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A Look at the Oscar® Nominated Animated Shorts.

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When it is time to award the best in films each year, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences include three categories of short films in their Oscar® presentations. Most people don’t get to see many shorts. They play at festivals, and occasionally in front of a feature film. But short films are an art form worth attention. Many (probably most) feature filmmakers started out making short films. To tell a story in such a brief format takes skill. All the Oscar®-nominated short films will be playing in theaters and on virtual cinema in special programs.

Let’s take a look at the Oscar®-nominated animated shorts.

Burrow (6 minutes, directed by Madeline Sharafian). This Disney/Pixar entry features a young rabbit who wants to build the home of her dreams, but really doesn’t know what she’s doing. The more she digs, the more trouble she gets into until her neighbors step in to lend a hand. It’s fun. It has the cuteness one associates with Disney, but it doesn’t quite have the heart.

Genius Loci (16 minutes, directed by Adrien Mérigeau). Waiting for a sign, a young loner experience the urban chaos around her. Will it lead her to joy or destruction? The key thing in this piece is the artwork, that brings in elements of surrealism, cubism, and abstract expressionism. The narrative nature is a bit slow and disjointed.

If Anything Happens I Love You (13 minutes, directed by Michael Govier and Will McCormack). We see two grieving parents as they struggle to cope after the loss of a child. They drift apart. They comfort each other. They have pain together and separately. They have memories that fill them with joy and pain at the same time. The film comes to a very powerful ending that finally gives us a context for all this grief.

Opera (9 minutes, directed by Erick Oh). A mesmerizing world of tiny people in a pyramidal hierarchy. Each little section is busy with its own activity. It portrays history and society with all its beauty and absurdity. There’s working, worship, war, and rebirth. What a pleasure to explore!

Yes-People (9 minutes, directed by Gísli Darri Halldórson). A day in the life of three families in an apartment building. Each in their own way are trying to deal with the mundane nature of life. It is somewhat difficult to make the mundane interesting.

BONUS: Because the nominated films are so brief, the program is filled out with a few of the “highly recommended” films that were shortlisted, but not nominated:

Kapaemahu (9 minutes, directed by Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson, and Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu). A Hawaiian legend of god-like visitors from Tahiti who brought healing gifts and left them is special boulders, only to have the legend forgotten—until now. A very engaging retelling.

The Snail and the Whale (26 minutes, directed by Max Lang and Daniel Snaddon). A snail that is dissatisfied with life on its rock in the harbor, hitches a ride with a friendly humpback whale that allows it to see the wonders of the world. But in time, the whale needs the snail’s help. A wonderful feel good story based on a children’s picture book.

To: Gerard (7 minutes, directed by Taylor Meacham). An postal worker spends his day sorting letters, but dreams of being a magician. As a child he was fascinated by a magician who gave him a magic coin. He has tried to master the craft, but never really found an audience. But one day a little girl wanders into his work area and finds his magic coin. After some slight of hand, he gives her the coin. Many years later he gets an invitation to a magic show…

Of the nominated films, my favorite by far is Opera. When I first saw it as part of the Slamdance festival this year, I had to watch it more than once just to get a start at all the things it is showing us about who we are. I’ll give an Honorable Mention to If Anything Happens I Love You because it is such a great touchstone for the emotions of grief and has such a powerful (if difficult) ending.

Of the bonus films, I really liked The Snail and the Whale for the way it took us on a spectacular journey just as it does the snail.

To see trailers or to find where you can see these shorts, go to https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/

Reporting from Slamdance – I’ll admit there’s some weird stuff here.

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Festivals often have films that are outside my normal comfort zone. I may just skip over those sections with experimental styles of filmmaking. Slamdance has some groups of films that fit this category, including sections of Experimental Shorts, DIG (Digital, Interactive, and Gaming), and The Department of Anarchy. I decided to dip my toe into these sections to look for a few that might interest me.

“The Department of Anarchy”

Life. (4 seconds directed by Mohammad Mohammadian). Yes, that’s right, a four second film. How much depth can there be in that short a period? Well, you’re spending more time reading this review than the length of the film. Obviously, the theme is the brevity of life. And it makes that point clearly.

