

It’s getting more and more obvious these days how much we have to breed kindness, thoughtfulness, and empathy. Faith is hard, especially when it’s eCommerce and it is Cyber Monday. The tariffs in China are hugely impacting me. I’m made in the USA and we don’t make zippers in the US. I have to import supplies and it’s going to be passed to the consumer because my payroll is increasing. My staff deserves raises, healthcare, insurance, everything. As a strategy, the only way we are getting through it is hopefully to grow and have our bricks and mortars survive and prosper, but it takes our loyal customers to make that happen.

Candy O’Terry: I’m a loyal customer!

Sara: You are! Giving Tuesday drives a lot of prosperity to different organizations that wouldn’t get it otherwise. To that end, I am for Giving Tuesday. The drive to get bigger is I can give bigger. I can do more. It’s not that we are getting bigger and getting a bigger house. I’d like to get out of debt (laughs.)

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Candy: The Sara Campbell brand is selling all across the country.

Sara: It takes a village of friends, customers, team workers in this office, in the sample shop, and in our stores. I’ve had this idea that I’m going to take a picture of all our stores and we’re going to cut out paper dolls. They are all going to be holding hands around the building. That’s what community and this wonderful night is all about. It’s the women who are part of Boston Women and Entertainment. So much camaraderie excites us and helps us get through the dark days.

Candy: I met Sara about ten years ago. I interviewed her for a show called Exceptional Women on Magic 106.7 and she became my friend. As the years passed, it doesn’t matter if I do 50 or 60 events a year, if I can show up wearing a Sara Campbell dress and say in front of 1,000 people if they like my Sara Campbell dress. I am so loyal to her because she is a local designer with a heart of gold.

Sara: I will never say no to you. I don’t care what you need or want because you are delivering the message through you to bigger places.

Candy: See that is what Giving Tuesday is all about. Good goes around. That’s why we are here tonight because if I can introduce ten new people to the Sara Campbell brand and they buy Sara Campbell and they tell their friends, it’s a win-win all around.

We love local charity Cradles to Crayons so much and will leave this place with two giant bags for them. Sara donated about ten jackets for children. We’re going to write them a nice check and I’m going to show up with this stuff to our giving factory tomorrow. We’re going to help local Boston kids walk to school with a beautiful, warm pink coat on looking like a million bucks.

Sara: I learned the beauty of giving a brand new coat to a child from Kids Clothes Club, another local organization started in Brookline, MA. We have had kids write us to say they slept in their new coat in the kitchen last night because they just didn’t want to take it off. It’s so good for their self esteem. I’m going to write Cradles to Crayons a check so they can go get the size for the exact kid they have in mind.

Candy: When we walk out of here tonight because of the kindness of these women and Sara, we’ll be able to donate something to children in our own community and that means so much to us.

Sara: We have to take care of each other. Candy, thank you for orchestrating such a fun night. You are a change maker.