Comment on Oscar-nominated short films screen at 7 Bay Area theaters

Oscar-nominated short films screen at 7 Bay Area theaters There are four days left until the Oscars, and for completists, there are several Bay Area theaters showing complete short-film programs in the categories of live action, animated and documentary. Here’s a rundown — check theater websites or call for day and showtime information: At the Clay, Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael Film Center, Aquarius and the New Parkway Theater, 474 24th St., Oakland. Another phenomenon that will eventually be killed by the Internet and digital world: historical artifacts found in attics and closets. The authors will be in person at the Roxie with a 90-minute program of rarities found in unlikely places, from a newsreel of Alfred Hitchcock leaving for England to direct “Stage Fright” (found in a New Jersey attic), footage from the last and never-completed films of Greta Garbo and Humphrey Bogart, the Marx Brothers directing “Animal Crackers,” and many long-forgotten PSAs and commercials. “The Power and the Glory,” “Citizen Kane”: Excellent double feature of Preston Sturges’ tale (his first produced script) about the rise and fall of an unlikable industrialist told in flashback, and Orson Welles’ influential classic about the rise and fall of an unlikable newspaper magnate told in flashback.