Bare Bones.  (10 minutes, directed by Meryem Lahlou). This is a computer animated film with voice over that reflects on the pendulum of life and death. It  creates a surreal world that leads us to nihilistic existential contemplation.

ASMR for White Liberals.(3 minutes, directed by John Connor Hammond). A black man softly says the kinds of things that will calm white liberals. As a white liberal myself, I understand that these are thing I think I would want to hear, but there is moral judgement to be found in that.

 Everything You Need to Know about Pierogi. (4 minutes, directed by John Phillips). What starts off as a rather boring celebration of the Polish dumpling suddenly takes a very strange turn into fulfilling life’s purpose.

Peter the Penguin. (10 minutes, directed by Andrew Rutter). Nigel is about to meet his girlfriend’s daughter for the first time. The stuffed toy he’s brought really isn’t good enough. When they get to the house, the child is in a panic because her stuffed penguin has been hurt. The ensuing drama takes a very dark turn for Nigel.

“DIG: Digital, Interactive & Gaming”

The Long Fall. (4 minutes, directed by Cade Mirabitur). Computer animation using a gaming engine. The interior of a house, with manikin-esque people. The house falls and tumbles into a bottomless pit.

24,483 Dreams of Death. (15 minutes, directed by Chris Peters). This project uses two separate Artificial Intelligences. The first AI watched a movie several times and then creates the visual world it perceives. Over this visual are the words of another AI that had been trained with millions of lines of poetry that creates its idea of poetry. The result is an eerie visual poetry.

To Die in the Valley I Love. (12 minutes, directed by Koryn Wicks). This film calls itself “a movement meditation on horror movies”. With a computer-generated text about horror films, a dancer responds to the text.

“Experimental Shorts”

Morning Sickness in the USA. (3 minutes, directed by Christine Brache). The filmmaker shares her grandmother’s story of coming to the US from Puerto Rico and being placed in a mental hospital when she went to a doctor for inexplicable nausea. The assumptions based on ethnicity point to problems in the system.

Rumi and His Roses (6 minutes, directed by Navid Sinaki). A gay Iranian man tells the story of the smuggling of love poems in bootleg DVD menus in his first relationship.

The Gospel According to Them. (11 minutes, directed by Bury Leod). A collection of various clips focusing of faith, but also black British experience. The clips are all in small inserts on the screen which created a distance that, for me, was off-putting.

Photos courtesy of Slamdance Film Festival

Welcome to the 2021 Slamdance Film Festival

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Like festivals all around the world over this last year, Slamdance Film Festival is going digital. Over 100 films will be available to watch from February 12-25. Slamdance, as the name implies, skews a bit to the edgier side of independent films. But that doesn’t mean it’s all weird, all the time. There are some very interesting films that will be part of the online festival.

Naturally there are feature films, both narrative and documentary, with a wide range of subject matter. There is also a load of short films. These include the traditional shorts sections of live action narrative, animated, and documentary shorts. But Slamdance also always has some sections that are a bit more out there. This year, that includes, “The Department of Anarchy”, “Experimental Shorts” and “DIG: Digital, Interactive, and Gaming”. Slamdance is also featuring a special section of shorts called “Unstoppable” that deals with people with disabilities. There will also be panel discussions about filmmaking and the business along the way.

I plan on reporting on many of the features, some in single film review, some in small groups of films, throughout the week. I’ll also be spending some time with the shorts and bringing reports on many of them.

Because this is a virtual festival, it means that you, too, can be part of the festival. Festival passes are available at the festival website for an amazingly low price of $10. That gets you access to the wide range of films without standing in line or filling a crowded screening room. (Even though many of us are yearning to return to theaters for films, we can’t just yet.)

Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts

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Short films are important enough for the Academy to award three Oscars to shorts each year: Best Animated Short, Best Live Action Short, and Best Short Documentary. Most people haven’t had a chance to view these films, which may be harbingers of tomorrow’s filmmakers. But each year, shortly before the Academy Awards are presented, programs made up of these short films play in select theatres around the country. You can find where they will play near you here. The films will also be available on VOD on February 4th, 2020. Here’s the line up for the Animated Shorts.

