Amid all the gloomy news about this year’s big Oscar nominees not exactly setting the box office on fire, an unlikely savior seems to have materialized. Preliminary reports indicate that the Oscar-nominated shorts currently screening at the IFC Center in New York broke the record at that venue this weekend for their highest gross ever on a single screen, earning $24,006. That may not be Blart-level box office, but give them some time (they'll be released on iTunes on February 17). Also, according to her Twitter feed, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill saw them this weekend, and if she’s not America, we don’t know who is.