Who cares that the notion of choosing the best art is akin to comparing apples and grenades? This is America, dammit, and we really like voting for stuff. Now, the vast majority of the people reading this have no say in the Academy Awards contest - and if you do, your ballot is due February 17 - but that never stops anyone from exercising their democratic right to make their Oscar picks. This year's nominees for Best Short Film (five live action, and five animation) are now making the arthouse rounds, enabling you to make an informed choice when casting your imaginary vote. Those who merely appreciate clever and thoughtful self-expression are also allowed to attend.

Swiss filmmaker Reto Caffi's absorbing "On the Line" watches as a store security guard moons over a charming clerk, until one night when he makes a split-second decision that forces him to harbor a secret shame once she begins to notice him. The final shot is ambiguous and hauntingly perfect. Adapted from a short story by novelist Roddy Doyle (his famous Barrytown Trilogy includes "The Commitments"), Ireland's "New Boy," directed by Steph Green and recently featured in the Manhattan Short Film Festival, tells the heavy-handed yet well-meaning story of Joseph, newly arrived from devastating circumstances in Africa but now contending with an ignorant alpha boy. Sinead Maguire steals the film as their precocious classmate Hazel, who, thankfully, is not as sycophantic as she initially appears.

"Toyland," set in 1942, is a heartwrenching piece by Jochen Alexander Freydank in which a German woman's attempt to spare her son the sickening reality of his Jewish best friend's fate backfires. Then her little boy's determination to join his buddy on a trip to Toyland leads to an unexpected opportunity. "That smile is dubiously subtle. Just like the Mona Lisa," Asbjoern remarks in Dorte Høgh's "The Pig," which showcases the curiously Danish sense of deadpan humor as it explores tolerance through the comfort that one elderly man takes in a strange painting of a pig during his scary hospitalization.

As for the animated portion of our program, Russian filmmaker Konstantin Bronzit's "Lavatory Lovestory" is a squiggly, sweet tale about a lonely men's room attendant who watches men pass by her all day as she longs for one to call her own. Then one day a vivid bouquet mysteriously lands in her tip jar, so she pulls out all the clumsy stops to find the identity of her secret admirer. Two smitten octopi are enjoying each other's company when one is unceremoniously yanked from the tank in the French digital short "Oktapodi," resulting in a silly breakneck chase between fisherman and cephalopod through a picturesque Greek village.

Part of last year's Animation Show, "This Way Up," by UK animators Smith & Foulkes, follows two unlucky undertakers after a Goldbergian mishap forces them to transport their late client sans hearse. This funny, macabre work evokes everything from Gorey to Gilliam to "Fantasia" by way of Tim Burton. Despite the French name, the gorgeously melancholy "La Maison en Petits Cubes" hails from Japan, with filmmaker Kunio Kato using serene, plinky piano and an expressionist style to explore memory and loss through the efforts of an old man to save his waterlogged home from the rising tide.

So if I had a ballot to fill out and/or a sniper trained on me, I would have to choose the dreamy "Manon on the Asphalt" as my favorite of the live-action shorts. French filmmakers Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont have crafted a lovely, meditative look at what goes through one woman's mind after a bicycle accident causes her to ponder the future repercussions of her mishap, as well as the seemingly innocuous choices she made before embarking on her fateful bike ride.

Cartoonly speaking, you've probably already seen Doug Sweetland's "Presto" - it preceded "Wall•E" at theaters this past summer - but it's hard to quibble with the gobsmacking level of quality maintained by Pixar Studios. In "Presto," a magician and his carrot-coveting rabbit (which I just found out is named Alec Azam!) fight over snack time, leading to a battle royale between the adorable, resourceful bunny and his outmatched employer, replete with smashing, whomping, mousetraps, electrocution, and redemption, as well as the never-not-funny animated ladder to the animated groin.

The Oscar-Nominated Short Films 2009

Opens Friday (2/6) at the Little