Daughter (Dcera) (15 minutes) from the Czech Republic, directed by Daria Kashcheeva. This is a wordless story of a woman and her dying father. She remembers her father’s part in her childhood. It is a poignant story that is an emotional minor key, but still touches the viewer.

Hair Love (7 minutes) from the US, directed by Matthew A. Cherry, Everett Downey Jr., and Brice W. Smith. A young African-American girl wants to style her massive, unruly head of hair. Following some videos leads to less than perfect results. Her father sees her struggles, and steps in to get her hair the way she wants it. Then they set out on a journey that puts it all in context. It wouldn’t hurt to have tissues nearby for this one.

Kitbull (9 minutes) from the US, directed by Rosana Sullivan. This is a Pixar film, but it doesn’t look like it because it is 2D animation, and mostly hand drawn. But Pixar knows well how to create a quality story. Here a feral kitten and an abused pit bull share a backyard. An uneasy start gives way to these two becoming the only friend the other has. In time, crisis will lead them to a new, better life.

Memorable (12 minutes) from France, directed by Bruno Collet. Louis, a painter, sees his world changing around him. What the viewer sees is what it may feel like to go through the degeneration that characterizes dementia. Things and people lose their familiarity and even meaning.

Sister (8 minutes) from China and the US, directed by Siqi Song. A boy recounts the arrival of his little sister and what their life was like. There’s love, and sibling rivalry—all the things that mark a brother/sister relationship. [spoiler] But the twist comes when we discover that he was born during China’s one child policy.

My favorite of the nominated films is Hair Love. While all the films provide us insight into the human condition (even Kitbull), Hair Love shows us what love can mean in many different ways.

The theatrical release also includes some “highly recommended” shorts to fill out the program. While not nominated, they are also very excellent animated films.

Henrietta Bulkowski (16 minutes) from the US, directed by Rachel Johnson. A woman with a deformity that causes her to always look at the ground, longs to fly. She begins restoring a damaged plane, in hopes for using it to fulfill her dreams. It ends with a bit of magical realism. This is a much more complex story than we usually see in shorts. It shows that shorts need not be a quick one note piece.

The Bird and the Whale (7 minutes) from Ireland, directed by Carol Freeman. A young whale separated from family and a caged bird among the flotsam of a shipwreck form a connection as they try to survive at sea. Interesting bird/whale duets and pas de deux.

Hors Piste (6 minutes) from France, directed by Leo Brunel and Loris Cavalier. A mountain rescue team helicopters up a mountain to bring down an injured skier. But something goes wrong, then something else, then something else…. This is the most humorous of the short films in the program.

Photos courtesy of Shorts.TV

Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts

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When it is time to award the best in films each year, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences include three categories of short films in their Oscar presentations. Most people don’t get to see many shorts. They play at festivals, and occasionally in front of a feature film. But short films are an art form worth attention. Many (probably most) feature filmmakers started out making short film. To tell a story in such a brief format takes skill. All the Oscar-nominated short films will be playing in theaters in special programs. To see where the films will be playing near you, go to https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/theatrical-release/

Here is a look at the five Oscar-nominated animated short films.

Animal Behaviour (Canada, 14 minutes, directed by Alison Snowden and David Fine) takes us into a group therapy session with a leech, a praying mantis, a pig, a cat, a bird, and a gorilla, presided over by a psychologist dog. Each animal talks of the angst involved in its behavior, which is normal for that animal, but seems totally inappropriate to the other group participants.

My reaction: It was fun, but not especially deep.

The animated short that has probably been seen by the most people is Bao (USA, 8 minutes, Directed by Domee Shi), since it played in front of Incredibles 2. A Chinese mom, alone while her husband works is feeling a bit down, until one of her dumplings comes to life, first as a baby and then growing through childhood, into a sulky teen, and eventually into a young adult which is hard for her to take, especially when he brings home his fiancée.

My reaction: I really expect more out more out of Disney/Pixar. It was entertaining, and a times creative in its humor, but was lacking in the kind of human warmth that is so important to Pixar films.

Aging and memory are the focus of Late Afternoon (Ireland, 10 minutes, directed by Louise Bagnall). Elderly Emily spends her day in a chair, but from time to time younger Kate brings her something (tea, books, photographs) that trigger her memory of long ago. Each memory is only there for a short time, and she is back to a kind of blank present. But those memories tells her who she was, and of the love that is within her.

My reaction: Even a short film can trigger powerful emotions. For me, Late Afternoon triggered a bit of grief. My mother died a year ago after being lost to dementia, so the way Emily touched her past was meaningful and familiar to me.

One Small Step (USA and China, 8 minutes, directed by Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas) tells the story of Luna Chu, a Chinese-American girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut. Luna’s father encourages her every step of the way as he repairs shoes. But there are difficulties Luna must overcome, and inspiration she must find and implement if her dream will become real.

My Reaction: I’m a sucker for father/child stories and this is no exception. While Luna has center stage, we see her father’s love constantly supporting her and helping her toward her goal. It’s a nicely done film. It is also my favorite of the five.

Weekends (USA, 15 minutes, directed by Trevor Jimenez) is the story of a boy who goes back and forth between his recently divorced parents. It’s different at each home. Although neither parent seems unhappy to have the boy, they are also not especially affectionate. The boy just seems like a bit of baggage the two parents continue to deal with.

My Reaction: This is a very grown-up film. Even though it is a bit understated, there is also an intensity when we think of the boy’s perspective of really not belonging to neither parent. The child in this film seems to feel a bit orphaned, even though there are two parents in his life. That may well be the way many children of divorce experience that situation.

Incredibles 2 – Family Bonds

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Incredibles 2 continues the story of the Parr family from The Incredibles. While it is ostensibly a superhero story, at its heart this is a film about family and especially about parenting as children go through all the changes of growing up.

As in the original, superheroes are still illegal, but with the supervillain The Underminer on the loose, the family of superheroes goes into action—rather heavy-handedly, creating a mess of the city and being relocated. Forced to live in a motel, the family tries to think about what the future will hold for them. The parents, Bob, aka Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson), and Helen, aka Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), know that one of them will need to get a job to support the family. Meanwhile, their middle school aged daughter Violet (Sarah Vowell) is attracted to a boy at school, son Dash (Huckleberry Milner) struggles with his homework, and toddler Jack-Jack is a handful just in himself.

But Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and their friend Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) get an offer from industrialist siblings Winston and Evelyn Deavor (Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener). They want to improve the world’s opinion of superheroes and make them legal again. Their plan is to use Elastigirl to stop some crimes (she does far less damage in the process that Mr. Incredible or Frozone). So Helen goes off to the big city while Bob stays home with the kids.

It turns out that Bob is a stereotypical incompetent father. He tries, but he can’t grasp new math, has no idea how to help Violet with the boys, and Jack-Jack is impossible to get down for the night. Plus, Jack-Jack now is manifesting his own superpowers—a wide array of powers.

Helen is busy doing battle with The Screenslaver, a villain who uses screen (TV, computer, whatever) to hypnotize people and have them do his will. She feels bad that she isn’t with her family, but relishes the opportunity so show off her skills. It’s not unlike the juggling of priorities that many parents experience. But when The Screenslaver gets the upper hand, Bob and the kids head off to save the day and the world (mostly it’s the kids, including Jack-Jack, that get their parents out of hot water).

What is charming about the Incredibles films is that they give us a chance to see superheroes who aren’t sullen loners, but rather people with happy family lives—happy even when the going is hard. The film, I think, allows parents to be reminded that the job they do matters.  As the diminutive designer to the superheroes Edna Mode (Brad Bird) says, “Done properly, parenting is a heroic task.” As Bob mopes about being left out while Helen is fighting crime, this is a reminder of what the really hard job is. Parents aren’t gifted with super strength and powers—only with the love they have for their children. With that, parents face years of problems but also years of joy.

For the Parrs, a family where everyone has special powers, what really ties them together is not being strong, fast, elastic, invisible, or having lasers shooting out of their eyes. The connection they have is really the bond that can exist in the families of all those who go to watch the movie together.

Let me also put in a word here for Bao, the short directed by Domee Shi (the first woman to direct a Pixar film), playing along with Incredibles 2. It is a delightful story of a woman whose handmade dumpling comes to life. We watch as she and the dumpling go through the years. The dumpling passes through all the phases of childhood and into being a young adult. It is hard for the woman to let go of her baby dumpling, but in the end, we see just how wonderful it is to see your child grow into an adult.

Photos courtesy of Walt Disney Studios

Oscar Watch – Best Animated Short

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When I was young, there would always be a cartoon that was part of the program of going to the movies. (Of course, those were also the days when you always saw a double feature.)  Those cartoons were always comical, often with cartoon characters we knew from TV cartoons. The art of making animated short films is developed greatly since those days, as is evident to the films nominated for Best Animated Short Film. These films vary greatly in terms of artistic style as well as in the kind of stories they tell and the messages the share. Many people may think of Animated Shorts as an unimportant category within the Oscars, but I’m really impressed with this year’s nominees. Give just a slight difference in how one weighs each film, any one of them could be a worthy winner.

Let’s start with the question of whether Kobe Bryant needs an Oscar to go with his five NBA championship rings and two Olympic gold medals. Dear Basketball (6 minutes) is an adaptation of his retirement announcement. It has been animated by Glen Keane (also nominated), who trained as a Disney animator. Add to that music by the incomparable John Williams. It is Bryant’s love letter to the sport that has been his life since he was six years old. As a wannabe jock, his love for playing a game resonated strongly with me. Too often athletes seem to make their performances all about their skill. In this film, Kobe focuses on the game that has given him a life of enjoyment. “I’ll always be that kid with a rolled-up sock, garbage can in the corner, five seconds on the clock, ball in my hand. 4, 3, 2, . . . 1.”

Suppose a mansion sits idle for some time, what kind of things could amphibians find there? Garden Party (8 minutes) from a French animation team follows toads and frogs through a house and yard that seems abandoned. Is this a post-apocalyptic world in which amphibians get to enjoy our leftovers? (Not exactly, but close.) The animation here is outstanding and beautiful. And there is great humor in watching these animals discovering the things we may think of as the good things in life. As we watch and wonder what happened to the people, we may also wonder about the age-old question of what is the value of things that are left behind.

Lou (7 minutes), directed by Dave Mullins, is no doubt the most widely seen of the nominees, because it played before Disney/Pixar’s Cars 3 this summer. When a playground bully steals various treasures from the other kids, the monster of the Lost and Found box takes notice. As the battle to rescue the things the bully has taken escalates, the monster learns the boy’s name and realizes that he has lost something special as well. That provides the leverage to change the boy so he learns that giving is far more blessed than receiving. (Seems like I read that in scripture.)

Negative Space (6 minutes) by Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata, shares a boy’s story of how his father taught him how to pack a suitcase. It seems the father was often traveling for business, but the boy seemed bonded with his father by being able to pack for him—and the appreciation of filling in space. There is a metaphorical element that becomes evident in the ending. How do we fill the spaces in our lives—and what spaces will remain unfilled?

The longest and most complex of the films is Revolting Rhymes (30 minutes) by Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer. It is based on Roald Dahl’s retelling for familiar fairy tales. In this version, a wolf meets a babysitter in a coffeeshop and tells her the sad stories of the demise of his nephews. We recognize the stories of Little Red Ridinghood, Snow White, and the three little pigs, but of course the wolf has a much different perspective. The reimagining of these stories is filled with Dahl’s somewhat twisted (and I mean that as a compliment) sense of humor. Because it has a longer running time than the other nominees, it is able to delve a bit deeper into characters and give us new insights into the familiar stories.

As I said, I could probably make a case for any of these films being a worthy winner of the Oscar, but I’m going to go with the one that touched me the most—Dear Basketball. For runner-up I’ll go with Lou as the one that carries the best message in an entertaining format.

The Oscar Nominated Shorts will be playing in select theaters worldwide beginning February 9.

Photos courtesy of Shorts.tv