City Lights:

Every time I watch the Academy Awards, I print out the list of nominees and mark my predictions of who’s going to win in each category. Well, almost each category. Even to an Oscar junkie like myself, who can name from memory the Best Picture winner for every year from 1928 to the present, it’s hard to make a very accurate prediction for Best Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film or Documentary Short Subject.

The reason for that is simple: Who, pray tell, sees these movies? They never play at the multiplex, I never see them on the rack at the video store, and they don’t seem to be the toast of critics — unless “La Maison En Petits Cubes,” “Spielzeugland” and “Smile Pinki” ring a bell to you. (Well, they should — they were the winners last year in the categories mentioned above.)

So when I heard that the SoCal Independent Film Festival at the Huntington Beach Public Library was showing a program of short subjects last Thursday, I couldn’t resist the temptation to check them out. Could these be some of the Oscar nominees next year? Just once, it would be fun to have an informed opinion of those obscure contenders — after all, even though the Academy declared “Spielzeugland” the best live-action short of 2008, who’s to say “The Pig” or “Manon on the Asphalt” wasn’t robbed?

Before heading into the screening room, I flagged down Brian Barsuglia, the co-founder of the festival, to ask if any of the films on the night’s program had a shot at Oscar glory.

He replied that a short has to be screened at one of a dozen-odd festivals to be considered for a nomination, and although his own festival isn’t on the list, some of its entries have gone on to play at the qualifying ones.

So there seemed to be a chance, however small.

Proudly flaunting my press pass, which got me out of paying the $4 admission, I slipped into the dark screening room where about two dozen people sat waiting for the night’s first feature.

Seven short films, all less than 20 minutes long, were on the program for the night — and judging from the way members of the audience cheered and patted each other’s backs, I had a feeling some of the filmmakers were in attendance.

Predictably, the items on the program were an eclectic mix — some almost professional quality, some clearly by newcomers. The dialogue sounded clear in some, echoey in others; the cinematography ranged from sharp to hazy. Still, there were at least two outright gems on the evening.

The first was “Citizen Versus Kane,” a hilarious Hollywood satire about an alcoholic actor who dies on the set during his final day of shooting a remake of “Citizen Kane.” Hoping to salvage the epic, the producer and crew go to absurd lengths to conceal the leading man’s death from the hot-tempered director.

There are more laughs in this film than in a number of feature-length sendups I’ve seen of the movie industry.

Also wonderful was “Cost of Living,” which envisions a future America in which resources are so scarce that even well-to-do professionals have to share tiny apartments, ration a single sandwich for dinner and make do with one minute of running water a day. And, needless to say, there’s plenty of talk about health insurance.

Whether these films will play in town again, I have no idea. But when the Academy declares its nominations for 2009, I hope they’ll make the list.

It would be nice finally to have seen all the contenders — although, since I’m the guy who predicted “L.A. Confidential” would beat “Titanic” for Best Picture, I still probably won’t have much luck picking the winners.

City Editor MICHAEL MILLER can be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at [email protected] .