Oscar-nominated Shorts

As is its custom, the Music Box is showing all the Oscar-nominated shorts, live-action and animated, on separate bills. For our money, the animation makes a better show. Several of the live-action shorts (“New Boy,” “Toyland”) feel preachy, but the program is redeemed by the artfully moving “Manon on the Asphalt” and the morally complex “On the Line.” The animated films are more diverse in tone and style, from the droll-witted line drawing of “Lavatory–Love Story” to the slick Pixar computer-animated laff-engine “Presto.” Our bet on winners? “On the Line” and “This Way Up.”