Oscar Nominations 2018: Part 9 of 12 (Animated Short Films)

Back to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, or Part 8.

My Best of 2017.

Lou

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film
  

Director: Dave Mullins

This is cute, but doesn't really make very much sense. The gist is basically that a magical force (which the film calls Lou) collects lost things from a playground and puts them all in a lost and found box so that when the kids come back to play during a break from classes, all the toys are there. This same force teaches a bully–thief a lesson. This had one or two good jokes, and I liked those, but mostly this is sentimental and too buys teaching lessons for me to care. And I still don't really understand the physic of the film's world. It moves along with a kind of logic for a while, but then it abandons that same logic by its end. This is fine, but most of the other films are so much better. This one, however, is a Pixar film, so it will probably win.

Will Win: Animated Short Film

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #4 out of 5

Negative Space

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film
  

Director: Ru Kuwahata, Max Porter

Cast: Albert Birney

Negative Space is a beautiful film. The stop-motion animation is extremely clever, moving back and forth between interiors and dreamworlds with imaginative ease. The film's story is very simple – a quiet, poetic remembrance of a man's father – through packing suitcases, but it moves toward a beautiful emotional ending that I found just lovely. (Incidentally, I read somewhere else that someone thought the ending moment was a laugh-line or a joke. I certainly didn't think so.) Packing a travel bag is a way of deciding what is important and making sure everything fits inside. This is a film about wasting space (and time), about filling our suitcases with as many items as possible, and filling our lives with time spent with loved ones.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Animated Short Film

My Rating: #3 out of 5

Dear Basketball

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film
  

Director: Glen Keane

Cast: Kobe Bryant

This was the first film on the program, and I was not ready for it to affect me so emotionally, but it sure did. Dear Basketball is a sweet film about Kobe Bryant. He writes a love letter to basketball, thanking it for what it did for his life as a very small boy, and saying goodbye to it because his body can no longer handle the physical strain of continuing to play the sport. I found this deeply emotional, and I don't really like basketball all that much at all and really know nothing about Kobe Bryant's career except that he's been with the Lakers a long time. But this movie paints a portrait of basketball as something that can lift a life out of unhappiness and give it purpose. The film moves back and forth between an adult Bryant a little boy Kobe, who is shooting basketballs made of rolled-up socks into wastepaper baskets. It's short and beautiful and profound, and I loved it.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Animated Short Film

My Rating: #2 out of 5

Revolting Rhymes: Part One

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film
  

Director: Jan Lachauer, Jakob Schuh

Cast: Dominic West, Tamsin Greig, Rose Leslie, Gemma Chan, Rob Brydon, Bertie Carvel, David Walliams

This is a reimagining of a set of three fairy tales – Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, The Three Little Pigs – that is narrated by a wolf, played by Dominic West (whom I love, obviously). This is also the most substantial of the five films; it's much longer than the others and there are a good deal more actors in this one, so it feels more accomplished. But I must confess I found myself bored. These kinds of reimaginings of fairy tales seem tired to me. Wolves are good guys, pigs are thieves, girls turn out to be lesbians. Fine. But this does not strike me as surprising or imaginative. These are clever twists rather than interesting storytelling. Still, the fact that this is my least favorite of the five indicates that these five are quite good.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #5 out of 5

Garden Party

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film
  

Director: Florian Babikian, Vincent Bayoux, Victor Caire, Théophile Dufresne, Gabriel Grapperon, Lucas Navarro

This film is my favorite. It is a dark, dark comedy about frogs throwing a party (perhaps unwittingly?) in the mansion of what looked to me like some kind of Floridian mob boss or drug dealer. The animation is gorgeous, the jokes are hilarious, but even better, this is a little film about the animal and vegetable kingdoms taking over after something has happened to mankind. I appreciated its unsentimental qualities. I laughed out loud at the jokes. I loved it.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #1 out of 5

Oscar Nominees 2014: Part 14 of 14

Get a Horse!

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Lauren MacMullan

Cast: Walt Disney, Marcellite Garner, Russi Taylor, Billy Bletcher, Will Ryan, Raymond S. Persi

I expect this to win as a sort of consensus choice. It is imaginative enough and inoffensive, and it taps into one of the Academy's favorite feelings: nostalgia. The film is nothing special, really, but it is fun, and charming in its way. Honestly, I have to admit to being slightly disturbed by the cartoon violence in this movie – this doesn't seem to have bothered too many people, but the violence that is perpetrated on the Peg Leg Pete character is done senselessly and in a troubling way. Peg Leg Pete is thrown around, stabbed, electrocuted, and sodomized by a pitchfork. He is obviously a violent character himself, intent on doing something to Minnie Mouse (is rape implied?), but the revenge taken by Mickey and co. doesn't seem warranted.

Will Win: Animated Short Film

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

Mr Hublot.

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Laurent Witz

This is, I think, the most charming of the nominees. In a strange, dystopian, robot-populated future an introverted accountant with OCD (OCD is always charming at the movies, isn't it?) adopts a stray robot dog and develops a relationship with it. The animation is gorgeous, the story is charming, and the character design is impeccable. The film also has some really good jokes.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Animated Short Film

My Rating: Not ranked

Feral

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Daniel Sousa

Feral is my favorite of these short films. It is a beautifully realized little story about a feral boy who is clothed and taken to the city, but who cannot quite be civilized – because civilization itself doesn't know how to be civil. The film is unrealistic in style, perhaps even surreal, and one wonders if the city is real, if the boy is real, if the snow is real. Or perhaps the boy is actually a wolf, or a bird, or a stag, or a leaf, or maybe he's a spirit of some sort, taking on the energy of the things he touches. This is a little mystery, but it doesn't ask its audience to figure it out; it asks for us only to go with it. And once we do, the film becomes about being, about personhood, about interacting with the world around us. Lovely.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

Room on the Broom

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Max Lang, Jan Lachauer

Cast: Rob Brydon, Gillian Anderson, Simon Pegg, Timothy Spall, Martin Clunes, Sally Hawkins, David Walliams

Absolutely charming, this little story is about teamwork and sharing. There is a dragon – who is an enormous coward – and the most adorable animated cat since Antonio Banderas's puss in boots. (I seriously loved this animated cat, which is very strange since I don't much like cats in real life. This one has the best personality ever.) Quite frankly I expected not to like this one much – the animation simply isn't that interesting – but the story is charming, and the expressions on these animals' faces are just adorable.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Animated Short Film

My Rating: Not ranked

Possessions (ツクモ)

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Shuhei Morita

Cast: Kōichi Yamadera, Aoi Yuki, Takeshi Kusao

Imaginative and fascinating, Possessions is a ghost story: a tale about forgotten or abandoned objects that have gotten old enough to acquire their own souls. They trap a traveling mechanic/salesman/tailor (whoever he is, this guy is ripped) in an abandoned cabin in the woods, and they play tricks on him until he can figure out how to be kind to them. It is an interesting little tale that is easier to make sense of once one understands it as a kind of kaidan.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked